Balfour Beatty use Clare Instruments Testers

Balfour Beatty Engineering Services (BBES), is using an advanced tester from Clare Instruments to improve the electrical safety testing of its power installations.

The Power Systems division of the company focuses on the power industry and is a leader in the design, manufacture, installation, test, commissioning, and turnkey project management of EHV transmission and distribution substations including all associated civil work.

The company has replaced its previous electrical safety tester with a new HAL Combi to improve the accuracy and reliability of its product commissioning procedures.

The HAL can undertake a wider range of electrical tests on the substation control and protection panels produced by BBES and then provides detailed analysis of each individual panel including performance and outputs.

Stuart Glennie, supervisor at BBES based in Aberdeen, was impressed by the HAL’s safety features. He added:

“We opted for the HAL Combi as it proved to be far safer, and a much more compact test set than the one we were using before.”

This is an excerpt, read the full story here.

Useful Links

Clare Homepage

Contact Clare

HAL Combi HIPOT Tester Product Page

What is a HIPOT Tester?

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Hipot is an abbreviation for High Potential.

A hipot tester is an electronic device used to verify the electrical insulation in a device or other wired assembly that has the potential to fail & shock someone. It generally consists of:

1. A high voltage source.
2. A current meter.
3. A switching matrix used to connect the high voltage source and the current meter to all of the contact points in a cable.

Hipot testers may also have a microcontroller and a display to automate the testing process and display the testing results.

In normal conditions, any electrical device will produce a small amount of current leakage due to the nature of the product (voltage & internal capacitance). If the insulation within a product fails (due to a design flaw or fault), the current leakage can reach dangerous levels resulting in injury or even death to anyone who may come into contact with the product.

Hipot testing is used to test the integrity of the insulation of the product & a Hipot tester is the device used to provide this information.

In a typical Hipot test, high voltage is applied between a product's current-carrying conductors and its metallic chassis. The resulting current that flows through the insulation, known as leakage current, is monitored by the hipot tester.

Useful Links

Wikipedia page on Hipot & Hipot testing

Clare, part of the Seaward Group are the UKs leading manufacturer of high quality Hipot Testing equipment