The future of power testing
Megawatt AC/DC Test Systems for Modern Energy and Industrial Applications
In recent decades, electricity supply has undergone major changes and the use of electrical energy has continued to increase. This has been accompanied by various challenges, including those relating to the testing required in the development and production of electrical (power conversion) equipment.
Whereas in the past test setups of around 1–10 kW/kVA were sufficient for many applications, over the last 5 to 10 years we have seen a rapid increase in demand for power test equipment in the range of 100–1,000 kW/kVA. And today, test setups of 1 MW/MVA and higher are no longer an exception.
Megawatt applications include systems and processes that operate in the megawatt range (1 MW = 1,000,000 watts). This may relate to:
- Energy production: such as wind turbines, solar energy installations, and thermal power stations.
- Energy storage: such as large-scale and local batteries and storage systems.
- Industrial processes: for example, heavy industrial machinery or electrolysis equipment for hydrogen production.
- Electric vehicles: in particular charging stations for trucks and boats or high-power train systems.
For many suppliers of standard, programmable AC/DC test systems, the MW/MVA range was previously not or hardly possible. For such applications, the end user often had to resort to customer-specific developments/configurations.
