Generator Load Bank Testing

Prove your standby generator will carry the load — before you need it to.

Staged full-load testing on site, with a written report prepared by an electrical engineer. Melbourne and regional Victoria.

A monthly no-load run is not a test

Most standby generators are exercised off-load for fifteen minutes a month. The engine starts, the hours tick over, someone signs the log book. Nothing about that tells you whether the set will carry your building.

An unloaded run doesn’t prove:

• The alternator can hold voltage when the load steps on
• The governor can recover frequency inside spec
• The cooling system can cope at full output for hours rather than minutes
• The fuel system can sustain full flow
• The transfer switch will actually transfer under load

Worse, running a diesel set lightly loaded month after month causes wet stacking — unburnt fuel and carbon glazing the bores and fouling injectors and turbochargers. The exercise regime meant to protect the asset is quietly degrading it.

For many generators, the first genuine full-load test they ever get is the outage they were bought for.

What the test involves

We connect a resistive load bank at the switchboard and bring the set up through its real operating range — typically 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% of rated output — then hold at full load long enough for the engine and cooling system to reach thermal equilibrium.

Load is applied in controlled steps rather than dumped on, so how the set responds to a block load is measured rather than assumed.

Recorded through the test:

• Voltage regulation and phase balance at each load step
• Frequency deviation and recovery time on load application and rejection
• Harmonics and total harmonic distortion under load
• Coolant and exhaust gas temperatures
• Oil pressure and engine parameters
• Fuel consumption against rated output
• Transfer switch operation under load, where applicable

The report is the deliverable

Anyone can bring a load bank to site. What you’re paying for is what comes back afterwards.

Reports are prepared by a qualified electrical engineer and include measured results at every load step, power quality traces, photographs of the installation, defects observed with recommended rectification, and a clear statement of whether the set met its rated output.

It’s a document you can hand to an auditor, an insurer, a building owner or a board — not a tick sheet.

Who tests under load

• Healthcare — hospitals, day surgeries and patient-care facilities with essential electrical supply obligations
• Fire protection — diesel-driven fire pump sets subject to routine service requirements
• Aged care and retirement living — where loss of power is a resident safety issue, not an inconvenience
• Data rooms and communications sites — where the standby set and UPS have to interact correctly under real load
• Water, wastewater and utilities — remote pump stations and treatment plants running unattended
• Councils and commercial buildings — emergency lighting, lifts, security and life safety systems on essential supply
• New installations — commissioning and acceptance testing before handover, so defects are the supplier’s problem rather than yours

If you’re not sure what applies to your site, tell us what the generator backs up and we’ll tell you what’s usually required.

Why Apex

• Engineering, not just equipment. Testing is carried out and reported by an electrical engineer with a high-voltage protection background in rail and utility networks.
• A-grade licensed and insured. Switchboard connection under an A-grade electrical licence, with full public liability and professional indemnity.
• Independent. We don’t sell generators. If the set is sound, the report says so.
• Sized to your set. Load banks from small single-phase standby units through to large three-phase installations.
• Out of hours. Testing scheduled around your operations, not ours.

What we find, and what to do about it

A load test is usually the first honest look a standby system has had in years. Common findings include marginal starting batteries that pass a resting voltage check and fail under crank load, obsolete controllers with no spares available, blocked radiators, degraded fuel, and transfer switches that have never been proven under load.

Where the controller is at end of life, a modern replacement gives you proper engine protection, event logging and remote communications — typically a fraction of the cost of replacing the set.

And because a tested generator is only proven until the day after the test, remote monitoring can be added so mains failure, start failure, low fuel and battery condition reach you by SMS or email the moment they occur, rather than at next year’s inspection.

Book a load bank test

Tell us the generator’s rating, make and location, and when it was last tested under load. We’ll come back with a fixed price and a date.

Call 1300 150 361
Email hire@apexgeneratorhire.com.au

Servicing Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, Gippsland and regional Victoria.