BinderHow often does an emergency generator have to be tested?
NFPA 110 covers emergency and standby power systems and sets out routine maintenance and operational testing. The pattern most operators need to know is a monthly exercise under load, plus an annual load bank test in the case where the monthly runs do not reach the required percentage of the generator's nameplate rating.
Why the annual test is conditional
The purpose of exercising a generator under load is to bring it to proper operating temperature and prevent the problems that come from running lightly loaded. Where the building's actual emergency load is large enough to achieve that during monthly runs, the monthly exercise does the job. Where the real load is too small, an artificial load is applied once a year to prove the machine can carry it.
Most restaurants that have a generator at all fall into the second category, because the emergency load is a few circuits rather than the whole building.
Two records, not one
These are separate obligations producing separate evidence. The monthly exercise is usually a log entry, often filled in by staff or captured by the controller. The annual load bank test is a contractor visit producing a report with readings on it.
A folder containing only the annual report cannot demonstrate that the monthly exercises happened, and the monthly log is the part most likely to be missing, because it is the part nobody invoices for.
If your restaurant has no generator
Most do not, and none of this applies. Generators appear in restaurants attached to hotels, in buildings with emergency lighting requirements that exceed battery units, in some jurisdictions for walk-in refrigeration, and in sites with their own fire pump. If you are unsure whether the box behind the building is yours or the landlord's, that is worth resolving before it is asked.
This page describes what published standards say. It is not legal advice and it is not a determination about any premises. The requirements that apply to your building, including how often work must be done and what must be kept, are set by your authority having jurisdiction, which is usually your local fire marshal or health department. Where this page and your inspector disagree, your inspector is right.
Keeping this straight without thinking about it
Binder tracks the monthly exercise and the annual load bank test as two requirements against the same generator, so the one that is easy to forget is visible as its own line rather than folded into the one a contractor invoices for.
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