Powering Up

Rolling blackouts make power generators crucial on the West Coast.

It's not a good summer to be a wireless carrier in California. But for those in the power-generator business, this summer's predicted rolling blackouts may provide a boon to the bottom line.

While utility companies are fighting to keep the lights on throughout the Golden State, carriers are battling to maintain coverage in areas where unpredictable power outages threaten their sites. Power-generator vendors, however, see the blackouts as their chance to shine.

Rolling blackouts early this year showed that power companies aren't kidding about the threat. Those blackouts tested the patience of millions and convinced some carriers that generators were the way to go, even with the tight regulations for diesel generators in California.

AT&T Wireless (www.attws.com) has sites throughout California and weathered the blackouts earlier this year without permanently installed generators. Instead, it has a fleet of portable generators that it deploys if backup battery power runs low.

“It's incredibly difficult to get permitting for a permanent generator on a site,” said Pamela Johnstone, AT&T Wireless manager of corporate communications for the San Francisco Bay Area market. “And, it's also unnecessary. For most cases, if you have a portable one that you can bring in if there's a problem, that'd be the way to go.”

Coleman-Powermate, described by its telecom business manager Brian Berg as the new kid on the block, is going out of its way to market its generator services in the power-strapped state.

Johnstone said AT&T is expecting summer blackouts to be similar to the earlier ones, but it is prepared in case they increase.

“We do have contingency plans if things happen to get worse — if, for example, the blackout time is longer than the life of the battery,” she said.

Combining Forces

Convincing a carrier that it needs to invest in a backup power supply isn't difficult. It's clear that being unable to maintain coverage during a power surge or failure will upset customers who expect their wireless devices to be “always on.” A tougher decision is whether to complement battery backup with generators and then what type of generators to use.

Generators could be a company's best defense against rolling blackouts, said Steve Goran, Generac Power Systems Goran, Generac Power Systems national accounts manager for telecommunications (www.generac.com).

“For customers experiencing utility-initiated outages, a generator makes a lot of sense,” Goran said. “Being without electricity shuts down a business, and losses are relative to downtime.”

Some carriers are finding that a combination of batteries and generators can maintain their networks for hours, sometimes days, even with a limited fuel supply.

California utility companies won't commit to where and when power outages will occur or how long the blackouts will last, so carriers have to keep ahead of the game to ensure their customers have service when they need it. A combination of batteries and generators can help them do that.

Delta Telecom Power has worked to perfect a hybrid backup power system (www.deltaww.com). The system perceives that there has been a power failure and turns on the batteries. Then, it monitors battery power until it drains to a certain level. The system switches power to the generators, which run the equipment and charge the batteries. When batteries are recharged, the generators shut off, and power switches back to the batteries. This cycle continues until generator fuel runs out or the outage ends.

Samual Norman, Delta sales manager, said the system extended one customer's generator run time from five days to more than 30 days with the same amount of fuel.

Goran said batteries could provide power between a utility shutoff and generator startup. He agreed that a combination of batteries and generators could provide the most reliable backup-power system.

“In most applications, (generators) are configured to assume power in a matter of minutes, with a transition technology bridging the gap for critical loads,” he said. “Typically, the bridge technology is batteries.”

Power for the Future

Fuel availability is one issue that may become more important as technology evolves. It's clear that generators can help carriers weather tough times such as rolling blackouts, but the energy crisis in California just illustrates how dependant Americans are on fossil fuels. What happens if there's not enough natural gas or diesel fuel to power a generator?

Generator companies are addressing those concerns by investigating alternative power sources such as fly wheels, solar power and fuel cells.

“Leaders in the industry are pursuing fuel cells because emissions are becoming a very important issue with internal-combustion-engine-powered generator sets,” Coleman-Power-mate's Berg said. “A fuel cell offers two tremendous advantages: In its purest form, it produces no pollution, and it makes essentially no noise. So, figuring out a way to do that for power generation would be the coolest thing you could come up with.”

Sounds great. The only problem is that nobody's come up with a way to make fuel cells affordable and, therefore, marketable.

“At this point, especially given some of the power requirements at sites with air conditioning, that technology isn't economical,” Goran said. “And, when it does become economical, it almost makes more sense to use it as your primary source of power. There's a lot of benefits to that, but in today's environment, it isn't feasible.”

With all of the investigation into alternative power generation, a future with less fossil-fuel dependence doesn't seem that far off.

“There are still a lot of questions,” Berg said, “but I know there's a lot of development going on that suggests it will be economically viable inside the next five or 10 years.”

Alternative fuels may be especially appealing in California, where the environment often takes precedence over industry.

“There are a lot of environmentally conscious groups in California that don't like cell sites, period,” AT&T's Johnstone said. “So, compounding the situation by bringing in a power generator on the site (makes it more difficult).”

In a green state such as California, it pays for carriers to be looking for alternative fuels that produce power without pollution.

The future of generators doesn't stop with alternative fuels. If utility companies continue to have problems maintaining power supplies, perhaps carriers will need to use generators as a main source of power. Then, it is a question of which is more economical — fossil fuels to run the generator or imported electricity from the grid.

“The way things are going with blackouts and power issues, there may be opportunities to utilize generators in a new way,” Generac's Goran said. “Instead of strictly standby backup systems, they may be able to be utilized as cost-saving devices, where they run routinely to generate power for less cost than what the utility may be charging during their peak times.”

For carriers that may have hundreds of sites within one utility's area, generators could give them more control over their energy costs.

California Crisis

Keys dates in California's power predicament: (through May 9, 2001)

June 15, 2000: Rolling blackouts affect San Francisco area for first time since deregulation.

Jan. 17-18, 2001: Blackouts ordered in northern and central California.

March 19-20, 2001: Statewide rolling blackouts affect millions.

May 7-8, 2001: Record heat causes widespread blackouts.

Summer 2001: Power officials predict more than 30 blackouts will be needed to get the state through a forecasted summer heat wave.