Regardless of industry sector and size, there’s hardly a business today that doesn’t run off computers and related office equipment. These sensitive and expensive machines form the nerve centre of a business, capturing and managing data, running machinery and equipment, and processing information essential to running your organisation, whether it’s a factory, airport, office building or a hospital. Harmonics, surges and sags in voltage and other power issues that can be revealed in a power quality audit can damage this equipment, cause downtime, and result in data loss. Here’s some insight on how to protect this equipment effectively using power factor correction units and other solutions.
Imperfect Power Quality is Your Reality
It is almost impossible to constantly maintain optimal power quality in a commercial or industrial site. That’s because power quality issues are a constant problem, whether it’s the risk of brownouts or blackouts, or voltage surges and sags from your supply through the grid, or the harmonics and noise that result on your internal electrical network from non-linear loads like uninterruptible power supplies (UPS systems), solar power systems, televisions, servers, and printers.
So, what can a business do to protect computers and essential office equipment? The idea is to discover where the most significant power quality issues lie and address them as part of a holistic approach to energy resilience.
Performing a Power Quality Audit
Because it is very challenging to determine exactly where power quality issues lie in a particular network, a power quality audit is necessary. This will look at your supply as well as key points around your electrical network to determine where issues lie and the best solution to address them in order to optimise power quality as a whole.
Possible causes for poor power quality that a power quality audit will look for include voltage variations (which impact the efficiency of equipment and increases risks of electrical tripping), harmonics (which create stress on the network, causing equipment to work harder to do the same job and using more electricity than they should), and excessive reactive power (which charges wasted power to the system).
Solutions to Improve Power Quality
Power quality solutions exist to tackle these common issues, including:
Active harmonic filters – If non-linear loads are creating significant levels of harmonics on your network, these are an effective solution. Active harmonic filters monitor the current harmonics in the network, injecting the same current in the opposite phase to cancel out the harmonic waves.
Power factor correction units – Power factor correction units can be designed to fit the exact needs of your facility, eliminating penalties from excessive reactive energy and using any excess to supplement your supply when voltage sags. This doesn’t just ensure the safety and efficiency of your office equipment, but also helps reduce overall energy costs.
Voltage stabilisation – Another solution is a voltage stabilisation system, which creates a nominal value voltage output at all times by reducing variations in voltage supplied to your network. This reduces risks of data loss, data security issues and equipment breakdowns.
For more information on power factor correction units, harmonics filtering solutions and more, or to schedule a power quality audit, contact the team at Quality Energy today.
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