Can I Use Motors to Create an Efficient Electric Load Simulator?

[Dan Kerr]

I would like to build an electric load simulator for testing purposes along the lines of this link:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/l...275321.pdf?arnumber=4275321&authDecision=-203

A salt box would work (I have an old water softener tank), as would resistor banks, electric heaters and fans but these items give up the load as heat and are costly/dangerous to operate. Is there a "simple" way to have a motor turn another motor (as a generator) and insert the power back into the circuit? This would be a much more efficient way to create a power load. I have motors lying around, but am in way over my head here.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

 

[berkeman]

I would like to build an electric load simulator for testing purposes along the lines of this link:

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/l...275321.pdf?arnumber=4275321&authDecision=-203

A salt box would work (I have an old water softener tank), as would resistor banks, electric heaters and fans but these items give up the load as heat and are costly/dangerous to operate. Is there a "simple" way to have a motor turn another motor (as a generator) and insert the power back into the circuit? This would be a much more efficient way to create a power load. I have motors lying around, but am in way over my head here.

Can someone point me in the right direction?

Thanks.

You might look into cogeneration systems, where locally generated electricity can be put back into the grid with credit given by power companies. I don't know how they synchronize and add power back into the grid, but the technology certainly exists. Your local generator load would be the power source for the cogeneration adder/combiner circuit, whatever that is.

It looks like your setup would fall under the "micro cogeneration" classification:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogeneration

.

 

[Bob S]

Home-base alternative energy systems (solar PV, windmills) sometimes use grid-synchronized sine-wave inverters to sell power back to the utility. For this to work, you will need to use a DC brush motor as a generator (no induction motor will work). Search Google for "grid tie inverters".