Despite there being a slowdown in projects for the past few years in the construction industry, power generation equipment developer Himoinsa Southern Africa business development director Matthew Bell says the company expects positive growth over the next 12 to 36 months.

Himoinsa is a vertically integrated manufacturer of lighting towers and generators, ranging from 3 kVA to 3.5 MVA in its product range. These generators include additional filtration systems, which adds to the durability of the generators, especially when dusty construction sites and poor fuel quality are taken into account. The additional filtration systems offer best in class service intervals and thereby drive down the total cost of ownership.

Himoinsa is adding trailer-mounted generators to its range of generator rental designs, which are highly beneficial as they can easily be moved around construction sites.

“Quite often, you find that clients need to buy a generator and have to put it onto a trailer themselves. We are expanding the rental offering which means more equipment and node sizes are available. Our generators are tailor-made for the African market. Given that the quality of fuel in Africa is often poor with challenging environmental conditions, we want to ensure that there are not going to be any reliability issues for our customers,” says Bell.

It also offers a different range of lighting towers, such as metal halide lights and light-emitting diode (LED) versions. The benefits of using LED lights instead of metal halide lights include using energy more efficiently, improved fuel consumption and durability of the lamp.

The Himoinsa technical team has created a bespoke lighting tower using an LED lamp which can be bought locally. Bell states that local procurement is very important to the company, as it contributes to job creation.

Turnkey Solution

Himoinsa offers a turnkey solution, assisting clients to size the correct generator, which it then designs and manufactures as a total solutions provider. Any modifications are made at factory level in Spain and the other manufacturing facilities around the world.

“Our value offering is second to none because we have a turnkey solution. We are also competitively priced because we have global economies of scale. We produce 60 000 generators a year and about 20 000 lighting towers at all our factories globally,” Bell states.

Bell says the quality of the generators, which is to International Organisation for Standardisation specifications, sets them apart. The generators are delivered locally by the Himoinsa operations team. It also offers a best-in-class warranty of two years or 4 000 hours as standard to provide customers with reassurance of the equipment quality.

“It does not matter what the specific generator component is, such as the engine, alternator or controller, we will uphold support for that warranty across all elements of the generator directly,” says Bell.

Himoinsa has worked with various construction companies, including the Scribante Construction Group, to which it provides mobile power for its mobile batching plants.

Impressed with Himoinsa’s offering, Scribante director Aldo Scribante notes the marked improvement in fuel consumption, adding that, “Scribante has found the engineering, quality and reliability of the units unquestionable. The Himoinsa after-sales and service team has been quick to attend to any concerns. Feedback from my on-site operations teams has been very positive.”

Bell states that the company would like to further invest in its offering this year and beyond. The company would also like to expand into new geographies across the Southern African region.

“We like to develop partnerships with active technical distributors to make sure that we can offer a local and rapid response service to our customers all over the region,” he concludes.