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Power Quality

The hidden cost of poor power quality

October 31, 2003
by Hans De Keulenaer, European Copper Institute email hdk@eurocopper.org

Introduction

A glass factory in France loses e600 000 and 3 days of production due to the consecutive failure of two transformers. In a bank, a re, resulting from neutral overheating, causes over e1 million damage. These are not isolated events. Recent publications [1, 2] lead to a global bill for poor power quality of 500 billion euro per year, i.e. 50% of the turnover of the global electricity sector. For many business uses, the cost of poor PQ is higher than the electricity bill. And the cost is rising. It is caused by outages, dips, harmonics and other types of disturbances. Some disturbances are relatively new, such as harmonic currents and voltages. Others, like outages and dips have always been around, but the cost impact of these events is increasing dramatically. The cost of a single disturbance in a semiconductor facility can be as high as 3.8 million euro. Loss of power in a telecommunications facility costs e30 000 per minute [3]. The results are lost production, equipment damage, idling personnel, data loss, as well as consequential losses: revenue postponed, negative impact on cash-ow, loss of goodwill from customers, possibly even loss of market share. Sometimes, the eects are not so obvious, as in the case of harmonics causing extra, hidden losses in the system, and accelerated equipment ageing caused by the additional heat due to the harmonics. This article oers some elements to answer the questions: is poor PQ really a problem? how bad is it? what is the risk of being exposed? how to guide investment decisions in PQ solutions?

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Power Quality

What is poor PQ?

A perfect power supply would be one that is always available, always within voltage and frequency tolerances and has a pure noise-free sinusoidal wave shape [1]. This should be placed in the context of sensitivity of loads to various kinds of disturbances. The cost of power quality is determined by: the quality of the voltage supplied the types of load in the installation item the sensitivity of these loads to PQ disturbances The cost of a kWh not supplied because of an outage is much higher than the cost of a kWh that is supplied when needed [1]. One has to bridge the gap between the number of nines of reliability of the supply, typically around 3-4 nines, and the 6 nines required in todays digital society. Four nines means a power supply that is available 99.99% of the time, equivalent to 52 minutes of outages per year, whereas 6 nines allows for merely 30 seconds of outage per year. However, the nines of reliability do not tell the full story. A single outage of 52 minutes is much less damaging than 52 (unplanned) outages of 1 minute. Sometimes, outages of less than a minute are not even counted in the statistics. According to [4], the average site experiences 16 outages per year. Outages constitute about 6% of total power quality disturbances, but a much higher portion of the cost of poor power quality. Voltage disturbances occur frequently in the grid, as well as on-site. Monitoring solutions are becoming more necessary, and at the same time more aordable. A study to monitor over 100 sites for a year reports an average of 289 disturbances per site, i.e. over 1 event per working day, but with a large variation. Some sites have zero disturbances, while on the other extreme, sites experience over 14 000 events per year [4]. The quality of electrical service should be considered as a decision criterion for plant location. The availability and quality of power diers considerably between regions. Poor power quality can dramatically increase the cost of doing business, either through investing in solutions for mitigation, or through adaptation to poor power quality. In rural areas, supplied by long overhead lines, there is often little possibility for improving power quality from the supply side. Harmonics have been around for a while, but today, are becoming omnipresent, due to the prevalence of power electronics in computer power supplies, energy saving lamps and motor driven systems with variable speed control. Harmonics in the distribution system result in additional costs: premature equipment failure, e.g. PFC equipment due to unexpected resonance phenomena, or transformer failure.

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www.leonardo-energy.org additional heat losses in transformers, cables, motors derating of equipment, resulting in higher equipment cost

Power Quality

This requires a characterisation of the harmonic culture in a building, and an impact assessment of this harmonic culture on the electrical equipment. Except for some basic fundamental work, the cost impact of harmonics is not yet well understood, but a recent Eurelectric report estimates it at several 100 billions of euros per year globally [2].

Why is power quality such an issue today?

Equipment on-site is becoming more sensitive to disturbances that it often self generates. The quality of power supply does not increase - in fact, it would be uneconomical to improve power quality at the supply level to the requirements of the digital society. Fortunately, a wide range of solutions is available to tackle problems on-site. The disturbances generated by electronic equipment, and its sensitivity to disturbances, is a factor that should be included in equipment specications, and entered into commercial discussions. For example, a low quality switched-mode power supply (SMPS) for personal computers may necessitate an investment in the electrical installation, in terms of lters, neutral upsizing or dedicated circuits. This investment in mitigation needs to be compared against the cost of upgrading all SMPS-units.

Which problems occur?

A survey conducted by European Copper Institute in 2001 asked facility and building managers at 1 400 sites in 8 countries about the PQ problems they experience [5]. It showed that any of the problems listed in gure 1 is experienced by 5 25% of sites. The real incidence rate may be higher, for lack of awareness of the problem, or being unable to diagnose it as a PQ problem.

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Power Quality

% occurence
Computer lockups Flicker Equipment damage (at partial load) Data processing equipment PFC overloading Problems when switching heavy loads Overheated neutral Problems with long lines Nuisance tripping Utility metering claims 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

Figure 1: Incidence rate for typical power quality problems These problems occur in all sectors of business, and are a constant nuisance. According to [6], PQ problems happen at least monthly for two thirds of sites, and even weekly for one third of sites in Spain.

What solutions exist

Solutions can be applied at 4 levels (Figure 2 from [7]): 1. Work on the equipment specication: the most expensive solution when applied site-wide, but cost-eective in specic cases. 2. Protect the equipment at sub-panel level. This decentralised approach can be applied for controls but also UPS, ltering. This is a trade-o between costs, selection and exibility. 3. Site wide protection & mitigation strategy. 4. Solutions in the grid. The question remains who will pay for mitigation of the PQ problems. The principle of polluter pays can be dicult to apply since dierent utilities may be involved. Even if the disturbance is coming from the grid, it still may be the users responsibility to pay for mitigation. The current thinking evolves towards a base-level of power quality supplied by the utility, as described in EN 50160. This level of power quality is included

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Power Quality

in the electricity tari, but does not suce for many processes. Premium power quality can be achieved, either to solutions on-site, or through an agreement with the utility. However, premium power quality supply contracts seem to have had limited success. Solving problems on-site is the mainstream mitigation strategy [8]. Figure 3 gives an overview of the most popular PQ solutions.

1
controls motors

1. 2. 3. 4.

Equipment specification Controls protection Overall protection inside plant Utility solutions

3
Sensitive process machines

4
utility source

Figure 2: Levels of protection for PQ mitigation

% adoption
Surge protection UPS T-rms metering Equipment derating Dedicated circuits Total rewire Meshed earth Passive filters Active conditioner TN-S rewiring upsized neutral 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Figure 3: Most popular solutions adopted on-site, based on above mentioned survey [5]

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Power Quality

How to evaluate investment in PQ solutions?

For mitigation against singular events (outage & dips), a methodology is proposed in [7] which is evolving into a best practice approach for such analysis: characterise power quality in terms of type of event, location & frequency of occurrence categorise events into types estimate the cost impact of each type calculate the cost of poor power quality per year, as the base case. Next, for various mitigation measures, estimate the impact in terms of immunity against each type of event, or reduced cost impact when the event occurs. This results in a cost of poor PQ in the presence of each mitigation measure. Adding the annualised cost of the investment to the annual cost of poor PQ yields the type of graph in Fig 4. This allows to make a decision, taking into account various soft benets of good power quality: increased continuity of operation risk reduction: the damage due to sags is a statistical parameter, with a maximum value much higher than its average. better sta well-being for operating in a functional rather than dysfunctional environment
$500.000 $400.000 $300.000 $200.000 $100.000 $0
base case - no changes Primary static switch Service entrance Protect machine Combined static energy storage (2 controls and switch with MVA) winders controls protection

Solution cost Damage due to sags

Figure 4: Annual cost of poor power quality + mitigation for a plastics extrusion facility

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Power Quality

Conclusion

The cost of poor PQ is high and rising. Poor PQ is a problem for a wide number of business sectors A large proportion of sites suer from some degree of poor PQ (over 50%) The problems are occurring frequently, at least monthly, and often weekly. Knowing the cost of poor PQ starts with monitoring. Advanced monitoring solutions are available. Linking PQ events to costs can be done, and a judgement which mitigation measures are needed. Good power quality reduces risk, decreases the cost of doing business, and hence improves a business bottom line. It also raises throughput, through reducing downtime. According to a study on PQ mitigation in Spain [6], covering 100 companies, payback on mitigation measures ranges between 7 months and 5 years, but is typically below 2 year.

References
[1] Task force 38.06.01. Methods to consider customer interruption costs in power system analysis. Technical report, CIGRE, 2001. [2] Power quality in european electricity supply networks 1st edition. Technical report, Eurelectric, 2002. [3] David Chapman. The cost of poor power quality. In Power Quality Application Guide 2-1. www.lpqi.org, April 2002. [4] Douglas S Dorr. Point of utilization power quality study results. In IEEE IAS meeting, 1994. [5] Hans De Keulenaer. Power quality self-assessment guide. In Power Quality Application Guide 1-1. www.lpqi.org, November 2002. [6] Jonathan Manson. Business model for investing in pq solutions. [7] Mark McGranaghan. Economic evaluation of power quality. IEEE Power Engineering Review, 2002. [8] Leonardo power quality initiative literature survey. February 2002.

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