Are you up for an amazing story? Well, here it comes. Angola has around 1,200 telecom towers powered by YANMAR engines. That in itself is not amazing. What is amazing, or perhaps even shocking, is the life span of our engines there. Of these 1,200 engines, 130 have more than 45,000 operating hours on the clock. The record is an engine with even 80,000 hours! This engine will soon be replaced by the customer, "as a precaution", they say.

More than 5 years uninterruptedly

All these telecom towers have been running continuously for more than 5 years without interruptions or engine failures. That is quite amazing when you bear in mind that the towers are located without electricity in high-altitude areas and that availability is one of the essential KPIs in telecom.

New specifications

The story gets even more intriguing when you consider that our distributor has convinced one telecom operator to revise their specifications for maximum engine life from 25,000 hours to 35,000 hours, based on YANMAR performance indications. The 25,000 hour expectation was based on previous experience of the operator with other engine brands. Our customer was able to prove that the limit was absolutely too low for YANMAR engines.

Second life

In contrast, another telecom operator in the country has no hourly restrictions. Here our engines can be pushed to the limit. And what do you think? After 80,000 running hours it is still not over for the engines. Our engines are overhauled and brought back to the consumer market for a second life!