COMMENT POWER PROVE
Andrew Keith, division director of load bank manufacturer and portable load banks and offers his advice on choosing a testing solution tailored to an application’s needs.
F
rom testing wind turbines to ensuring telecoms infrastructure stays online during power outages, load banks play a wide and
varied role in keeping the country running. But At the surface level, the difference between
— one can be moved between testing sites and the other cannot. However, there are several important important to consider carefully which type would be better suited to your application. Before investing in either solution, make sure
you have a good idea of the continuous power requirements of the equipment you plan to test. You should also ask yourself where you plan to use the load bank, as well as what your budget is. Having a clear answer to each of these questions will ensure that you make the right purchasing decision.
FIXED LOAD BANKS Installing a permanent load bank offers several advantages, especially when it comes to locations that require regular testing of backup generators, such as hospitals and industrial plants. This also as critical national infrastructure, highlighting the importance of ensuring their operation even during Permanent solutions are often preferable to
portable load banks when testing equipment with high continuous power requirements located in hard-to-reach locations. Furthermore, not only equipment is available whenever it is needed, diagnostics but it can also be more cost-effective when compared to the cost of hiring a crane to lift a high-power load bank onto a roof or installing long
cable run to a load bank far from the generator. cooled solutions or be installed in the air outlet splitters, which can save you from having to buy separate fans and ventilation systems. Mounting load banks to radiators does not create any additional noise, which is essential for applications where noise control is an important consideration.
PORTABLE LOAD BANKS range of different locations, opting for a portable load bank could be the solution. Businesses offering weight load banks the perfect to carry in the service vans to conduct testing as and when required. the quality control process of new electric vehicle (EV) charging points. The target to roll out 300,000 new charging points across the UK by 2030 means that engineers will need to carry out testing at thousands of sites, making a portable load bank ideal. Other uses for portable load banks include performing pre- commissioning tests on offshore renewable systems. Given that these locations are hard to access, easy manoeuvrability is useful. For these kinds of multi-site applications, where
the power generation source is accessible portable load banks can save money by eliminating the need for installation costs at every location.
load banks, choosing a custom design means that capacity. Tailormade load banks can be designed to provide higher capacity in a compact, easy-to-handle package. designing and producing custom and off-the-shelf load banks for applications including renewables and generator testing. We offer a range of customisation options, including portability, digital interfaces and remote testing.
The uses of load bank testing are wide ranging,
10 December/January 2025 Irish Manufacturing
www.irish-manufacturing.com
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