Every litre of diesel, reconciled against every kWh it produced.
Most Nigerian operators spend more on diesel than on rent, and cannot say, to the litre, where it went. VETRA DGM instruments the tank, the flow and the genset controller, then ties fuel to energy delivered so theft, waste and drift show up in naira, not in arguments.
Diesel is a top-three operating cost. It is still managed on tickets and dipsticks.
Grid intermittency turns standby gensets into prime power. Fuel handling stays manual. Pilferage becomes structural rather than exceptional, and across several sites the losses hide inside the total.
litres per kWh is what a healthy genset burns at 60–80% load. At 25–30% load it degrades to 0.35–0.45 L/kWh — the same energy for up to 50% more fuel. Engineering estimate, confirmed on site.
is invisible in almost every Nigerian facility. Once it is measured, most operators discover their real cost of self-generated energy is well above what they assumed — and can compare it to DisCo tariffs and solar with evidence.
litres saved by a report nobody owns. Monitoring pays only when an accountable person acts on alarms and reconciliations. VETRA DGM is designed around that owner — alerts, exceptions and monthly close, not dashboards for their own sake.
Three tiers. Only one survives an argument with a supplier.
Vendors use the same words for very different systems. Before you compare quotes, compare what is measured.
Level-only tank gauging
- Ultrasonic or capacitive sensor in the tank
- Shows litres remaining and sudden drops
- Cannot tell consumption from theft; blind to sloshing, temperature and geometry errors
Flow-based consumption monitoring
- Inline flow meters on supply and return lines
- Measures the real litres burned per hour
- Still says nothing about what those litres produced
Fuel + energy monitoring
- Level, flow and genset controller data, plus energy meters at genset, incomer and critical loads
- Every litre tied to kWh delivered, load factor and ₦/kWh
- Refuel reconciliation: invoiced vs actually received
- Multi-site rollup with a single cost engine
What VETRA DGM does, mechanically — and what you can measure.
Theft and short-delivery detection
Tamper and abnormal-drop alarms on the tank; every refuel reconciled against the delivery ticket. Outcome: litres recovered per month, by site and by supplier.
Refuel reconciliation
Invoiced litres vs measured litres received, temperature-compensated. Outcome: a variance figure your finance team can hold suppliers to.
Consumption-vs-load anomaly detection
L/kWh trended continuously; deviation flags injector, filter and air-intake faults weeks before failure. Outcome: avoided breakdown cost, fewer emergency call-outs.
Run-hours-based maintenance
Service intervals driven by actual run hours from the genset controller, not the calendar. Outcome: right-timed servicing, longer engine life.
Multi-site ₦/kWh benchmarking
One cost engine across every site, genset and shift. Outcome: outliers exposed, best practice copied, budgets set on measured figures.
Load-factor optimisation and right-sizing
Real load profiles show which sets run light and where transfer sequencing should change. Outcome: lower L/kWh, no wet stacking, better genset selection.
Idle and unloaded-running alarms
Run-with-no-load and hours-below-minimum-load reported automatically. Outcome: fuel burned producing nothing becomes visible and recoverable.
Solar and hybrid decision data
A measured diesel baseline sizes PV and BESS correctly — neither oversized capex nor undersized systems that fail to displace fuel.
Audit trail for finance and lenders
Exportable monthly reports with metered, time-stamped data. Outcome: fuel cost that survives an audit, a DFI review or an ESG questionnaire.
Stock-out prevention and MRV basis
Days-of-fuel forecasting per site removes emergency refuels; litres-to-kWh data gives a defensible carbon and MRV reporting basis.
From the tank to the boardroom, in five layers.
Sensing
Ultrasonic or capacitive level sensors, inline supply and return flow meters, temperature and optional density compensation.
Genset interface
Modbus RTU/TCP to the genset controller (SmartGen/DSE class): kW, kWh, run hours, fuel level, start/stop, alarms, load factor.
Metering
Energy meters at the genset, DisCo incomer, solar and critical loads — fuel is measured against energy delivered, not just litres burned.
VETRA edge node
Industrial RTU with local logging, protocol conversion and store-and-forward through connectivity outages. Not cloud-dependent.
VETRA platform
Dashboards, multi-site rollup, ₦/kWh cost engine, refuel reconciliation, theft and anomaly alarms, WhatsApp/SMS/email alerts, exportable reports.
Northbound: 4G/LTE with local buffering; MQTT and OPC UA. Designed to align with ISA-95/IEC 62264 layering, SunSpec/Modbus device models, OPC UA (IEC 62541), ISA-18.2 alarm rationalisation and IEC 62443 OT security. No certification is claimed.
Fuel in, energy out, data up — one animated view of a monitored genset.
Three flows on one site: diesel from the bulk tank through the flow meters into the engine, electricity from the alternator through the energy meter onto the busbar, and telemetry from every device up to the VETRA edge node and platform. Alarms only make sense when all three are seen together.
Litres received (delivery ticket vs measured level rise) · litres burned (supply minus return) · kWh delivered (alternator meter) · load factor (controller). Any two of the four disagreeing raises an exception.
Abnormal level drop while idle · consumption above baseline for the load · run-with-no-load · service due by run hours · days-of-fuel below threshold · communication loss.
No control commands from the cloud. The edge node reads; it does not start, stop or load the genset. Monitoring interfaces are read-only by design.
See your diesel baseline and cost of energy in thirty seconds.
Enter your own figures. Every step of the arithmetic is shown so you can challenge it. Savings bands are engineering estimates; the pilot measures your actual figure, and the pilot is the only number worth signing against.
Your baseline
Recoverable value (engineering estimate)
What monitoring does not do — and how VETRA is built around it.
A one-sided pitch loses technical buyers and lenders. These are the real constraints and the design answer to each.
| Limitation | Why it happens | How VETRA DGM mitigates |
|---|---|---|
| Capex and installation downtime | Flow meters need pipework changes; sensors need tank access. | Phased single-site pilot first; installation scheduled at planned service windows; level-only start where flow retrofit is impractical. |
| Calibration and periodic verification | Tank geometry, sloshing, temperature and density all bias level readings. | Strapping-table calibration at commissioning, temperature compensation, and flow-vs-level cross-checks that flag drift automatically. |
| Connectivity gaps | Remote and rural sites lose 4G for hours or days. | Edge node logs locally and store-and-forwards on reconnect; reconciliation runs on complete data, not gaps. |
| Monitoring alone saves nothing | Data without an accountable owner changes no behaviour. | Deployment defines the owner, the alert rules and a monthly close routine; the pilot measures behaviour change, not just litres. |
| Internal resistance | Fuel handling has often been informal; instrumentation changes who is trusted. | Transparent reconciliation shared with the site team; positive framing around supplier accountability rather than staff suspicion. |
| Recurring data and maintenance cost | SIMs, sensor upkeep and platform hosting continue after commissioning. | Costs stated up front in the quotation; support delivered under VETRA Care on defined response times. |
| Cyber and data-integrity exposure | Networking OT equipment creates a new attack surface. | Segmented OT network, read-only monitoring interfaces, designed to align with IEC 62443; no control commands from the cloud. |
Built for operators whose gensets are prime power, not standby.
Manufacturing
Multi-shift plants where a single L/kWh drift is a six-figure naira line by month-end.
Banking and retail networks
Dozens to hundreds of branches; losses hide in the aggregate until each site is benchmarked.
Telecom towers
Unattended sites with high theft exposure and heavy night running.
Hospitals
Continuity-critical loads where a genset failure stops care, not just revenue.
Hotels and malls
Oversized sets running lightly loaded across the day — right-sizing data recovers fuel fast.
Oil servicing and logistics
Yards, workshops and depots with fleets of mid-size gensets and informal refuelling.
Schools and campuses
Seasonal load patterns where run-hour maintenance and idle alarms dominate.
Solar developers and EPCs
A measured diesel baseline that makes the hybrid business case bankable.
Start with an audit. Prove it on one site. Then scale.
Free diesel audit
- Baseline from your existing fuel invoices and genset data
- Effective ₦/kWh per site
- Estimated recoverable band and pilot scope
Single-site pilot
- Sensors, genset interface and edge node installed
- Defined before/after measurement window
- Alert rules and an accountable owner agreed
Portfolio rollout
- Multi-site dashboard and monthly close routine
- Supplier reconciliation across the portfolio
- Hybrid/solar business case built on measured data
What the client receives
Book the free diesel audit.
Send us your last three months of fuel invoices and your genset list. We return your baseline, your effective ₦/kWh per site and a pilot scope — measured, not promised.