THE CHALLENGE

The southern US state of Louisiana is no stranger to hurricanes. In the fall of 2020, it endured its most active storm season ever, including the fiercest storm to make landfall in the state for over 100 years—Hurricane Laura.

The Category 4 storm swept through southwest Louisiana on August 27, causing massive damage across the cities of Sulphur and nearby Lake Charles and the surrounding areas. Power losses were widespread, with outages ultimately lasting for up to eight weeks. Laura’s severity was such that local businesses recognized that having an independent source of standby power was no longer a choice but a necessity.

Located in Sulphur, LA, Tulco Industrial Storage realized it had to act fast, despite having only suffered limited hurricane damage. The company provides 310,000 square feet of storage space to a range of industrial customers. Prominent amongst them are local refineries which depend on Tulco’s dehumidified storage units to house spare, mission-critical oilfield machinery. Their equipment has to be contained within a climate-controlled environment to protect its effectiveness and longevity, and to ensure it remains in peak working order should customers need to access it urgently for planned or unplanned plant turnarounds, shutdowns, or maintenance.

 Previously wholly reliant on prime power from the utility feed, Tulco turned to Cummins Sales and Service Lake Charles, its nearest Cummins distributor, with which it had a trusted working relationship. Tulco was confident that the distributor’s expertise and service, together with the quality of Cummins products, would give it the backup power it needed to sustain the high-grade facilities its customers demanded, even in the face of future storms.

NATURAL GAS GENERATOR SETS TO KEEP TULCO RUNNING

TURNKEY SOLUTION

The Cummins Sales and Service Lake Charles team consulted closely with Tulco to gain an accurate understanding of what was needed. Tulco selected natural gas-fueled generator sets over diesel models to avoid any potential problems in sourcing or transporting in diesel should a catastrophic storm strike. In addition, the nature of Tulco’s facilities— numerous separate storage buildings with individual utility services located in and around the company’s Sulphur, LA site—meant that choosing multiple smaller generator sets would have important installation and logistical advantages over providing a single, larger generator for all the operations.

Cummins therefore recommended a fleet of natural gas-powered generator sets to provide emergency standby power for the various buildings. With the specifications approved, Cummins partnered with Tulco electricians to install seven generators: a Cummins C125N6 (125kW) generator set, three Cummins C150N6 (150kW) generator sets, and three C200N6 (200kW) generator sets.

Supplied in standard factory enclosures, the units were chosen for their proven performance, reliability, and versatility in stationary standby applications. In addition, seven OTECSEC 400 A and 600 A service-entrance and outdoor rated transfer switches were configured and integrated to enable seamless automatic transfers from utility power to generator power in the event of an emergency.

Work on the project coincided with expansive storm recovery efforts in Sulphur, LA as much of the city underwent rebuilding and repair. Even in the midst of this reconstruction work, Cummins successfully steered the project to completion. As well as overseeing testing and commissioning of the generator sets and transfer switches, Cummins technicians provided operational training to Tulco’s on-site staff to ensure a smooth handover.

“The backup power solution supplied by Cummins is the power equivalent of a life-support system. Our facilities contain equipment which simply has to be kept in a climate-controlled environment to protect it from damage, and ensure it is in optimal condition at any point when customers might need it. Faced with the continuing risk of storms that might bring down the utility power feed, having Cummins generator sets as a backup is vital. It means we have failsafe power come what may, whatever the weather might throw at us.

Kirk Weldon, Vice President of Operations, Tulco

PROTECTING TULCO WHEN STORMS OR THE UNEXPECTED STRIKES

POWER TO COUNT ON

The new standby power plant provides Tulco with the secure source of emergency power it needs to keep its advanced storage facilities running should a hurricane similar to Laura strike again. Official weather data bears out the risks, with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reporting that Louisiana today can expect to suffer a hurricane every 2.8 years.

“The continued threat of violent storms means that local businesses absolutely need to have backup power ready,” says Cole Tucker, the Senior Sales Executive at Cummins Sales and Service Lake Charles. “Tulco expressed a desire to have standby power at all its facilities and sought a trusted partner to guide it to the right solution. Through long conversations, job site evaluations, meetings with contractors, and the ability to draw on the vast resources of Cummins, from engineering to project inception; we were able to deliver the right solution to not only Tulco, but also, importantly, to its customers.