When BSI were looking to expand their power test capabilities, they needed an electronic load that was up to standard.
The BSI (British Standards Institution) is the UK’s National Standards Body. They develop British, European and international standards around a wide range of products and services, as well as providing testing and certification services.
With the push for the automotive industry to electrify, a huge growth area has been testing and certifying EV chargers. Diesel and petrol pumps are compatible with virtually any relevant combustion engine vehicle, whereas the wide variety of EV chargers all require their own testing.
ETPS supplied BSI with three ELPA-SINE AC/DC electronic loads. The loads can operate independently, in single-phase parallel or three-phase configurations.
An Electrical Engineer at BSI said “EV chargers either have an AC or DC output. What makes the ELPA-SINE so useful is that we can test single-phase and three-phase AC chargers, as well as DC models, all with one system. This simplifies our test set-ups greatly.”
DC chargers typically provide the energy straight to the car without the need for conversion. This usually facilitates faster charging.
AC chargers require the vehicle to have an AC-DC converter onboard to charge the energy storage device. Although a slower charge is provided compared to DC, installation into existing infrastructure is often easier as the national grid is AC.
With seven dedicated operating modes, the ELPA-SINE is highly versatile. A leading or lagging power factor can be set with adjustments from unity to zero lagging or leading in 0.01 steps. 
