its power requirements seem to grow with the amount of power stored... there is a max radius of 2 chunks which, i believe based on my knowledge of chunk loaders, will make the occupied chunk a fully loaded chunk.
there are better ways of loading chunks. if you have access to chicken chunks chunk loader i recommend using that, its cheaper and doesn't require any power. another alternative is to use a vanilla loader which you only need to point a hopper into the adjacent chunk, lots of youtube vids on this. Finally there is the witchery mod's poppit shelves that act as chunk loaders.