Sunbelt Rentals partners with DEIF to support their customer's journey to reduce carbon impact
With its vast network of rental equipment solutions from more than 1,300 locations across North America, Sunbelt Rentals knew it had to create higher levels of fuel efficiency and lower emissions to competitively meet their customer's demand of carbon reduction.
At Sunbelt Rentals, more than 21,000 team members provide rental equipment for everything from the needs of homeowners to large entertainment events, and they foresaw a growing shift among rental customers who were looking at ways to reduce fuel consumption and emissions being produced. “This shift matched our goals to provide a solution and a path to assist our customers in meeting their carbon reduction targets,” says Joe Hornburg, Director of Fleet Management for Sunbelt Rentals. “As customer demands are changing, Sunbelt is providing solutions to meet their expectations. Through DEIF, we can standardize our approach for load efficiency and simplify the operation of the equipment for the customer. In addition, we are able to leverage DEIF’s expertise to train our technicians and our customers in the use of these controllers and improve everyone’s experience.”
It was the onset of Tier 4 Final emission requirements when Sunbelt Rentals became an early adopter at making Energy Management a tangible Service. “We realized that Tier 4 Final engine emission technologies required different load management, meaning equipment needed to be operated at a higher efficiency rating in most applications,” says Jason Thompson, SVP Power & HVAC and Pump Solutions. “In doing so, we had to get smarter in the way we rented, in the way we provided solutions, and how we understood the load profiles, which led us to Energy Management as a Service (EMaaS™).”
Because of Tier 4 Final and Sunbelt’s relationship with DEIF as the supplier of controllers, Jason says a major shift occurred with Sunbelt's procurement strategy. “We welcomed the change of cleaner emissions and more efficient operations.
It allowed us to improve our product sizing to better match customer demands for applications and moved us away from being transactional to being more solution-based.” Like any major energy initiative, Sunbelt Rentals believed the biggest challenge was leveraging complex technologies into more customer-friendly energy solutions that met customer needs. “DEIF is very important in that effort because when we have DEIF controllers, we know we're going to have consistency,” says Todd Howe, Technical Support Manager - Power & HVAC at Sunbelt Rentals. “We know we're going to have a product that is compatible and that works with other products across our rental portfolio. And that makes the setup and operation that much easier.”
While standardizing the controllers was one critical initiative for the company, Sunbelt Rentals also needed to ensure there was proper engineering support that was reliable and sustainable. “We are continuously underpinning our operational delivery of our products and services by having the right amount of support, engineering, and technical know-how in the back end,” Jason says. “To do that, we've got to know how to engineer and design it. We need to have the technology and the tools that DEIF provides to do so".
For Sunbelt Rentals, DEIF’s technology has been revolutionary across platforms. “We started with DEIF’s AGC-4 seven or eight years ago and that has continued to evolve. The next generation AGC-4 MK II is something we use every day in our fleet, and we have recently started utilizing the AGC-150 platform as well, both for generator sets and also for battery energy storage systems with the ASC-150 variant.”
A Trusted Partnership with Valuable Feedback
Trusted partners are key to continuous improvement. In today's world, the development of technology products like control systems is never finished. The strength of Sunbelt Rentals and DEIF's partnership led to extensive collaboration on the development of DEIF's TDU107 touch display unit.
After rigorous use, their feedback proved extremely valuable and led to continuous release of new features that helped Sunbelt Rentals bring new innovations to their customers. Working closely together, DEIF has also become known as a critical partner in Sunbelt’s ultimate success. “DEIF is our power gen ecosystem management platform of choice, allowing us to maximize energy sources confidently,” Jason explains.
As the technology evolves, so does the relationship with DEIF. Sunbelt Rentals has one of the largest fleets of Battery Energy Storage Systems in the nation, “and we are definitely leading in that effort by using DEIF in hybrid and microgrid applications with our generator fleet,” Joe says. “We’re also heavily invested in our solar fleet. And right now, the hydrogen world is still emerging, but I do see that as a complementing technology that's going to be coming upon us quickly. “Through all our research and relationship building, DEIF was our number one pick. And we have worked aggressively over the last decade to grow our DEIF-equipped fleet. They've been great to partner with, working across numerous OEMs, and we've standardized a large portion of our fleet through the help of DEIF,” Joe says.
In the final analysis, Joe summed up the relationship with DEIF by stating that they are one of the company’s most valued partners. “I would give them a ten out of ten,” Joe states. “We directly contact DEIF colleagues in Denmark and the U.S. regularly. They've had experts fly in from around the world to help us with training and solve complex application challenges. I can't say enough about them and their technical expertise.”
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Products used
Automatic genset controller AGC-4 Mk II
- Automatic Mains Failure sequence
- Multi-master Power Management
- Power Management Core (32dg)
- Power Management Extended (>32dg)
- RMB Transformer maintenance with up to 32 gensets
- PLC logic
- Engine CANbus
- Din rail mount
- Flexible Hardware
- Additional CANbus based I/O (9 x CIO modules)
- Redundant controller
- Redundant CANbus for Power mamangement
- N+X configuration
- Close Before Excitation / Run-up synchronization from 6 seconds
- DEIF digital AVR DVC550 support
- Multi purpose PID´s
- Gridcode compliant with: VDE AR-N 4110/4105 (Medium voltage, Germany, VDE AR-N 4105 (low voltage, Germany, EN 50549-1:2019 (Europe), ENA EREC G99 (United Kingdom)
- Touch Screen Support (TDU107)
- Tier4 final/stage5
- Emulation for easy training and FAT
- Hybrid EMS support (via ASC-4)
- Heavy consumer (via ALC-4)
- Fuel optimisation
- Fully compatible with AGC 150 and ASC-4
- TÜV pending and UL approved
Advanced Genset Controller AGC 150 Generator
- Synchronization
- Power Management Core (32dg)
- -40 degree support
- PLC logic
- Engine and Generator protection
- Engine CANbus
- Front mount
- Additional CANbus based I/O (9 x CIO modules)
- DEIF digital AVR DVC550 support
- Multi purpose PID´s
- Tier4 final/stage5
- Emulation
- Hybrid Energy Management System support
- Fuel optimisation