You can if you have to. But then you're really only doing a fancy simulation.
I accompanied my dad (power engineer) to a water purification plant where they were testing new equipment for the back up generator. There their weekly tests involved moving the entire plant to the diesel generator and running it of back up power for a couple of hours (once you start a big generator you have to let it run or it wont last long).
Potential problems for your generator that a resistor bank wont capture include, power factor (phase shift from a motor or switching supply), harmonics (from switching power), startup transients (from every power supplies' capacitors).
All these things can trip the generator, or worse, burn it out.
So if you can't test with the real load, supersize it!
P.S. Every test is a simulation of reality. At Fukushima the diesel generators flooded. Lesson - the unknown reason that'll knock out your grid can knock out your backup
P.P.S If you can, gently turning the load back on is very beneficial. Don't flip the master switch that controls all your load - flip a part of your load, wait a while for the system to stabilize, and flip part of it back.
P.S. Every test is a simulation of reality. At Fukushima the diesel generators flooded. Lesson - the unknown reason that'll knock out your grid can knock out your backup
well the lesson there was more like, that it's stupid to put your diesel generators deep in the ground when they should sustain burst sea level raises. (well I think it's never a good idea to do that, I've seen special places to put them even deep inside germany, just because some panicful people that might think that it still could overflow with ground water, etc)
The generators were placed low to ensure they would not be disabled by a major earthquake, as shaking intensity increases with height above ground.
The basement was, according to plan, protected by a seawall.
The height of the seawall failed to take into account the fact that on a subduction tectonic plate, as pressure builds, the land-side plate rises, and as the earthquake relieving that pressure strikes, the land falls -- by as much as several meters.
The seawall's height failed to account for this.
That among other elements, but it proved sufficient to kick off the Fukushima disaster, given other aspects.
In hindsight, placing the generators at ground level in an elevated location might have been a better bet. Or locating the entire generating plant further upslope.
> In hindsight, placing the generators at ground level in an elevated location might have been a better bet. Or locating the entire generating plant further upslope.
yeah, well thats what I meant. I mean they were buried deep...
There were even studies that this was dumb:
and basically tepco knew that. they were just too lazy (it was prolly too cost intensive) to do something against it (i.e. placing them higher or creating water bunkers (u-boot style)..
besides the generators there was also the human failure part. (most of the time human failure happens. I mean If I do not automate something, I might do it right 3 times and the fourth time I most often fail hard...)
I accompanied my dad (power engineer) to a water purification plant where they were testing new equipment for the back up generator. There their weekly tests involved moving the entire plant to the diesel generator and running it of back up power for a couple of hours (once you start a big generator you have to let it run or it wont last long).
Potential problems for your generator that a resistor bank wont capture include, power factor (phase shift from a motor or switching supply), harmonics (from switching power), startup transients (from every power supplies' capacitors).
All these things can trip the generator, or worse, burn it out.
So if you can't test with the real load, supersize it!
P.S. Every test is a simulation of reality. At Fukushima the diesel generators flooded. Lesson - the unknown reason that'll knock out your grid can knock out your backup
P.P.S If you can, gently turning the load back on is very beneficial. Don't flip the master switch that controls all your load - flip a part of your load, wait a while for the system to stabilize, and flip part of it back.