Solving poor Power Quality (PQ)

A win-win opportunity for installers and their clients

In our increasingly digital economy, maintaining Power Quality (PQ) is a

growing problem. For many business users, the cost of poor PQ is even higher
than their electricity bill. Although solutions are being installed, the problem is
still largely underestimated, mainly because the losses are often hidden.
Revealing those losses and proposing a cost-effective mix of solutions is an
opportunity for the skilled contractor to create a win-win situation with cost-
conscious, quality-minded clients.
The growth in the use of power electronic equipment influences PQ in two ways.
Power electronics, built-in computer power supplies, energy saving lamps, and motor
driven systems with variable speed control are generating first, harmonic
disturbances. Due to the prevalence of these systems, nearly all-electric grids
nowadays suffer from harmonic currents. They result in additional heat losses and
premature equipment failure.
Second, the very loads that disturb the system are themselves increasingly sensitive
to PQ disturbances. And when electronic equipment suffers from voltage dips and
outages, it can result in lost production, damaged equipment, idle personnel, and lost
data. Singly or combined, these effects can lead to postponed revenue, a negative
impact on cash flow, loss of goodwill from customers, and even loss of market share.
Very few industrial or office sites are trouble free, and most suffer from several PQ
issues at once.

A gap of two nines

Concerning outages, a useful rule of thumb is that digital society needs an availability
of ‘6 nines’ (99.9999%). However European distribution networks typically supply an
availability of only three to four nines (99.9 to 99.99%). To compound the problem,
given the current energy market, it is unlikely that the quality of supply will increase
significantly in the coming years. Utilities supply to a base level of quality according
to the European standard (EN 50160), and it is up to the users to implement
mitigation measures should this base level be insufficient. This is where contractors
can play an important role. They can alert clients to the problem, explain why
improving PQ is a sensible investment, and provide cost-effective solutions.
A best practice working method
PQ problems typically have no single generic solution, which presents another
interesting challenge for the contractor. The optimal solution needs to be tailored to
the characteristics of the site. This includes the quality of the local voltage supply, the
type of loads installed, and the sensitivity of the equipment to disturbances.
The following best practice PQ audit shows how to determine the optimal tailor-made
solution.
¾ The first step is data collection. Advanced monitoring solutions are available to
measure the quality of the local voltage supply. They register the types of
event, the location, and the frequency with which they occur.
¾ The next step involves an assessment of the equipment installed to determine
its sensitivity to each type of PQ event, and the financial consequences of
malfunction or failure. By combining all of this information, the cost of each
type of PQ event can be estimated as well as the total annual cost of poor PQ
at the site.
¾ The reduced cost of poor PQ due to reduced sensitivity (improved immunity)
can be calculated for each available mitigation measure. Adding this to the
annualized cost of the investment yields the type of graph shown in Figure 1.

$500.000

$400.000 Solution cost

Damage due to sags
$300.000

$200.000

$100.000

$0
base case - no Primary static Service entrance Protect machine Combined static
changes switch energy storage (2 controls and switch with
MVA) winders controls
protection

This allows for an accurate economic comparison between the various types
of mitigation solutions.
¾ Along with these hard figures, various soft benefits of good PQ can be taken
into account as well. Chief among these are the increased continuity of
operation, risk-reduction, and better staff safety and well being.
Detailed understanding makes the difference
The best practice given above may seem a complex process. In actual fact, it is even
more complex since it should cover more than a dozen problem areas for which an
even larger number of solutions exist. Most companies have some notion of PQ and
many have already installed some kind of solution. However contractors can make a
big difference if they have a detailed and complete understanding of the subject.
They are then in the best position to point out the unexpected costs of poor PQ by
determining all the causes and consequences. They are also perfectly positioned to
propose the optimal mix of solutions, tailored to the local conditions, that yields the
largest total cost saving for the site.

What is poor Power Quality?

PQ can be defined as the extent to which electrical power:
• Is continuously available
• Is within voltage tolerances
• Is within frequency tolerances
• Varies according to a pure noise-free sinusoidal wave shape

The five most common PQ defects are:

Under or over voltage Dips or surges

350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
-50 5 10 15 20
-100
Transients -150 Harmonics
-200
-250
-300
-350

Blackouts
 • Blackouts
• Over or under voltage
• Dips and surges
• Harmonic distortion
• Transients

PQ defects can originate from equipment on site, or from the supply network. Typical
origins of a defect are:
• Sudden connection or disconnection of a load
• A power station suddenly going down
• An overcharged line
• A lightning strike
• Harmonic distortions introduced by a generation unit or by a consumer load

Which problems occur?

Figure 3 shows the result of a survey conducted by the European Copper Institute in
2001. Facility and building managers at 1,400 sites in eight European countries were
asked about the PQ problems they had experienced.

% occurence

Computer lockups

Flicker

Equipment damage (at partial load)

Data processing equipment

PFC overloading

Problems when switching heavy loads

Overheated neutral

Problems with long lines

Nuisance tripping

Utility metering claims

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

The Power Quality solutions mix
Solutions can be applied at four levels (see Figure 4).

% adoption

Surge protection

UPS

T-rms metering

Equipment derating

Dedicated circuits

Total rewire

Meshed earth

Passive filters

Active conditioner

TN-S rewiring

upsized neutral

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

1) Install less sensitive equipment

• Only a cost-effective solution in specific cases and not as a general policy
2) Protection between the equipment and the panel
• Installing different protection measures for different equipment means
more flexibility
• More expensive if the same protection measures have to be installed
several times
3) A site-wide protection and mitigation
• Less expensive if it allows the grouping of certain protection measures
• More expensive if different measures for different equipment need to be
installed
4) Solutions in the supply grid
• Requires an agreement with the utility company.
• Contracts with utilities for delivering ‘premium PQ’ have had a limited
success to date
Figure 5 shows the most popular on-site solutions, based on the above mentioned
survey.
 1 1. Equipment specification
2. Controls protection
3. Overall protection inside plant
controls 2 4. Utility solutions

motors
3 4
… utility source

Sensitive process machines

Development of the European Association of Electrical Contractors - AIE - in the 21st

century

Formed by a few visionary countries to provide an opportunity to reflect together on

common problems in 1954, the European Association of Electrical Contractors – AIE –
comprises today 21 national associations representing 175,000 contractors, a
workforce of 900,000 and a turnover of Euro 60 billion.

But the scope of AIE is wider than Europe. NECA USA, ECA South Africa, NECA
Australia and FAPECA (Federation of Asian and Pacific Electrical Contractors
Associations) are all corresponding members of AIE, and with whom AIE maintains an
excellent and strong relationship. Moreover these European and International
Electrical Associations have formed the International Forum of Electrical Contractors
(IFEC).