Re: Design
A diesel generator is not a UPS, it takes time to start and needs synchronising with what is powering the place before it can take over. If it isn't then you can get very strange waveforms appearing at the outputs of transformers.
Well it can be if the diesel engine is part of an integrated design; I know of systems (and not recently) with an AC Motor, a DC motor driven by BIG batteries, and alternator (all on a common shaft, or at least shafts coupled in line, plus a diesel generator. The incoming AC drives the motor which it turn drives the alternator plus the DC motor; if the incoming supply fails the battery supplies the DC motor until the diesel generator self - starts and then takes the load and drives the AC motor again. ISTR other systems whereby instead of a DC motor there is a BIG flywheel and a clutch between the "common" shaft and the diesel engine in which the flywheel (with a large mass) drives the common shaft for long enough for the engine to start. The start and run - up time (after which the clutch couples the two shafts) can be as short as a few seconds if the system design includes keeping the engine coolant warm so that it isn't starting from true "cold". Getting it in - phase with the incoming supply isn't required because, er, there isn't one.
OTOH if they are trying to engineer a "no - break" changeover between one supply and another derived from a generator in the car park then getting the phases in sync can be rather important. If that is the case then It sounds as if they have IT people trying to solve a problem that requires electrical engineers to correct. If they are not employing electrical engineers then I can foresee this rolling on until such time as they do may well turn out to be true. Synchronising a generator in one place with an incoming supply in another isn't impossible but it can be messy.
I don't want to be gratuitously critical but I found this article (and that which preceded it) a bit unclear for possibly the same reason - perhaps written by an IT guru rather than a power systems specialist. Articles about electrical problems should not have the word phase in them other than in reference to supply phases; "stage" is much better because it cannot be confused with electrical phase.