The fact that lots of money is being lost through poor Power Quality (PQ) in facilities across the world need not be overemphasized.
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in 1995 reported that the cost attributable to poor PQ in US represents a large annual cost to the economy estimated at the cost of 100 billion dollar (US$100 Billion).
While the Leonardo Energy/European Copper Institute in a study 2007, shows that poor PQ affected businesses in the industrial and service sectors totaling EURO150 billion in EU-25.
This figures has been increasing exponentially over the years, unfortunately expenditure on preventive maintenance is less than 5% of the cost of poor PQ, calling for more expenditure and efforts in cutting down poor PQ cost.
In Nigeria and Africa, efforts at mitigating the effects and cost of poor PQ is not given the necessary attention it deserves.
The electrical power quality of nations translates to their level of productivity and wealth. Hence, the classification of countries as developed, developing or underdeveloped.
Best practices can help eliminate most of these costs and we shall enumerate the various steps necessary to cutting down PQ problems thus enhancing productivity and profitability
- Evaluate Designs. Determine how your system can best support your processes and what infrastructure you need to prevent failure. Verify circuit capacity before installing new equipment. Re-check critical equipment after configuration changes.
- Compliance with standards. For example, examine your grounding system for compliance with IEEE 142- Recommended Practice for Grounding of Industrial and Commercial Power Systems. Examine your power distribution system for compliance with IEEE-141.
- Examine power protection. This includes lightning protection. TVSS, and surge protection. Are they properly specified and installed?
- Get baseline test data on all loads. This is the key to predictive maintenance, and it allows you to spot emerging problems.
- Question mitigation. Mitigating power quality problems includes correction (e.g. grounding repair) and coping (e.g. K-rated transformers). Consider power conditioning and backup power.
- Maintenance Practices. Are your testing followed up with corrective actions? Do you carry out periodic surveys at critical points? Like, checking neutral to ground voltage and ground current on feeders and critical branch circuits. Have you conducted infrared surveys of distribution equipment? Determining the root cause of failures in other to know how to prevent recurrences.
- Use of PQ Monitors. Can you see voltage distortions before they overheat motors? Can you track transients/surges? If you don’t have power monitoring equipment installed, you probably won’t see a problem coming-but you will see the downtime it causes.
At this point, you need a determine the costs of prevention and remediation vis-à-vis the costs of poor power quality. This allows you to justify the investment needed to fix power quality problems.
FullSpectrum Energy is uniquely positioned to offer cost effective solutions to PQ issues in line with our mantra of keeping business up and running seamlessly and profitably.
From Oil and Gas/Petrochemicals, Telecommunications, Information & Communication Technologies, Utilities/Energy, Industrial & process Manufacturing to Construction benefiting and exceeding expectations of numerous clients.
CONTACT US TODAY
Victor Oyedu, FNSE, FNIEEE, CPQ.
Power Quality and Energy Management Specialist.
Publisher at Afrienergyonline.com &
CEO, FullSpectrum Energy Solutions Limited, Nigeria
