How many kilowatt-hours (kWh) can a diesel generator supply?

Kilowatt-hours (kwh) measures the amount of energy provided or consumed within 1hour.

If you have a 50kW standby diesel generator then it can produce 50kWh of energy per hour. The amount of time a diesel genertor can run for is dependent upon its fuel tank. A standard day tank may be sized to provide suficient fuel to run a generator for 8hours at full load.

In this example a 50kW generator with an 8hour runtime fuel tank will provide: 50kW x 8hours = 400kWh of energy. If the power load in kilowatts (kw) is reduced by 50% through load-shedding then the runtime available from the fuel tank doubles but the total energy storage capacity of the generator remains the same.

(50 / 2) = 25kw x 16hours = max 400kWh of energy.