The story behind DiPerk, Perkins Engines distributor for UK and Ireland

Perkins 4008 diesel engine (Photo: DiPerk)

DiPerk is an authorized distributor for Perkins engines in the UK and Ireland. Part of the Finning Group, which operates as the distributor of Caterpillar engines, machines and related services in the UK and Ireland, DiPerk has evolved from an engine distributor into a complete power systems partner offering custom and off-the-shelf solutions.

Daniel Rolfe, distributor principal at DiPerk, spoke with Power Progress International about the business and the customer offering. “While we have been in business for about 27 years, DiPerk has been the Perkins distributor in the UK and Ireland for 20 years – we celebrated our twentieth year as a Perkins distributor in 2024.”

While the company is part of the Finning Group, Rolfe says that DiPerk acts as an independent business. The parent company is only likely to be involved in executive-level decisions. “We’re an independent company that has the comfort of being part of a fairly large organisation,” he explains. “A distributor within a distributor.”

As a distributor for Perkins in the UK and Ireland, DiPerk manages every customer interaction within the region, outside a very limited number of direct OEM sales which go through Perkins. “It’s very similar to the relationship between a car manufacturer and one of their dealers,” says Rolfe. “If you want to buy a car you don’t go to the manufacturer, you go to the dealer.”

Conveniently, DiPerk is only four miles from the Perkins headquarters in Peterborough. Rolfe: “If we have a customer wanting to sell or install gen sets into territories or locations with which we’re not familiar, those questions can be difficult to answer. When our own expertise isn’t sufficient, we can draw on the knowledge base at Perkins.”

Daniel Rolfe, DiPerk

Of course, Perkins engines can be bought outside this network; as Rolfe notes, it’s a global product. But there are benefits to buying from an authorised dealer, including the Perkins Platinum Protection extended warranty. “As with most distributors we manage all our warranty claims, which can be further supported by data collected by our Condition Monitoring desk, which is open 24 hours every day,” he observes.

“Perkins is becoming more comprehensive with regards to telematics and collecting engine data. And as we get more and more data from those connected engines, the service capability at DiPerk will only get better.”

Company setup

Rolfe says that DiPerk is set up over three business divisions: Prime Engine Sales; Aftermarket Sales; and Service and Support. Prime Engine Sales is split into two groups, Industrial Engines and Electrical Power Generation (EPG). Industrial Engines supplies machine manufacturers, while EPG concentrates on working with OEMs producing generator sets for prime and standby power applications.

According to Rolfe, DiPerk sold about 2,000 engines in 2024. “That number covers a wide range of engines, from the three-cylinder 400 Series that might go into a lawn care machine right up to the 16-cylinder 5000 Series engine which delivers prime power to a hospital or data centre.”

For now, in-house technical expertise is focused on diesel engines and serving the customer applications using those engines. “That’s our bread and butter,” Rolfe puts forward. “We work with a series of gen set manufacturers around the UK, advising on component pairing, load matching and related maintenance.”

Due to the close relationship between DiPerk and Perkins, the distributor is also able to offer the shortest lead times. “For the Perkins 4000 and 5000 Series engines, we can offer a delivery time from placing the order of between nine and 12 weeks, which is industry-leading for that size of engine,” says Rolfe.

For smaller engines, the 2000 Series and down, DiPerk can fulfil orders in between 16 and 22 weeks. “The only time an order might take longer to be fulfilled is if it’s for a very large number of engines.”

Customisation to order

While the engines from Perkins are largely frozen in terms of design, the technical experts at DiPerk can customise engines to deliver an optimised final solution.

In one extreme case, Rolfe recalls a customer was having a gen set delivered to Antarctica. Due to the extreme weather conditions, a request was made to have two starter motors and two alternators added to the engine to serve as redundant backup.

“The customer wanted a double solution on the engine, so our technical development team made that happen.”

When looking at projects not located in Antarctica, more standard requirements come into play. For example, Rolfe says that DiPerk can assist with development of an airflow system for containerised units, or change specification to address noise and vibration.

As a distributor, DiPerk also offers support by way of applications engineering. This involves ensuring the power unit is installed correctly and serviced using the correct maintenance schedule and genuine OEM parts.

New engine

Launched at the end of 2024, the latest version of the 5000 Series engine could be considered the flagship of the range at DiPerk. The series starts with a six-cylinder variant and currently rounds out with a 16-cylinder model.

Perkins 5000 Series (5008) engine (Photo: Perkins Engines)

Unlike the 4000, the 5000 Series is an electronically-controlled engine. Features include electronic fuel injection which helps to optimise combustion and improved fuel efficiency. But there are other features which Rolfe says makes the 5000 Series a “standout product”.

“The first is load acceptance – the speed in which the engine can deliver additional power when that demand comes through. It’s exceptional! A lot of engines will have some lag on the response time but the 5000 Series has virtually no lag. When you’re powering a data centre or a hospital, a delayed response time to increasing load can create some serious problems.

“Another is the power density with regards to the footprint. It’s a relatively small compared to other engines in its class, but the power it can produce is significant, in excess of 2.5 MW for the 16-cylinder model.”

Lastly, Rolfe highlights the emissions of the 5000 Series engines. With other gen sets of this size, they emit some considerable smoke at cold start. Conversely, when the 5000 Series starts it releases just a small puff of smoke. This, without a diesel particulate filter. “The combustion process is so well developed that it’s very clean,” said Rolfe. Additionally, the Tier 2 engine can use HVO or renewable diesel to help further reduce overall emissions.

Training requirements

Rolfe says that DiPerk has had a renewed focus on customer training this year. The company has welcomed several customer groups which have taken classes led by the company’s own in-house trainers.

Perkins 400 Series engine rebuild at DiPerk (Photo: DiPerk)

“[Our trainers] have great product knowledge and they can teach engineers at our customer companies to operate the equipment to whatever level is suitable for them,” he explains.

According to Rolfe, successful operation of a gen set with a 5000 Series engine requires some basic training; a person with some experience with gen sets of this size should be able to manage straightaway. “It’s not as simple as a pull cord and an on-off switch, but it’s made to be quite intuitive!” he says with a laugh.

Perkins recently released a series of videos outlining how customers could complete basic maintenance on their engines. Asked if DiPerk might do the same, Rolfe puts forward they might consider this as there’s no issue with a qualified individual carrying out basic maintenance; the distributor is there to support at whatever level the customer requires.

“Some customers don’t want engineers coming into their buildings, particularly in sensitive industries. So I don’t see a problem with that.” He adds that with a 50% increase in service interval periods on the 5000 Series engine, up to 750 hours or two years, the new engine lends itself to customer work.

Market outlook

Asked about the state of the power market, in the UK and Ireland or elsewhere around the world, Rolfe says that power demand is huge – and continuing to grow. In the case of data centres, the energy needed to support high-demand applications (such as voice search) or even increasing traffic volumes is driving the need for more locations.

Those data centres can have trouble getting a grid connection, either because of capacity constraints or the connection doesn’t exist. In such cases, DiPerk can supply prime bridging power until a grid connection is available, backed with support from the third-party OEMs delivering the necessary gen sets and related hardware.

“I think that market will see exponential growth over the next eight or nine years,” says Rolfe. “That said, I think over that timeframe a technology will be introduced that changes the market, either making today’s solutions more efficient or another way of providing power. That could possibly see the introduction of other power sources.”