Keep Your Generators Reliable

Protect Power Supply, Prevent Failures, and Maximize Availability with Generator Condition Monitoring

The Challenge

Industrial generators are the backbone of reliable power — whether feeding the grid, supporting critical infrastructure, or powering industrial processes. They run under heavy loads and harsh conditions, where small issues can grow into catastrophic failures. A single generator outage can mean lost megawatts, safety risks, environmental impact, and millions in unplanned costs.

Generators Are Mission-Critical In:

Power Generation: baseload and peaking units
Oil & Gas: offshore platforms, refineries, LNG plants
Manufacturing: steel, paper, chemicals, and heavy industry
Infrastructure: hospitals, data centers, and utilities

When generator performance slips, the cost is not just downtime — it’s lost power, lost revenue, and lost confidence.

Monitoring Strategies

Generators demand a multiphysics monitoring approach to capture mechanical, electrical, and thermal issues. Effective coverage must span from rotor and stator health to bearings, insulation, and auxiliary systems.

Generator Field Monitoring to detect poor shaft grounding, bearing failure or rotor insulation deterioration
Rotor Flux Monitoring to identify insulation degrading or overheating, turn-to-turn shorts, and field winding open circuits
Vibration Analysis to detect imbalance, misalignment, or bearing wear
Electrical Signature Analysis to detect power quality issues
Electromagnetic Interference Monitoring to uncover rotor/stator winding faults, insulation degradation, or excitation issues
Infrared (IR) Thermography for cooling system performance, hot spots, and insulation aging
Lubrication and Oil Analysis to spot bearing wear or contamination
Process and Load Data Correlation to connect generator health directly to plant reliability and grid stability

Protect Your Generators. Protect Your Power.

Discover how Cutsforth can help you safeguard generator health and maximize plant reliability.

Integrated Diagnostic Models Built on Real-World Expertise

Cutsforth’s Integrated Diagnostic Models provide a digital blueprint for reliability by mapping known failure modes to the sensors and signal features needed to detect them. Built with input from experienced reliability engineers, the models capture optimal sensor placement, failure criticality and likelihood, and diagnostic effectiveness. The result is actionable fault intelligence—combining multiphysics measurements, deep expertise, and AI-driven optimization to clearly show how assets behave and where failures are most likely to occur.

Specific Fault Models are available for the following types of generators:

Hydrogen-Cooled Generators
Air-Cooled Generators
Hydro Generators

Generator Major Components and Failure Modes

Click the image hotspots below to see how generator main components are broken into sub-components with a sample list of associated failure modes for each. Refer to the linked documents below for more details about the Generator Integrated Diagnostic Model.

Download the Cutsforth Generator Model Data Sheet for more on generator failure modes, symptoms, sensors, and criticality.

To learn more about Integrated Diagnostic Models in general, download our Cutsforth Integrated Diagnostic Models White Paper.

The Risks of Doing Nothing

Ignoring generator health can escalate quickly into severe operational and financial consequences:

Unplanned Outages that take megawatts offline
Catastrophic Failures requiring full generator rewinds or replacements
Fire and Safety Hazards from electrical insulation breakdown or bearing failures
Grid Instability and contractual penalties for lost power delivery
Escalating O&M Costs from emergency repairs instead of planned interventions

How Cutsforth Helps

Cutsforth delivers end-to-end generator monitoring solutions built on decades of expertise in power generation:

Multiphysics Measurements: Monitoring systems across the spectrum of vibration, electrical, thermography, EMI, and more
Unified Software Platform: InsightCM™ integrates measurements, waveforms, and alarms in one pane of glass
Reliability Services: Experienced consultants help assess current practices, design monitoring programs, and implement continuous improvement strategies
Generator Retrofit Hardware: Innovative EASYchange Brush Holders and Shaft Grounding Systems for safety and reliability

With Cutsforth, operators gain early visibility into generator issues — before they become outages — ensuring uptime, safety, and efficiency.