Load Test?

[revjames]

I have been doing a small job in bringing the electrical installation of a local church up to scratch. The original supply was a 3ph service head and 4 meters (not sure why) Having looked at it in depth, my opinion is they simply need a 100A 1 phase supply - which will also save some money too.

The DNO have come back and asked for a 'load test' to be done..

Can't say I've heard of that. any ideas?

 

[ProDave]

Well it sounds like they are suspicious that by going from a 3 phase to a single phase supply, you might be overloading the supply.

also these days, on a new build, you have to specify how many KVA you want the supply rated for.

So simply go and turn EVERYTHING on in the church all at the same time and measure the current on each phase. Then you can calculate the total KVA rating you need.

Type it up as a posh report on headed paper. Job done.

 

[wozz]

never heard of it, have you got any real load in there that is concerning them such as stacks of electric heaters?

 

[Evans Electric]

Revo, they like to be told what the load will be , as said, in KVA , its how they see everything , in KVA .

How is the church heated  by the way?

I've noticed a lot of them are lit with 500W TH floods  , Not the best idea !!

 

[Sidewinder]

Chuck a power analyser at it and turn a reasonable load on or work out a guesstimate of total connected load & x by 0.3 like the DNO do for their cable!

However, do consider electric heating separately!

Why 4 meters?

4 single phase supplies, off the same phase or 3 different phases.

 

[revjames]

The heating is gas

hot water electrical

main hall has some TH lighting and about 2KW of overhead (stage) lighting

hand driers in 2 toilets 2KW ea

tea urns, kettles, fridge, computers, projector etc

2 Rings

Thats about it......

 

[Sidewinder]

60A 1ph work it to kVA, job's a good un!

 

[steptoe]

it might be an idea to check if your DNO has an expected KVA ,

I know when we did new installs on the IoM the MEA had an expected figure that you had to give them, whether you needed that much or not.!    

if it was different it usually meant a whole ballache of questions etc.