Specifying a high voltage load bank is a process that requires the consideration of many variables at the best of times. When that load bank is the biggest produced in the UK in the last decade and has to perform silently in sub zero temperatures, the task is an even more complex one. Peter Duncan, managing director of Leicester based Cressall Resistors explains how his company tackled the task at a Rolls Royce installation in Montreal, Canada's second largest city

Rolls Royce's 86MW load bank is the largest ever produced by Cressall and is used in one of the power systems giant's development facilities for testing gas turbines. It was installed in 2000 at Rolls-Royce Canada's Test Cell no. 7, beside the Lachine Canal in Atwater; a suburb of Montreal. At 60-metres long the load bank is around five and half times the length of a double decker bus and is cooled entirely by convection. Despite its gargantuan proportions it is almost completely silent in use; an important consideration in a suburban location that is the sixth largest conurbation in Canada and the United States.

Founded in 1929 and manufacturing continuously from the same location at Hemiksem near the Port of Antwerp in Belgium, Lamifil develops, produces and sells high quality and specialised copper and aluminium as well as aluminium alloy and copper alloy wire and conductors. Mainly targeting electrical utilities and railways, its wire rod, drawn wire, sector shaped wire and conductors are designed to improve efficiency and capacity

Lamifil produces a range of overhead conductors for electrical transmission and distribution networks, including a range of high-conductivity all aluminium alloy conductors (AAAC); high-temperature, low-sag Gap conductors and the new high-efficiency aluminium conductor composite core (ACCC) conductors. The company also produces a full range of high-speed railway overhead electrification systems, including those based on copper, copper silver, copper magnesium, copper tin an copper cadmium alloys.

Power quality problems can be caused by many different phenomena and are often  difficult to identify. These difficult power quality problems, however, can be very expensive especially when multiple contractors are involved as nobody is keen to take the blame. Sometimes it may feel as if some supernatural force is at work, but with the right equipment trained engineers can identify almost any power quality problem ‘and lay the ghost to rest' explains John Outram of Outram Research

A particularly challenging power quality problem existed at a pub in Kent. Part of a new development, the pub was a new building that suffered problems with its power supply soon after it opened. After only three months an extractor fan in the kitchen failed, requiring a new inverter, and then a few weeks later the fan itself failed. Subsequently the landlord had to deal with computerized tills going down, lights failing, and the burglar alarm sounding whilst the pub was open.

When Aegon decided to create a primary European hub at its Edinburgh facility, the company invested over six million pounds upgrading the site's infrastructure

Aegon is one of the world's largest life insurance and pension companies, employing over 29,000 people, across 20 countries and servicing over 40 million customers around the globe. Its Edinburgh facility, which was selected to become the primary European hub and a vital link in the company's disaster recovery plan, recently underwent a £6.5m infrastructure upgrade (the largest in the facility's history). The extensive work included the design and installation of a new totally electrical power infrastructure - including a UPS power protection solution for its mission-critical data centre - supplied by UPSL.