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Genset TCO

Ten-year cost of a standby or prime generator set: diesel vs gas vs dual fuel, fuel, maintenance, permitting, Tier 4 aftertreatment, run hours.

Inputs

Unticked = Tier 2 emergency engine: 100 hours a year for testing and maintenance, at most 50 of them non-emergency (40 CFR 60.4211(f)).

Fuel

Diesel default is the EIA US retail price for the week of 2026-09-07 via FRED. Fuel use is not in our sources; read it from the OEM spec sheet at your load.

Capital and maintenance

Defaults are the midpoints of a dealer pricing guide for a new 1,000 kW Tier 4 Final diesel: base $580 to $720/kW, aftertreatment $130 to $185/kW (May 2026). A new Tier 2 emergency-only 1,000 kW unit listed at $270/kW. No published band for gas gensets; enter your quote.
Air permit, pad, fuel system, switchgear tie-in. Site-specific; no default.
Ten-year cost of ownership
Cost per kWh generated
Capital
Fuel, ten years
Maintenance, ten years

Method and assumptions
  1. TCO = capital + 10 x (annual fuel + annual maintenance). Undiscounted, nominal dollars, no residual value, no fuel-price escalation. Capital = kW x (base $/kW + aftertreatment $/kW if Tier 4) + permitting and installation.
  2. Fuel: diesel gallons = run hours x gal/hr at rated load x average load share; cost at your $/gal. Gas: ft3/hr x hours x load share x 1036 Btu/ft3 (EIA) / 1,000,000 x $/MMBtu. Dual fuel splits run hours by the gas share. Fuel use scales linearly with load here; real curves are flatter at part load, so read the spec sheet at your expected load.
  3. Capital defaults: New 1000 kW Tier 4 Final base unit $580,000 to $720,000 (per kW at 1000 kW); Tier 4 Final aftertreatment $130,000 to $185,000 on a 1000 kW unit (Power Generation Enterprises, Industrial Generator Pricing Guide 2026, 2026-05-02). The same guide puts a new 2,000 kW CAT 3516 with Tier 4 aftertreatment north of $1.4M (700/kW) and a CAT 3512B HD 1,000 kW Tier 4 Final at $850 to $1050/kW.
  4. Emergency route: Tier 2 or Tier 3 nonroad standards for engines of 37 kW and up from model year 2007; Tier 2 for engines over 3000 HP from model year 2011 (60.4202) 100 hours a year for maintenance and readiness testing; up to 50 of those hours for non-emergency use; no peak shaving or demand response except dispatch by the balancing authority for local reliability (60.4211(f)) A Tier 2 unit run past those hours must meet the non-emergency standard.
  5. Not in our sources, so asked of you: natural gas price for industrial buyers (no series in research/data; enter your contract price); fuel consumption at load (from the oem spec sheet); maintenance cost per running hour and per year (from your service contract); permitting cost (site-specific); gas genset capital cost per kw (no published band in our sources).
Diesel $5.967/gal, week of 2026-09-07.

Method

TCO = capital + ten years of fuel and maintenance, undiscounted. Capital defaults are the midpoints of the Power Generation Enterprises 2026 pricing guide for a new 1,000 kW Tier 4 Final diesel ($580 to $720/kW base, $130 to $185/kW aftertreatment), as compiled for Gensets sold out to 2028. The diesel price is the EIA weekly US retail price via FRED. Fuel use at load, natural gas price, maintenance rates, permitting cost and gas-genset capital are not published in our sources, so the tool asks for them and shows the total as partial until they are entered. Unticking Tier 4 prices a Tier 2 emergency engine, which federal rule limits to 100 hours a year (50 non-emergency). The tool flags run hours beyond that.

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Default assumptions come from the Public Bid-Tab Price Book. Pro subscribers can save inputs. Institutional seats get the underlying series.

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