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MarkyMark76

Hello,

I'm a first time poster and someone with only a little electrical knowledge. I am certainly not an electrician. So why am i posting here? Well, i / we looking at starting up a new business and one of the pieces of equipment that we're looking to have installed is a bloody big furnace. My various googling brought me in here so i thought i'd try my luck!

We are currently putting together the business plan and costings involved. One of the problems we have come across is finding an industrial unit with what i think is the required incoming power supply. I stress the "i think" part.

This bloody big furnace has a 900kW heater and 2x280kW blowers (1460kW). If my reading has been in any way shape or form accurate then we'd be looking at having a supply in the region of ~1700kVA allowing for a power factor of 0.85 to get this bad boy started. My assumption is that once running and at operating temp the power requirements would drop considerably. Currently we can't find any units with even a quarter of that. Plus all the other electrical equipment we'd have installed.

Can we really be looking at a supply in that order of magnitude, and do they even exist without being installed to order at massive cost?? I've requested more accurate power requirements from the manufacturer of the furnace but no luck so far.

I suppose at this point i should give the masses the opportunity to tell me to sod off and stop polluting the board with my rubbish!! I won't be offended, i recognise this is a one way flow of information as i have nothing to contribute to the board!

Thanks (?) in advance,
Mark
 
hey up, welcome.

i can certainly say that i cant help in anyway!! im currently doing a shop in leeds with a 45kva supply and thats big for me. cant even imagine 1700kva.

would you perhaps be needing a 11kv supply or something, not sure if you can get smaller ones, like 5kv maybe, either way your at over 4500 Amps (i think!!! lol)(prob wrong!!)

hope some one comes on that can help properly!, ill be watchin cloesly out of sheer interest!

whats this furnace for? is it anything like what "corus" have at sheffield?
 
That is a big bugger.

Before you get too worried about your supply requirement some of the information you will require from the manufacturer is the start up method, is it a staged build up and the maximum peak loading and time duration of same. As you say once up and running things should stabilize down a bit but your power requirements will have to cope with whatever the peak loading is. Once you get the full info from the manufacturer post it here and between all our grey cells we should be able to help you out.

What is the furnace for? (being nosey)
 
Thanks for the swift and friendly responses!!

It's a furnace used for glass processing. Certainly nothing as big as the stuff that Corus is using. The model we are looking at is fairly high throughput which i think is where the power demand comes from.

Will post any additional info as i get it!!

Thanks again.
 
When you're looking to install large industrial equipment here in the US, the first stop is to schedule a meeting with the power company engineers to determine geographically where capacity like that even exists on their lines. From that meeting you'll generate sort of a "map". Use those guidelines to search out a building to house your industrial equipment, and have the appropriate utility service constructed.

This is very important.... you cannot just fall in love with a building someplace and expect you're going to be able to get 1500kw off the nearby lines to supply your gear. Start your search with the power company and go from there. With a little luck, they may even know of vacant space that is already wired with the capacity you need.

I don't know how things work in the UK, but in the US, you're probably going to be bringing primary in the building (tens of thousands of volts) and installing a customer owned transformer and switchgear to get it down to the voltage you need for your furnace.

For perspective's sake, this is the sort of transformer you'd be dealing with for 1500KVA:

Large industrial installation query {filename} | ElectriciansForums.net
 
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Thats a biggy. Do you want it wiring up ? I know a good chap who can supply the switchgear !

Dont expect this to be cheap to connect. It wont be....................AT ALL !
 
When you're looking to install large industrial equipment here in the US, the first stop is to schedule a meeting with the power company engineers to determine geographically where capacity like that even exists on their lines. From that meeting you'll generate sort of a "map". Use those guidelines to search out a building to house your industrial equipment, and have the appropriate utility service constructed.

This is very important.... you cannot just fall in love with a building someplace and expect you're going to be able to get 1500kw off the nearby lines to supply your gear. Start your search with the power company and go from there. With a little luck, they may even know of vacant space that is already wired with the capacity you need.

I don't know how things work in the UK, but in the US, you're probably going to be bringing primary in the building (tens of thousands of volts) and installing a customer owned transformer and switchgear to get it down to the voltage you need for your furnace.

For perspective's sake, this is the sort of transformer you'd be dealing with for 1500KVA:

Large industrial installation query {filename} | ElectriciansForums.net

With the decline in uk manufactureing there must be loads of industrial sites or factorys with the capacity, nice xformer job by the way ,shame its been trashed by the cow poke who did the conduit on the wall,
 
I just hope your end product has a high value:costs ratio with respect to your input energy costs AND that for the sake of the business plan, that it can be assured that the 'added value' component will keep pace with the practically exponential rise in electricity prices.
 
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hi, can someone explain just what is wrong with the conduit in realistic terms? im normally all for quality and all that and cant really see anything that wrong with it!!
 
hi, can someone explain just what is wrong with the conduit in realistic terms? im normally all for quality and all that and cant really see anything that wrong with it!!
Where they turned the corner, the bends and offsets don't match, plus that was a strange approach. The 4" square junction box on the back wall had to have the one conduit offset into the knockout, probably due to poor planning running them down that strut rack. Details, details. Not the most hideous things a man can do, but not perfect. I certainly wouldn't tear it out, but I'd counsel the guy who installed it on how he could do it better next go round.
 
yeah i can see the bends in the corner and the offset going into the box, but you never know the full story, you can try and plan everything to the last mm/wire etc, but what happens if you install all this and then client says oh i need this as well etc etc, that offset going into the box could of been totally unavoidable under certain customer fault conditions!!
 
Hello,

I'm a first time poster and someone with only a little electrical knowledge. I am certainly not an electrician. So why am i posting here? Well, i / we looking at starting up a new business and one of the pieces of equipment that we're looking to have installed is a bloody big furnace. My various googling brought me in here so i thought i'd try my luck!

We are currently putting together the business plan and costings involved. One of the problems we have come across is finding an industrial unit with what i think is the required incoming power supply. I stress the "i think" part.

This bloody big furnace has a 900kW heater and 2x280kW blowers (1460kW). If my reading has been in any way shape or form accurate then we'd be looking at having a supply in the region of ~1700kVA allowing for a power factor of 0.85 to get this bad boy started. My assumption is that once running and at operating temp the power requirements would drop considerably. Currently we can't find any units with even a quarter of that. Plus all the other electrical equipment we'd have installed.

Can we really be looking at a supply in that order of magnitude, and do they even exist without being installed to order at massive cost?? I've requested more accurate power requirements from the manufacturer of the furnace but no luck so far.

I suppose at this point i should give the masses the opportunity to tell me to sod off and stop polluting the board with my rubbish!! I won't be offended, i recognise this is a one way flow of information as i have nothing to contribute to the board!

Thanks (?) in advance,
Mark


just to get this back on track
surely the 1.7 figure is across all three phases ?.wouldnt you need to divide it across the phases for an accurate measurement of power required
 
but arn't the phases crossed<<<
Nope, they look reversed but they aint. Big mistakes have been made ryb on looking from front, but they connect byr at rear, like a mirror image. Big mistakes by me in the past -;) but it only took 4 hours or so to put them right...no damage done.

Talking about bends, worked at Aldermaston when built, I guy there went round with a template to check on all micc bends, some big stuff as well...i real pain, all bends had to have exact same form, I only had to alter about 2 of mine, thinking about it I only did two -;)
 
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