Crestchic says loadbanks can reduce worrying stats around the lack of energy resilience

While predicting interruptions and taking preventative actions were advocated as the key to increased operational resilience, Paul Brickman, Sales and Marketing Director at Crestchic says loadbanks are a simple and effective solution. He says: “While most businesses understand the importance of having a robust back-up generator in place, they do not consider what would happen if the back-up generator didn’t meet the critical loads it’s meant to when called upon. That’s where loadbanks come in – they are the unsung heroes of energy back-up.”

 Loadbanks develop an electrical load which is then applied to an electrical power source that can effectively simulate power failure under full load demand, thereby ensuring that all generators, controls and switch panels function as required in real conditions.

 Facilities such as data centres and hospitals rely on a constant stream of reliable power to remain operational, with the immediate and significant consequences of failure being only too clear.

Paul supports Centrica’s powerful message that there is a phenomenon of ‘unrealistic optimism’ when it comes to energy resilience. He says: “The headline finding from the report says businesses are risking ?2.8m of annual revenue through lack of energy resilience, so why is there such a high percentage of businesses with no plan in place? It’s because people don’t think it will happen to them. It may come as a surprise to many that it’s much more likely an outage will occur now than 20 years ago.  This is because there is less of a buffer of power available nowadays.’

It may come as a surprise to many that it’s much more likely an outage will occur now than 20 years ago, as there is less of a buffer of power available nowadays. As highlighted by National Grid’s recent report on frequency response reserve, the amount of system inertia has been reducing in recent years which results in the system frequency becoming more volatile closer to real time and therefore susceptible to potential brownouts. As the Centrica report states, this is due to the replacement of steady ‘base-load’ generation methods with more sustainable, renewable energy sources.”

National Grid’s report outlines its existing Enhanced Frequency Response (EFR) product will improve operation of the system, but in its current form is not necessarily the optimum design of a fast-acting product. While decreased system inertia is high on the agenda of National Grid, there is not yet a robust solution in place, making it even more crucial that businesses implement further measures to protect their power systems.

“We fully support the message Centrica is putting out there and can’t stress enough how important loadbanks are in the bigger picture. Given that the cost of a loadbank is typically only a fraction of that of the systems which it supports, it makes sound commercial sense.”