Well positioned
Ionut Glavan on the strong demand for gensets from DEUTZ
IONUT GLAVAN
Director Sales & Service
Eastern Europe & Balkans at DEUTZ
Ionut, why are gensets so popular at the moment?
Ionut Glavan: Basically, you might say that our gensets are supplying reliable power in the sort of places where there aren’t any electrical sockets, or where the power supply repeatedly fails because of unstable grids. The future belongs to microgrids that use decentralized sources of energy. The genset market is driven by three factors. Firstly, traditional power grids are coming under increasing pressure in many regions. They need to be expanded. The more expansive the country, the greater the need for gensets, because many countries – such as the USA and Canada – have areas that are not connected to the grid. These have a high demand for a decentralized energy supply. Another factor is stability of supply. In many places, power grids continue to suffer outages. Gensets provide an uninterrupted, reliable energy supply, which is very important for power plants, server farms, and mobile phone stations, for example.
And the third driver?
Ionut Glavan: The third driver is the growing demand for energy. The global population is expanding, the number of devices powered by electricity is rising continuously and the digital revolution is creating a steadily increasing demand for ever-larger data centers. The global process of electrification currently under way is as important for our civilization as industrialization was in centuries gone by. The transformation of the economy has consequences for the way in which power is generated.
Which genset systems are particularly popular?
Ionut Glavan: At the moment, we see the largest growth in diesel and gas-powered gensets. Their great reliability has long made combustion-based generators the backbone of electricity generation. Hybrid microgrids are coming – they enhance genset technology by adding the options of solar and wind, storage capacity, and intelligent energy management. DEUTZ is continually developing more sophisticated solutions, and with our hydrogen engines and our solar and battery solutions we are already very well positioned in this segment. In 2023, we won our first volume order for hydrogen gensets. This will enable us to gather even more valuable experience that will equip us to play an important role in the market for off-grid energy resources.