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Chris

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Hi all,

A friend of mine who owns a shop has asked me if I can do some load balancing on the three phase board in the shop.

In my career I have mostly done domestic and light commercial so three phase load balancing is something I havent yet carried out.

Am i right in thinking it is just a case of assessing what each phase is using and re arranging the DB to more evenly spread the load?

Or is there a lot more to it than that?

Any advice/feedback appreciated.
 
If you have a lot of single phase loads then good luck trying to get them balanced.

Do you have a clamp meter?
 
If you have a lot of single phase loads then good luck trying to get them balanced.

Do you have a clamp meter?

I have not been to the shop but it is your typical small supermarket with freezers/fridges/plenty of lighting and power circuits for the office equipment in the back.

Yes i have a clamp meter.
 
On a DNO supply, a load balancing exercise tends to be triggered by the need to add additional loads/circuits and seeing whether moving some single phase loads between phases yields up sufficient capacity on an already well loaded board (as opposed to doing it for the benefit of the DNO)

I would start by understanding what the owner wants to ultimately achieve and taking some 15 minute measurements for a week to identify demand and trends. Allow for equipment such as Air Conditioning, that may not be in use in November, but would have been heavily used this June & July. Also a good opportunity to look at lighting arrangements and current & monetary savings to be yielded by taking the LED plunge.
 
On a DNO supply, a load balancing exercise tends to be triggered by the need to add additional loads/circuits and seeing whether moving some single phase loads between phases yields up sufficient capacity on an already well loaded board (as opposed to doing it for the benefit of the DNO)

I would start by understanding what the owner wants to ultimately achieve and taking some 15 minute measurements for a week to identify demand and trends. Allow for equipment such as Air Conditioning, that may not be in use in November, but would have been heavily used this June & July. Also a good opportunity to look at lighting arrangements and current & monetary savings to be yielded by taking the LED plunge.

Very helpful information thanks, he is looking at upgrading the lighting to LED in the near future and would like a feed installing for a soon to own ice cream freezer. However at the minute he has just mentioned that he is aware the phases are unbalanced and would like this sorting before any more work carried out.

I will take a few measurements before moving any further with it.

Thank again!
 
So is the way to go about it;

Writing down what circuits are on each phase and what appliances/accessories are on each circuit,

Then using my clamp meter taking readings at each appliance to see what they draw.
Then once I have this information re arrange the DB so that the loads are suitably split across each phase taking into account seasonal/time specific appliances/loads?
 
So is the way to go about it;

Writing down what circuits are on each phase and what appliances/accessories are on each circuit,

Then using my clamp meter taking readings at each appliance to see what they draw.
Then once I have this information re arrange the DB so that the loads are suitably split across each phase taking into account seasonal/time specific appliances/loads?
sounds like a plan. might be an idea to first clamp each phase and see how far out of balance they are. .. might not bee too bad.
 
First thing I would ask is how the owner has become aware of the imbalance. Is it from recent advice by another electrician, has a DNO fuse recently gone, or is it waffle from someone like a fridge mechanic ?

I am not sure on how he has became aware of it currently, he has had a dedicated electrician for quite a few years but he has recently passed. So I think it may have came from him but at the moment im not certain
 
Assuming its a small install a balance of supplies may help. Larger sites also use Power factor correction but thats another story..

A quick look at the board with your clamp meter will show whats going on and whether any juggling about is required..
 
If you have a couple of weeks great , but if not a general look around , some common sense and a clamp meter should do the job.

Why wouldn't you have a couple of weeks? The shop has obviously been running like this for some time so why not take the Time to do the job to the best it can be done.

A load study can help to identify areas where savings can be made and have more benefits in that respect
 

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