POWERTEC technical guides
Free technical material, based on standards and on POWERTEC's experience with more than 2,000 units delivered in Colombia: sizing, fuels, transfer switches, synchronism and distribution standards. Read them online or download them as PDF for your engineering and maintenance team.
Technical library
Each guide answers a frequently asked question from our industrial, commercial and events clients, with verifiable criteria and the standards that apply in Colombia.
Sizing a generator set starts with surveying the real load, not the nameplate name. How to convert kW to kVA, account for motor starting peaks, and correct for altitude and temperature.
The fuel determines runtime autonomy, operating cost, maintenance and even where the equipment can be installed. A practical comparison for the Colombian reality.
The automatic transfer switch is what turns a generator into an emergency power system. How it works, which standards apply and when a manual transfer switch is not enough.
The ATS transfers the load with a brief outage of seconds; paralleling switchgear couples sources without any outage and lets you add capacity. When one is enough and when you need the other.
The acronyms on a switchgear nameplate are not decoration: they define its construction, its testing and its safety. What each standard requires and how it relates to RETIE in Colombia.
Practical application
These guides help you prepare a good specification; the final equipment selection depends on your actual loads, installation altitude and required autonomy.
01 · Measurement
Before requesting a quote, record your critical loads: rated power, motor starting currents and sensitive equipment. The sizing guide explains how to translate that data into kW and kVA with a 0.8 power factor.
02 · Site conditions
In Bogotá, at 2,600 m.a.s.l., engines lose power due to lower air density: derating must be applied to the engine's capacity, not just to the generator nameplate. In warm areas of the Caribbean or the Eastern Plains, ambient temperature and room ventilation also reduce the available capacity.
03 · Backup strategy
A single unit covers the load, but not failures: N+1 configurations with synchronizing panels share the demand and keep the service running if one unit goes offline. The transfer vs. synchronism guide explains when an ATS is enough and when it is better to run plants in parallel.
