Many traders at events and exhibitions all over the country have to pay the hosts for temporary electrical installations for the period of the show.
Obviously, power is needed on a temporary basis for lighting, power and heating.
These are not easy or quick to install as the installers face unique challenges in terms of safety including the risk of electric shocks, fire hazards and mechanical stress. To mitigate these risks, compliance with safety standards is obviously absolutely essential and particular care of shielding all wiring from mechanical damage, installation of fire-resistant materials around high – heat equipment and proper grounding and bonding of structures and proper use of RCD’s. This itself requires a lot of pre-planning and makes it necessary for most organisers to have to charge significant sums for the electricity supply sometimes just for one or two day events.
Trade stands now are increasingly looking at other options which are equally safe and so much more efficient and cost effective and that is the use of portable power stations. These range hugely in size depending on the trader’s requirements and can in most instances just be lifted into place and used during the trading hours and removed each evening to be recharged from the mains elsewhere. Most traders are well versed in their power needs and so easily identify what sized portable power station suits their specific needs. This is a very straightforward calculation by multiplying all the wattage requirements of each appliance by the number of hours they will be in use for. Care has to be taken if certain devices are likely to be live as the same time and the starting or surge wattage requirements may take them over the surge capacity of the machine. A crude rule of thumb is that on portable power stations the surge output is double that of the running output – so a station with standard running wattage of 2000w can deal with a 4000w.
This relatively new highly efficient ‘plug and play’ product is extremely popular with the smaller traders and stallholders due to the ease and cost saving. The units are physically durable and have a significant life expectancy usually well over 5000 cycles meaning the costs can be spready over a number of events for many years. They can also be used in many other scenarios both work, home and leisure related when not needed at events.
Each portable power station boosts a number of different outlets ranging anywhere from 5 up to sometimes 14, with AC outlets in plentiful supply for multiple use plus DC and USB A & C.
The recharge time of portable power stations is highly important as this varies significantly from manufacturer to manufacturer. We are authorised suppliers of the Ecoflow range of products, who are one of the most highly respected and largest manufacturers in the world. A large proportion of their products can be recharged totally in under 1 hour via a mains AC supply but can also be charged via solar panels, DC outlet from a vehicle or an alternator charger in vehicle which can recharge at an impressive rate of 800w, meaning a 1500w portable power station can be charge in around 2 hours of driving.
