Rolls-Royce and its MTU distributor partner, Western Branch Diesel, received an order for three MTU 16V2000 DS1250 standardized backup generator sets to service an area of the University of North Carolina’s Charlotte campus (UNC Charlotte). The generator sets were installed at the university’s new central utility plant and will deliver up to 800 hours of standby power per year to select critical buildings across the 1,000-acre campus.

“With nearly 30,000 students and 3,700 faculty and staff on campus, it is imperative that dependable power is available during any conditions experienced at UNC Charlotte,” said Kevin McKinney, senior sales manager at Rolls-Royce’s subsidiary MTU America. “MTU generator sets deliver high reliability along with low fuel consumption, optimized system integration ability, and low maintenance intervals for a result that’s hard to beat in terms of operation and peace of mind.”

A key benefit that secured the order for the project was the onboard paralleling capabilities of the generator sets. Onboard paralleling offers numerous advantages in terms of reliability and performance confidence but can be complicated and difficult to customize. MTU has ensured its generator sets offer as much simplicity as possible when customers are faced with intricate paralleling.

“Having the ability to do a moderately difficult sequence of operations in an onboard paralleling application in an extremely versatile, plug-and-play configuration with the MTU generator sets is one of the reasons we became the basis of design for the project with UNC Charlotte,” said Clayton Pacunas, application engineer for Western Branch Diesel.

Working with the university, Western Branch Diesel oversaw the installation of the MTU units. Contractor partners provided custom fuel tanks, platforms, and enclosures for the system.

The multi-unit setup features a unique auto-syphon fuel arrangement that offers a high level of reliability without adding complexity, as it allows all three generator sets to share the fuel source without pumps or switches. This provides ensured system availability in case of any component failure.