Hundreds of power quality measurements monitor electrical systems on your motors and drives. But these six, specific measurements can help uncover hidden issues in a plant’s energy use which often lead to additional costs, equipment damage, and even unscheduled downtime.
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In a balanced, three-phase system, the phase voltages should be equal or very close. An unbalance in these measurements can cause poor performance or premature failure. These large problems can be caused by smaller issues that are much easier to fix if caught during regular, preventive maintenance measurements, such as:
The major costs are associated with motor replacement and lost income due to circuit protection trips. Replacing equipment combined with the cost of labor for the work and the unplanned downtime can add up quickly.
To catch voltage unbalance issues, look at the inputs to motors, VFDs, and UPSs. It’s important to know how much of an unbalance should raise a red flag. According to the EN power quality standard for required voltage unbalance, as a ratio of negative to positive sequence components, it should be less than 2% at the point of common coupling. NEMA specs call for less than 1% for motor loads. Consult your user manuals for other equipment. NEMA MG 1 states the motor must be derated for unbalance greater than 1%.
Figure 1. Taking preventive maintenance measurements with a power quality analyzer, like the Fluke Power Quality Analyzer can help you catch energy issues before they become too large.
Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) is all harmonics on an asset combined. Some current distortion is normal, it’s a part of a power system supplying electronic loads such as computers, business machines, electronic lighting ballasts, and control systems. But anything more than 5% on any phase should be investigated further. At this level, or for longer periods of time, it can cause problems like:
The major costs of THD are associated with the life of motors and transformers shortening. If the equipment is part of production systems, income can be affected as well.
To find these kinds of issues, take measurements and track baseline normal for your motors, transformers, and neutral conductors serving electronic loads. Monitor current levels and temperature at transformers to be sure that they are not overstressed. Neutral current should not exceed the capacity of the neutral conductor.
As insulation deteriorates, it begins to leak. Loads will draw slightly higher current as they age, and they may send some of this leakage current into the grounding system. Faults within the equipment may also cause high ground current. These issues can lead to further damage, shortened asset life, unscheduled downtime, and unplanned cost if left for too long. Excessive phase currents can further damage insulation and overheat the load; over-current can cause protection devices to trip; and excessive ground current can create unsafe voltages on metal chassis, cabinets, and conduit.
With increasing phase current, the highest costs often come from premature motor failure and the lost income from over-current protection devices tripping. In order to catch these issues before they become too large, regularly check and monitor any critical load, but especially motors, VFDs, and transformers. The best way to check insulation is by periodically checking equipment with an insulation tester. You can also check equipment while it’s in service by measuring and tracking all the currents (phase, neutral, and ground) to make sure none of these are increasing significantly over time.
Measuring against the nameplate rating of the load should give you a baseline to raise red flags. The nameplate rating should never be exceeded. Track the phase current being drawn by a load over the months or years so you can get a sense whether the current is changing and take mitigating action before the issues are too big.
Figure 2. Power quality loggers, like the Fluke Power Quality Logger, can catch intermittent issues and gather information needed for peak demand and power factor calculations.
Voltage sags are momentary reductions in RMS voltage. Loads may be added without notifying plant management, and these loads may draw down system voltage, especially if they draw high inrush currents. Also, as electrical systems age, the impedance of the system may increase, making the system more prone to voltage sags. Most loads will operate at 90% of nominal voltage, but if voltage sags further or for extended periods of time, it can cause resets on electronic equipment or overcurrent protection trips. Sags on one or two phases of three-phase loads can cause the other phase(s) to draw higher current to compensate.
Voltage sags can lead to lost income when a computer randomly resets, control system resets, VFD trips, and shortened life of backup power system’s UPS due to frequent cycling. As part of your preventive maintenance program, tracking measurements on motors, VFDs, UPSs, or panels serving power to computer equipment or industrial controls should help catch issues as they arise. Taking the steps to mitigate the problems before they get too large can save you unplanned downtime and cost.
Utilities monitor the amount of power a facility consumes. Several times an hour, utilities will calculate the average demand for that interval. Peak demand is the highest average demand during all the intervals in a billing cycle, and is what the company will charge based on. Commercial and industrial customers can manage the high cost of peak demand rates by staggering load cycles to reduce total draw at any one time.
The potential savings here depends on the rate schedule of the utility. But, checking a few things can help you adjust assets and schedules to cut peak demand rate costs, such as:
Power factor is an equation to show energy efficiency in a facility. It’s the ratio of working power (measured in kW) to apparent power (measured in kVA). Apparent power, or demand, is how much power is used to run equipment and machinery. Apparent power is found through the total amount of working power (kW) and reactive power, or wasted power (kVAR), combined. Power factor is usually expressed as a percentage—and the lower the percentage, the less efficient power usage is.
Utilities may charge higher rates or penalties for low power factor, penalizing facilities requiring higher reactive power. To avoid paying higher utility fees, power factor should be higher than .97. System capacity restrictions cause voltage drops and overheating, so capacitors may be applied on individual loads, at a confluence of several loads, or at the service entrance to improve power factor.
Looking into a few areas can help you reduce these costs. Understand if your utility rate plan charges for reactive demand or low power factor. Find out how the utility measures power factor. Are they looking at peak intervals or averages?
Finally, while running preventive maintenance routes through a facility, identify loads that are causing lagging reactive power. Once you know where the issues may be coming from, you can develop a strategy for power factor correction and eliminate as many utilities penalties as possible.
This story originally appeared in the May issue of Plant Services. Subscribe to Plant Services here.
About the Author: Jason AxelsonPoor power quality comes at a cost. Monetary cost can come from power losses, but damaged assets could cost even more, including potential losses due to down time of a manufacturing process. Assets damaged by power quality events that cause increased heat will certainly shorten equipment life. To the untrained eye, problems in electrical distribution systems may not be recognizable as power quality problems. Knowing and recognizing the most common power quality symptoms and how to troubleshoot them is a first step in solving power quality issues.
A Fluke Three-Phase Power Quality Analyzer in use. Power quality analyzers are one of the necessary types of tools for troubleshooting power quality problems.
As with any troubleshooting task, you need the right tools. For power quality issues, those include knowledge and the right electrical test tools.
But first, you need a good set of up-to-date one-line diagrams of your facility. The one-line diagram identifies AC power sources, the loads they serve, and their ratings. It serves as your electrical road map to the facility and a guide for power quality studies.
Once you’ve identified the assets to check, use a power quality analyzer to measure and record the specific parameters associated with power quality. Other tools, such as a data logger, thermal imager, infrared thermometer, and recording digital multimeter, can also aid in troubleshooting.
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Common power quality problems are grouped into two broad areas: voltage anomalies and harmonic distortion issues. Voltage anomalies can cause several problems, many easily corrected. The key is to spot the symptoms.
Voltage dips or sags are responsible for up to 80 percent of all power quality issues. A dip or sag occurs when the system voltage drops to 90 percent or less of nominal system voltage for a half-cycle to one minute. Common symptoms of dips include incandescent lights dimming if the dip lasts more than three cycles, computer lockup, spurious shutdown of sensitive electronic equipment, data (memory) loss on programmable controls, and relay control problems.
Detecting sags can be challenging because it's difficult to predict when they will occur. To troubleshoot potential dip problems, begin by monitoring at the load where the dip symptoms first occur. Generally, an upstream event will be indicated by a drop in both voltage and current. A downstream or load dip in voltage would be indicated by an increased in current and a drop in voltage. Compare the time of the equipment's operational failure to the time at which the voltage dip occurred; if there is not a correlation, the problem is most likely not voltage dip. Continue troubleshooting by monitoring farther upstream until the source is located. You can use the MIN/MAX function of a high-quality digital multimeter to detect single worst-case sags of 100 milliseconds or more while energizing the load. For suspected recurring dips, use the “Dips and Swells” trending feature on a high-performance power quality analyzer.
If you need to "document" power quality events for a longer duration, event recorders are available that can record dips, swells, interruptions, transients, and frequency deviations for several weeks.
Correct wiring and/or loading issues first. When your plant is in order, then you can pursue other sag-mitigating solutions, such as voltage regulators and constant voltage transformers.
Voltage swells or surges occur only about half as often as dips. However, increases in system voltage for short periods up to a cycle or more can cause problems. As with all power quality problems, you must monitor parameters for a period of time, then observe and interpret.
Symptoms of swells often include immediate failure of equipment, typically the power supply section of electronics. However, some equipment failures may not occur immediately, because voltage swells can occur over a period of time and prematurely break down components. If analysis of electronic equipment reveals faulty power supplies, monitor voltage trends on the feeders and branch circuits feeding this equipment. Where possible, compare failure rates of similar equipment operating on portions of systems known not to be experiencing swells.
When analyzing power quality survey results, look for any sudden line-to-ground faults on a single-phase line. This type of fault causes the voltage to suddenly swell on the two non-faulted phases. Large plant loads suddenly dropping offline, and power factor correction capacitor switching, can also cause voltage swells.
Voltage transients can cause symptoms ranging from computer lockups and damaged electronic equipment to flashover as well as damaged insulation on distribution equipment and motors.
Transients, sometimes referred to as spikes, are substantial increases in voltage—but only for a matter of microseconds. Lightning strikes and mechanical switching are common causes. Equipment failure during a storm is often rightfully attributed to transients and no power quality monitoring is performed.
Other causes of transients include switching of capacitors or capacitor banks, reenergizing systems after a power failure, switching of motor loads, turning off or on fluorescent and HID lighting loads, switching transformers, and sudden stoppage of certain equipment. For these transient conditions, monitor at the load and correlate equipment operational problems or failure with distribution system events.
Normal arcing across contacts by interrupting large loads can be a cause of transients. Use the facility one-line to move the monitoring farther upstream in the distribution system until you find the source.
Voltage interruptions can last anywhere from two to five seconds or more. The symptom is usually quite simple: the equipment stops operating. Interruptions for longer than five seconds are typically referred to as sustained interruptions. Most motor control circuits, and process control systems are not designed to restart even after a brief interruption of power.
If a voltage interruption occurs when equipment is unattended, the cause of the equipment shutdown might not be properly identified. Only monitoring equipment and correlating the time of any power interruptions to the time of equipment issues will help identify voltage interruptions.
The Fluke Three-Phase Power Quality Recorder is one of the tools that can be used to help detect voltage unbalance. In reality, voltage differences between phases vary as loads operate. However, motor or transformer overheating, or excessive noise or vibration, can merit troubleshooting for voltage unbalance.
Voltage unbalance is one of the most common problems on three phase systems, and can result in severe equipment damage, yet it is often overlooked. For example, a voltage unbalance of 2.3 percent on a 230 V motor results in a current unbalance of almost 18 percent, causing a temperature rise of 30 °C. While a digital multimeter (DMM) and some quick calculations can be used for averaging voltage readings, a power quality analyzer provides the most accurate information about unbalance.
Unbalance can occur at any point throughout the distribution system. Loads should be equally divided across each phase of a panelboard. Should one phase become too heavily loaded in comparison to others, voltage will be lower on that phase. Transformers and three-phase motors fed from that panel may run hotter, be unusually noisy, vibrate excessively, and even suffer premature failure.
Monitoring over time is the key to capturing unbalance. Accurate, real-time unbalance measurements need a three-phase power quality analyzer to identify the problems. In a three-phase system, the maximum variation in voltage between phases should be no more than 2 percent (the Vneg % value on the analyzer), or significant equipment damage can occur.
Harmonics are voltages and currents whose frequency is said to be an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency. For example, the third harmonic is the voltage or current that is occurring at 180 Hertz (Hz) in a 60 Hz system (3 x 60 Hz = 180 Hz). These unwanted frequencies cause numerous symptoms, including overheating in neutral conductors and the transformers supplying these circuits. Reverse torque creates heat and efficiency losses in motors.
When each harmonic is identified and compared to the fundamental 60 Hz frequency in this case, you can make decisions about the severity of each harmonic that appears in the system. Utilizing a power quality analyzer allows electricians and engineers the ability to view these harmonic frequencies individually for each phase.
The most severe symptoms created by harmonics are typically the result of the harmonics distorting the fundamental 60 Hz sine wave found in facilities. This sine wave distortion results in improper operation of electronic equipment, spurious alarms, data losses, and what are often reported as "mysterious" problems.
When symptoms of harmonics occur, troubleshoot by observing total harmonic distortion (THD). Measure harmonics at the point of common coupling using a power quality analyzer. Significant increase in THD under varying load conditions warrants a percentage comparison of each individual harmonic current level as compared to the total fundamental current flow in the system. Knowing the effects created by each harmonic current and comparing them to identified symptoms will aid in troubleshooting. The source of the harmonic must then be isolated and corrected.
Voltage problems and the creation of harmonic currents are the two broad areas under which power quality problems occur. Dips and swells, voltage transients, power interruptions, and voltage unbalance all can be monitored, analyzed, and compared to equipment operation histories to determine the cause and severity of the power quality problem. The same can be done with the various harmonic currents in a system.
It’s also important to keep in mind power quality issues are frequently interrelated. Address power quality problems from an entire plant approach without losing focus on how they affect individual loads. Sometimes fixing one power quality problem can make another problem worse. Looking at the big picture by using a three-phase power quality analyzer enables you to correct the causes of power quality issues, and not just doctor the symptoms.