A power quality audit (PQA) gives customers a complete understanding of their electrical loads. A PQA provides the facility manager a thorough knowledge of their facility’s power quality issues, reliability, and efficiency. Good power quality is a perfect voltage and current waveforms at 50/60Hz under its permissible tolerance levels. However, the nonlinear nature of the load disrupts the power quality resulting in wasted energy, frequent maintenance, and premature damage to the loads. Identifying the causes and issues of the poor power quality beforehand saves a significant maintenance budget for a facility. A well-written PQA does it for you – it identifies the root cause of the poor power quality, types of power quality issues, and a suitable recommendation complying with the industry standards.
5 reasons why PQ audit is needed !
1. Understand the load:
An audit gives a detailed breakdown of load behavior in the system regarding power consumption, noise levels, and possible maintenance problems. It would be highly beneficial to the facility manager to know where and when he can plan on replacing the load or where he is spending more money on the wasted energy.
2. Root Cause Analysis (RCA):
The audit report gives the facility the root cause of any potential poor PQ issues. Finding the root cause for the potential power quality problem at the early stage can save thousands of dollars in electrical maintenance.
3. Types of issues:
Audit details if the facility has surges, transients, sags, swells, blackouts, interruptions, harmonics, noise, and any other problems causing tripping of circuits and burning of equipment
4. Recommendations:
Audit recommends an expert solution for the possible PQ issues. We recommend harmonic filters, AVRs, SPDs, Noise filters, and transformers based on the need.
5. Standards and compliances:
The audit uses national and international safety standards and compliances in writing the PQ reports and recommendations. Ex: The report details the system’s harmonics and mentions if they comply with the 519 standards.
The PQ audit is the service offered by Environmental Potential’s application engineering team that measures, checks, and monitors the reliability and efficiency of your electrical system. We use PS4500 by Summit technologies, G4500 by ELSPEC, Fluke 1770, 1736, 438-II, and Ti 401 to assess and monitor the power quality issues in any facility. We have done over 100 PQA studies in the US, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Russia, and Indonesia. Our engineers are well educated in the local and international electrical standards and ensure that they provide the best recommendation for your facility to protect and increase your system’s performance.