The possibility of power outages across the USA has prompted a surge in the construction of diesel generation for backup use which could, according to analysts, threaten the national supplies of heating oil and diesel.
Caterpillar, Cummins Engines and Detroit Diesel have all reported rises in demand, particularly on the US West Coast where blackouts in California are already threatening businesses. According to a Cummins spokesman, the company’s business in California and the northwest has grown 160 per cent, Reuters reports, with construction of around 200 MW of generating capacity.
The units are being installed at a range of sites including homes and as peaking units, and are being chosen because diesel powered units are considered to be readily available, moderately priced and reliable sources of energy. While the US has good inventories of diesel and other distillates, some energy analysts fear that increased diesel-powered generation across the USA could produce problems. There have been winter heating oil scares for the past two years.
The problem has been exacerbated by utilities switching from natural gas to distillate fuel for their power plants when the price of gas becomes too high. This happened during the last winter.
California is expecting around 100h of blackouts this summer. These will trigger backup systems running on diesel. However, according to the American Petroleum Institute spare inventories were 4 million barrels higher during the week ending 1 June 2001 than they were the previous year.
