Application Note

• Review maintenance
practices. Are you testing,
then following up with
corrective actions? Conduct
periodic surveys at critical
points—for example, check
neutral to ground voltage and
ground current on feeders
and critical branch circuits.
Conduct infrared surveys
of distribution equipment.
Determine root causes of
failures, so you know how to
prevent recurrences.
• Use monitoring. Can you see
voltage distortions before they
overheat motors? Can you track
transients? If you don’t have
power monitoring installed, you
probably won’t see a problem
coming—but you will see the
downtime it causes.
At this point, you need to deter-
mine the costs of prevention and
remediation—and then compare
those to the costs of poor power
quality. This comparison will
allow you to justify the invest-
ment needed to fix the power
quality problems. Because this
should be an ongoing effort, use
the right tools so you can do
your own power quality testing
and monitoring rather than
outsourcing it. Today, it’s sur-
prisingly affordable—and it will
always cost less than downtime.
4 Fluke Corporation The costs of poor power quality
Fluke Corporation
PO Box 9090, Everett, WA 98206 U.S.A.
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PO Box 1186, 5602 BD
Eindhoven, The Netherlands
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©2004-2012 Fluke Corporation.
Specifications subject to change without notice.
Printed in U.S.A. 6/2012 2391563C_EN
Modification of this document is not permitted
without written permission from Fluke Corporation.
Fluke. Keeping your world
up and running.
®
Saving money with PQ
You’ve tallied up the costs of
poor power quality. Now, you
need to know how to eliminate
those costs. The following steps
will get you there.
• Examine design. Determine
how your system can best
support your processes and
what infrastructure you need
to prevent failure. Verify
circuit capacity before install-
ing new equipment.
Re-check critical equipment
after configuration changes.
• Comply with standards.
For example, examine your
grounding system for compli-
ance with IEEE-142. Examine
your power distribution
system for compliance with
IEEE-141.
• Examine power protection.
This includes lightning
protection, TVSS, and surge
suppression. Are these prop-
erly 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 prob-
lems includes correction (e.g.,
grounding repair) and coping
(e.g., K-rated transformers).
Consider power conditioning
and backup power.