Programmable Power Blog

According to U.S. Department of Energy, wind power is rapidly proliferating with wind installations outpacing solar installations in the United States. The DoE projects that U.S.-based onshore and offshore installations will more than triple and reach 404.25 GW across 48 states in 2050. Each wind turbine that rolls out in the coming years to help meet this projection will require extensive testing.

White Paper Details How to Choose Air- and Water-Cooled Electronic Loads

If you are working in the renewable-energy field, you can benefit from using a programmable DC electronic load to test batteries, fuel cells, and solar panels. Even if you are working with more conventional energy sources, an electronic load can be a useful instrument to have on hand to test power supplies, battery chargers, ultracapacitors, and other devices that generate a DC voltage.

In the race for renewable energy, solar is gaining ground on wind generation, which currently holds a lead over solar. In its July “Short-term energy outlook,” the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that next year, additional solar capacity coming online will exceed additional wind capacity for the first time, the EIA reports.

AMETEK Programmable Power Supports Team Sonnenwagen Aachen

Team Sonnenwagen Aachen, equipped with an Asterion DC programmable power supply from AMETEK Programmable Power, has spent nearly 14 months designing and building its third-generation solar-powered racecar, dubbed Covestro Photon. In October, team members will take the car to Morocco to compete with other European solar teams in a new event—the Solar Challenge Morocco 2021 (SCM). The SCM is a five-day event with five different stages covering 2,500 km.

Modern education and research are essential to creating the technology of the future. Good education creates the next wave of engineers and scientists, while research gives us all the tools and new scientific understanding to fuel our best designs.  

The wave of renewable energy is not coming – it is already here. Due to a mix of consumer and regulatory pressure, renewable energy is transforming the power and energy sector, creating new opportunities and challenges for design engineers.  

The right power supply can make all the difference. When you are creating a new product or setting up a test system, how you power your designs can have a major impact on their performance, efficiency and energy usage. Making the wrong choice can lead to: 

If you want to create next-level products in the military and aerospace sector, then you need better power and testing solutions. Only with the right power and test equipment can you respond to the industry’s rising demands with qualified products that meet performance and efficiency requirements, while also upholding government regulations.  

The AMETEK Programmable Power AMECare® Reliability Assurance™ service level agreement (SLA) program is designed to provide “white glove” support for mission-critical power and test devices. It includes regular preventative maintenance, break-fix support, and legacy upgrades beginning with a product’s purchase and extending throughout its entire lifecycle.

Electronic loads are used in a variety of tests, including power supply tests and battery tests. You can program them to provide exactly the kind of load that you need for the device you are testing.

Electronic loads, such as the Sorensen SL Series of DC Electronic Loads, are instruments that you would use to provide a programmable load when testing voltage and current sources, including power supplies and batteries. Modern electronic loads are actually sophisticated electronic test instruments that can offer a number of different modes, including Constant Current (CC) mode, Constant Resistance (CR) mode, Constant Voltage (CV) mode, and Constant Power (CP) mode.

To ensure that automotive electronics can withstand the voltage transients induced on the power bus, companies use expensive arbitrary waveform generation and coupling networks during the design phase. For production test, however, a simpler and less expensive means for simulating bus voltage variations and transients is required. For many transient tests, all you need is a switching power supply and an electronic load.

Modern electronic loads, such as the SL Series, are versatile test instruments that should be part of every test engineer's toolbox. Here are some tips on how to use them properly.

In many applications, a DC power supply has to drive a load with a large ripple component. Examples of this type of load are DC-AC inverters, DC-DC converters, and DC motor loads. Linear supplies can normally handle this kind of load easily, but when you use a switching power supply, such as the Sorensen SG Series or Sorensen ASD Series, to drive this type of load, you may encounter some unexpected (and undesirable) problems.

The nature of the load that will be connected to the AC power source is very important in determining the correct type of supply. Generally loads can be classified as linear or non-linear. Linear loads consist exclusively of reactive, inductive or resistive components and can thus be modeled as an LCR network.

Solar Array Simulation Enables Better PV Inverter Testing for Manufacturers

Electronic loads have many different applications, including testing power converters and modulating a current supply while performing other tests. They are easy-to-use and provide much higher throughput than resistors when varying loads are needed.

You can use electronic loads to test many different devices, including

One of the most important specifications for a DC power supply is load regulation. Load regulation is a measure of how well a supply maintains its output voltage when the output current changes. Good load regulation will help ensure that the power supply will deliver the voltage your circuit or system needs.