Load Bank Testing for Industrial Plants - The Benefits Thereof

by James Spencer Blogger

Interruptions in power grids, blackout and inclement weather and other unavoidable circumstances trigger power outages, sending production at the industrial sites up for a toss. This leads to financial as well as time loss, not to mention the damage of equipment.

This is where load bank testing of power generation equipment at the industrial sites and plants make all the difference. Yes, the majority of these plants and industrial sites have backup generators that play the second line of defence, against such threats. However, that is not enough.

Merely having a backup generator does not play as a safeguard against these threats. That is where testing, as well as maintenance of the backup power system, is so important when it comes to safeguarding the operations of the plant in the event of a power outage.

The Issue of Insufficient Testing And Loadbank Testing

There is a widespread misconception regarding the testing of the backup power system. People think that general, component-by-component testing will provide ground for enough trust in the ability of the system in question, in regards to handling the unscheduled downtimes.

Another school of thought says that testing the prime mover of a system, i.e. its engine, generates enough evidence that shows whether the system is working properly or not.

Loadbank

However, this leads to a terrible loss of production when the plants face power interruption, which causes a malfunction of the power equipment.

Since the backup system is made up of quite a few discrete systems or subsystems that are made by different manufacturers, they fail to come up with the desired testing results and pose as a credible backup.

This is where loadbank testing comes in the picture. While simple testing of the engine and the individual components of the backup system is unable to account for the identical stress applied to the system, and there is no guarantee that the entire system will work together and in harmony in emergency situations.

Resistive Load Bank Testing

When it comes to saving on time, money and involvement, nothing is as effective as those resistive load banks, which produce electrical loads that are applied to the plant’s backup generator, for diagnosing the potential problems.

This type of testing provides a tinge of assurance to the stakeholders that the engine of the generator will work properly at the time of emergencies like sudden power outage.

In fact, using the resistive loadbank is the only and the best way of simulating the actual performance of the power system as and when the load pattern changes, which are reminiscent to a real-time power outage.

These resistive loadbanks not only sufficiently challenge the voltage regulator, but it also gauges how the backup system will be able to handle the voltage plunge in the regulator and how quickly the system will be able to recover from any large step load.

Final Words

A proper system-wide resistive load testing of a plant or the backup power generation of a facility is the best way for identifying the weaknesses in case of unscheduled power outages.

Thus, establishing a long term relationship with a provider of a loadbank is beneficial for the stakeholders...for obvious reasons.