US Based Hawthorne Cat has recently made a significant investment in its load bank rental fleet, after agreeing a seven-figure deal with Crestchic Loadbanks. With increased demand for load bank rental throughout the US, the deal will strengthen the market and ensure that customers have access to the latest technology.

Based in San Diego, with locations in the Hawaiian Islands and the Pacific Region, Hawthorne Cat is an official dealer of Cat® diesel generators, including emergency standby, peak shaving, co-generation, standby power systems and testing equipment. As experts in their field, Hawthorne Cat needed load banks that they could trust to meet the exacting needs of their customer base.

Paul Brickman, Sales and Marketing Director at Crestchic, explains, “The US rental market for load banks is highly developed and sophisticated, with demand from military shipyards along the West Coast, along with the ever-expanding data-centre market, resulting in increased demand for medium voltage load banks. While we serve much of the US with our own rental fleets, Hawthorne Cat is a major player in the US market and we’re honoured to work with them to meet the needs of their loyal customer base and get Crestchic technology into the hands of a wider audience.”

To meet increased demand, Hawthorne turned to Crestchic to supply three new 30ft foot containerised 2500 kVA resistive-reactive medium voltage load banks. As specialist manufacturers and suppliers of testing equipment, Crestchic is one of the largest load bank specialists in the world, with the expertise and capability to develop tailor-made and custom-designed load banks of any size at any voltage and frequency.

Paul continues, “40% of the world’s hyperscale data centres are in the US, with further growth forecast. We’re already seeing more demand for data as home working and internet shopping increase due the Coronavirus pandemic, making data centres even more vital to the way we live and work. When power is mission-critical, data centres need to regularly test their back-up power to ensure that there is no downtime if a power outage occurs.”

The West Coast is also home to a number of Naval bases, many offering dry docks which tend to aircraft carriers and submarines. Having power to these facilities is vital to ensuring that the US naval fleet is properly maintained and operational and that the power systems aboard the vessels are fit for purpose. The expanded rental fleet is ideal for this kind of application, reducing the need for capital expenditure to purchase equipment, while giving these critical facilities access to the equipment they need, when they need it.