An international oil company had discovered one of the largest gas reservoirs in offshore Egypt. To harness this potential energy supply, a production facility is required involving gas turbines that would need thorough testing before commissioning.

When commissioning turbines it is expected that they be tested to their full potential - can they achieve maximum load, do they synchronise if multiple units run in parallel, can they take and shed load without any issues?

All units required thorough testing individually at various step loads - from 10% through to 100% - over a 24-hour period to ensure they were mechanically sound. During this period, the load provided by Aggreko needed to remain consistent and available, if not, the test would need to be restarted - delaying commissioning and increasing the fuel cost.

At each load-step, the transient response and effect on voltage and frequency needed to be measured and recorded to ensure compliance with the manufacturer’s specification.

Once each individual turbine has completed the “heat-run,” a second unit would be brought online and synchronised, gradually taking load from one set to the other.

Not all loads are purely resistive and this is the case with large manufacturing sites that have motors and invertors coming on and off line with the needs of production. This can cause the power factor to lead and lag due to the reactive element of the load.

Aggreko’s loadbank had to emulate this load requiring both reactive and resistive elements to ensure a true representation of site conditions was achieved.