Power testing solutions for the oil and gas production industry form the world’s leading loadbank manufacturer

What are loadbanks?

Loadbanks, manufactured by Crestchic Limited, provide a means to commission, test and service all types of power sources, including generators, turbines, batteries and fuel cells.

They do this by providing an electrical load which can be controlled remotely and simulate demand in real operating conditions.

Loadbanks can provide a variable resistive load (kW), a resistive/reactive load (kVA) at a variable of fixed power factor or a DC load for the discharge of batteries.

Crestchic’s loadbanks vary in size from 30kW to 6000kVA and are designed to operate at 3 phase, 50 or 60Hz. The larger units are containerised and transportable. Being modular, they can be linked together to provide loads of 50MVA and above. Normally the loads operate at 380 volts to 480 volts 50/60Hz.

To accommodate higher voltages Crestchic can supply transformers to step down the test supply to suit the loadbanks.

Testing turbines on oil and gas platforms

Crestchic has many year’s experience in testing and commissioning in the oil and gas industries and has been involved in large projects around the world and has recently successfully completed a 50MVA test for an onshore oil pumping station in the Far East.

Commissioning offshore turbines using loadbanks is essential, as a failure can be difficult and expensive to rectify once the platform is at sea.

Loss of production revenue can be millions of dollars.

The testing involves incremental steps up to full load, to check turbine parameters for both fuel consumption and different types of fuel. In addition, monitoring vibration, temperature and airflow will ensure peak efficiency once the facility is on station and working to capacity.

At the same time, it is possible to simulate the effect of a large block load being introduced or withdrawn, e.g. a pump or compressor, measuring the recovery interval (‘transient response’) until the engine speed returns to normal.

This migrates against the risk that the engine does not recover and the alternator fails.

Technical Details

Resistive loadbanks from 2kW to 60000kW.
Resistive/Reactive loadbanks from 250kVA to 6000kVA.
Simple manual controls or a programmable microprocessor based system using a laptop as a remote control terminal, incremental 1kW/1kVA load steps. Intelligent paralleling of loadbanks with flexible reporting using full on-screen instrumentation and print-out of test data.
Designed to operate at 3 phase 50 or 60Hz, unity (1.0) power factor (resistive) or 0.8 lagging power factor (resistive/reactive).
Standard voltages of 380 volts to 48 volts, with other voltages available.
Rated for continuous operations inn ambient temperatures of up to 50oC.
Loadbanks built into ISO type containers have fork lift pockets and twist lock corners for easy handling.
All loadbanks are built to a high industrial standard in the UK and the manufacturing processes are certified to BSEN ISO 9001.
Packaged transformers are available from 2.9MVA to 5.9MVA, oil cooled, supplied in ISO type containers with integral MV and LV switch gear. Suitable for either ‘step up’ or ‘step down’ operations at voltages from 2.5 to 15kV.