Hidden away in the South Eastern corner of Guinea is an impressive mountain called Nimba. Because of its remoteness and the steep slopes the area has not been affected by human strife. A large portion of the mountain has rich iron ore deposits and BHP Billiton along with the local mining organisation of SFMG has the rights to extract the ore. A site has been built on the western slopes to accommodate the personal involved in the mining operations.

No utility power is available and diesel powered generators are an essential part of the day-to-day running of the camp. One of a set of three 150kVA gens would supply the site at any given time. The other two would lie idle, as back up or until it was time to swap over to another set. But as the site grew larger, one set became inadequate for the ever-increasing electrical load. Even though the sets were relatively old, the engines only had about 4500 hours of service each. So it was decided that the existing panel would be upgraded to a synchronising system using three by Deep Sea 5510 controllers. Designed and built in South Africa, the floor standing panel was shipped up to Conakry and then transported across land to Nimba camp.

Perkins type 1006 engines powered the Sincro alternators. The AVRs had to be upgraded to the DBL1 type that is suitable for paralleling. Speed control via analogue signal was attempted but was not successful so wiring was revised to an internal relay speed control system. So the 5510 control used analogue voltage control and digital speed control. After a bit of tweaking with the gain and stability settings the sets ramped in and out of parallel mode quite effortlessly. At peak power times two sets run together and then revert to a single set at all other times. Power demands have been satisfied.