Crestchic, one of the world’s largest suppliers of load bank technology, has recently added vertical-discharge load banks to its rental fleet, offering customers a compact solution with a small operational footprint.
Available as a 1000kW resistive-only load bank, the vertical-exhaust makes the system suitable for use in smaller or more urban areas. By adding the product to the rental fleet, the company is able to fulfil requirements for temporary applications with limited space.
Joanne Price at Crestchic explains, “Businesses are becoming wise to the fact that back-up power is mission-critical, which means an increase in demand for load banks. Many of our rental customers operate in applications and environments where space is at a premium. A horizontal-exhaust load bank requires a much greater distance around the load bank in order to operate safely, which doesn’t really lend itself to compact spaces. Our vertical-blow model discharges upwards, posing no safety issue for operators or pedestrians and enabling the load bank to be used in a much smaller area. When working in tight city-centre spaces, especially in London, the vertical discharge is much safer and increasingly demanded by our customers.”
The most commonly used type of load bank, a resistive load bank is used to test back-up generators and other power sources at full capacity, ensuring that they will operate effectively when called upon. For the load bank to operate effectively and safely, electrical energy is converted to heat via resistors, which is then air-cooled so that it can dissipate. The new vertical-discharge load banks, which are available via Crestchic’s rental business, direct this hot air upwards, away from people, buildings or site structures.
Joann concludes, “Making this product available for rent allows us to offer load bank testing in applications that would often be too tight to accommodate the more common horizontal-discharge units. They also offer 1000kW in a single-box, which is a lot of load for such a compact footprint.”
