Diesel Electric Power Plants available in the range of 1MW to 50 MW capacity are used sometimes as central station for meeting small requirements and universally employed as stand by plant to supplement thermal power station or hydraulic station.
Applications:
The following are the applications of diesel electric power plants:
- Pick load plant: Diesel plants are suitable as pick load plants in combination with thermal or hydal plant. The pick load unit needs easy, starting and stopping and diesel plants serve this purpose.
- Stand-by unit: There are many situations in which stand-by units are needed such as the main unit fails or cannot cope with the demand. As an example due to less rainfall in a particular year, the hydro plant cannot meet the demand. Thus diesel units are installed as stand-by unit to supply power in parallel to generate the short fall of power.
- Central stations: Due to ease in installation starting and stopping, diesel electric plants can be used as central station where the capacity requirement is more.
- Starting station: For starting large power plant, auxiliaries such as FD and ID fans, BFP, circulating water pump, etc can be run by installing a diesel electric power plant.
- Energy unit: In many developing countries like India, power failure/interruption is a common feature for hours. Under this circumstances, the power to vital units such as hospitals or industrial plants can be supplied by installing diesel electric power plant.