Downtime costs money. Power sags/ swells, transients and harmonics damage equipment and interrupt your business activities.
Excessive harmonic distortion
In modern commercial installations with heavy usage of electronic devices such as computers, tables, printers, coffee machines this can cause excessive harmonic distortion of the power supply. Serious problems can arise such as:
- Transformers overheating,
- Cables running hot – possibly causing insulation breakdown and reduced current carrying capacity
- Overheated motors
- Capacitors can overheat
- Lighting and electronic display may appear to flicker
- Spurious tripping of circuit breakers and fuses may blow
Power factor correction
It is important and in some states a requirement of supply that the power factor of the installation is maintained above a certain level at the point of supply.
However, it is important and necessary to be able to determine the power factor throughout the building. The common practice of power factor correction is to correct at the main supply. Whilst this may appear to be the most economic solution to comply with the requirements of the electrical distributor, this may not be the case for your business.
It is therefore necessary to monitor power factor levels throughout the complete installation. To obtain an accurate assessment of which parts of the installation are in fact the major contributors to a power factor problem. Only when you do this can you make an informed decision on what sort of power factor correction is the best solution for you business both technically and economically.
Voltage fluctuation
Brownouts and blackouts can be inconvenient occurrence in our daily lives. It is important to be able to determine the extent of any sag or swell in the voltage to enable us to ensure that sensitive equipment such as servers are correctly protected. In the case of over-voltages which can cause expensive equipment damage.
With the correct metering installed at critical points in the installation it is possible to determine whether the problem occurs internally or externally to the installation.
Power Quality, Power availability, Power reliability and Eltec Energy
Eltec Energy solutions also enable you to:
- Identify the root cause of power quality issues
- Rapidly communicate critical conditions before they escalate
- Decide if harmonic filters are needed and size them appropriately
- Validate that power quality complies with the energy contract
- Verify the reliable operation of equipment
- Improve response to power quality-related problems
- Leverage existing infrastructure capacity and avoid over-building
- Support proactive maintenance to prolong asset life