Attempt to quantify cost of poor power quality
A
Copper Development Association product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Aug 22, 2000
A first attempt to assess the cost of poor power quality to European industry was made at a workshop held on 8th June 2000 by the European Copper Institute in Brussels.
A first attempt to assess the cost of poor power quality to European industry was made at a workshop held on 8th June by the European Copper Institute in Brussels.
This workshop attracted over 50 participants from 11 countries, and representatives from 10 different industries.
'Power Quality (PQ)' is used to designate the performance and stability of electricity supply compared with a given utility's technical standards and the requirements of users.
Poor PQ means deviations from this standard, such as voltage deviations, transients, short interruptions and harmonics.
Power quality problems are increasing steadily because of the ever-growing use of equipment such as switched power supplies in computers and IT equipment, variable speed drives in electrical motors and high frequency lighting in office environments.
As a result, 70-80% of power quality problems are caused internally, on-site rather than by external circumstances.
Power quality deficiencies result in regularly occurring glitches such as computer lock-up and network congestion, flickering screens and lights, lost calls in PABX, motor burnout and transformer failure, and fire hazard due to high neutral currents.
The overall cost of these problems to businesses in Europe is estimated to be in a range of £13-20.3 billion per year.
A number of effective solutions are available to reduce or eradicate on-site power quality problems: - Wiring solutions such as conductor and neutral sizing, circuit separation and high integrity earthing; Equipment de-rating; Power conditioners and harmonic filters; Power monitoring and preventive maintenance; UPS, dual power supply, un-interruptible power supplies; and Resilient system design.
However, due to lack of awareness of the issue, these solutions are not yet widely adopted, despite the fact that the cost of solutions is usually less than 10% of the cost of solving the problems afterwards and Macro-analysis, as well as individual case studies, shows that investment in PQ solutions pays back well within a year, with a return on investment of more than 100%.
A copy of the full report on the workshop can be obtained from the CDA.
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