Published On: Apr 29, 2016
plays a major role in maintaining the reliability of an electrical equipment. A properly designed electrical system reduces sudden voltage or current alterations and facilitates for a smooth operation. At the same time, it also increases flexibility for future power systems with very high penetration levels from variable incoming sources.
Proper wiring including upsizing such wiring system catering heavy loads and good grounding of entire facility is essential for electronic equipment to operate smoothly and also provide reliable power supply.
reinforces the distribution system to withstand the PQ issues. It means installing double-size neutral wires or installing separate neutral wires for each phase, and/or installing oversized or K- rated transformers, which allow for more heat dissipation.
The techno-economic evaluation of PQ issues is one of the main problems the power system is facing. Therefore, its impact is even more cumbersome. There is a need of defined measures for bringing down the level of effect caused due to poor PQ. Some of them are mentioned below:
at initial stage can create a robust electricity system and its resilience to overcome poor PQ impact.
will reduce the risk of higher investment of device failures and other costs to considerable extent. Prior inspections can help analyze for any potential issues and their immediate solutions to avoid any major effect on the equipment/production life cycle.
Further, based on degree of vulnerability of system or process due to PQ issues, various types of power conditioning devices can be selected to protect the sensitive electronic equipment. Some of the power conditioning devices include Surge Suppressors, Voltage Regulators, Isolation Transformers, UPS alone or UPS with auxiliary generator, Noise filters, etc. These devices are highly recommended since unplanned disturbances on the electric utility’s system will occur. In the long run, power-conditioning equipment can provide very effective and inexpensive insurance. However, remember that even the best power-conditioning equipment cannot always compensate for faulty wiring and grounding.
“All Systems Will Fail, The Only Question Is When, And How Frequently” – The statement clearly implies its importance in today’s modern industries moving towards 24/7 production schedule. The supporting equipment and systems continuous availability is the need of the hour for these industries. No longer do maintenance department have the luxury of extended periods of available equipment downtime in order to carry out maintenance, instead the maintenance function is moving toward a more Predictive Maintenance (PdM).
Unlike a traditional electrical maintenance (i.e. reactive, preventive, etc.), PdM focuses on a small set of measurements that can predict power distribution or critical load failures. Typically, the existing PdM inspection route includes equipment like motors, pumps, generators, gearboxes, etc. With little incremental labor and costs, power quality parameters like voltage stability, harmonic distortion, and unbalance can also be taken and recorded quickly. Current measurements can identify changes in the way the load is drawing. All of these measurements can be taken without halting operations and generate data points that can easily be entered into maintenance plan. Some of the basic power quality measurement guidelines for 3-phase equipment are:
Predictive maintenance enables industries to perform an effective amount of maintenance at an appropriate or practical time. Often referred to as condition-based maintenance, predictive maintenance tools monitor the condition of in-service equipment, either continuously (online) or at periodic intervals. One such tool is Infrared Thermography that has become more and more widely used for predictive maintenance. It takes advantage of the infrared radiation properties to extract useful conclusions for the condition of the equipment under test. It is neither non-destructive, nor an interrupting procedure and has no solid substitute. Some of its benefits include reduction in maintenance costs and unexpected failures, increase in uptime, etc. Technicians can quickly measure and compare heat signatures for each piece of equipment on the inspection route, without disrupting operations. Due to this, disruptions to facility operations can be reduced, since many PdM technologies are performed on in-service equipment. Having regular access to the current state of the equipment provides valuable information to determine when maintenance should be performed. PdM provides cost-efficient solutions to maximize quality, reliability and enhance workplace safety. Monitoring the condition of equipment provides data to help anticipate and plan future maintenance activities, which saves times and costs in long run. According to the US Department of Energy, independent surveys indicate the following average industrial savings when a functional predictive maintenance program is implemented: |
Table 1. Basic power measurements for 3-phase equipment |
As an end user, we make significant investment in our equipment and appliances; hence it should also be our responsibility to protect those assets and ourselves against PQ related harm or any safety hazard arising out of this. Through regular inspections/predictive maintenance of the electrical installation, important steps like right planning and procurement of equipment at premise can help customer protect themselves against PQ challenges to a large extent. Therefore, rather than waiting for things to get worse and the PQ issues getting aggravated, we need to identify weak points in the electrical system and basic initial steps must be undertaken, to ensure a safe and reliable future for ourselves & our devices.
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