by Canadian Army Today Staff

Replacing dozens of different types of tactical generators with just five is probably music to the ears of maintenance technicians, but identifying the best options that meet the Canadian Armed Forces’ needs for portability, performance under extreme conditions, ease of use, sustainability, and energy storage and management doesn’t make it a straightforward and quick task.

Through a project known as Tactical Power Systems, the Army is acquiring around 3,000 small generators, up to 60 kilowatts, for its Regular and Reserve units, as well as for the Navy, Air Force, Military Personnel Command, and force employers such as Canadian Joint Operations Command.

“Right now, there are 50 different types of generators, and we’re trying to narrow that down to make it a little more manageable,” said Major Matthew Ng, the project director.

The five categories include three kilowatts, five kW, 15 kW, 30 kW and 60 kW. Most will be in the first two categories, with options for fuel type, explained Ng, an engineer by trade. “We’re looking at a combination of gas and diesel.”

In addition, the Army is seeking to incorporate energy storage, a new capability, with large and small units of around 2.5 kWh and 15 kWh, that could provide a 30 to 50 percent reduction in fuel consumption.

“That gives us some opportunity to run silent and increase the efficiency of the generator,” Ng noted, “so that we’re not always running these large generators at something like 15 to 20 percent capacity.

“When there’s low demand, you run off the batteries so you can reduce your fuel consumption. When batteries get low and/or you have high electrical load demand, you just run the generator, and you recharge the battery as well as provide energy for the load. Hopefully, at that point the generator itself should be running at 80 to 90 percent efficiency, as opposed to running at 20 percent efficiency on a low load situation.”

A collection of generators in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo: DND

The generators are typically used for tactical applications, powering mobile command posts, vehicles, and small units. The mandatory requirements include responsiveness to user energy needs, which will vary from unit to unit; flexibility and power management to scale and configure as required, but also to be moved by hand, and quickly; the ability to operate and survive in both desert and Arctic conditions, and everything in between; and meet interoperability and NATO standards, such as a single fuel type.

“We’re not looking for things that need exotic fuels,” Ng said. “We want interoperability. This must be able to plug into a NATO battlegroup or brigade, share fuel, and anybody can use it.”

The generators could be used to temporarily power larger headquarters, rear echelon support, and camps, but those requirements are being addressed through a separate project, Camp Sustain.

“We’re looking more tactical, which means more manoeuvrable – you can pick up and move a lot easier than a larger camp-based generator could,” he explained. “But one of the things we’re looking at acquiring is microgrid capacity, where you can hook up a number of the smaller [generators and storage units] together with the battery backup, and then run larger camps if the equipment for Camp Sustain can’t get into a theater soon enough.”

While the two projects are seeking different capabilities – Camp Sustain will procure generators larger than 100 kW and storage solutions of around one megawatt hour – both are monitoring each other’s progress. If one visits a manufacturer with a solution that is better suited to the other, that information is shared.

“There isn’t a lot of overlap between us, but we do keep an eye on each other,” he said.

With allies such as the U.S. Army acquiring similar capability, Ng noted there are several proven commercial off-the-shelf options for generators and energy storage, including one company that recently demonstrated to a NATO exercise.  

The Tactical Power Systems schedule has slipped from its original timeline of providing interested vendors with a request for proposals (RFP) in 2023, he acknowledged, but the Directorate of Land Requirements (DLR) team will have a draft RFP ready in 2025, as the project shifts from options analysis to procurement definition.