Has your facility recently experienced brownouts, power blips, voltage sags or swells? Have you been repeatedly replacing the same electronic components? Have you experienced unexplained machine shutdowns?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, irregularities in your facility's power quality are likely the hidden source of these unplanned and aggravating events. According to Rockwell Automation, 70% of unexplained downtime is caused by power quality problems. Poor power quality can negatively impact the performance and life-expectancy of electronic components used in your facility's process applications. This causes downtime and increases overall costs for your facility.
The first step in addressing power quality issues is to identify and analyze how power quality is affecting your production and control equipment. While some power quality issues are evident, like flickering lights or brownouts that cause a reduction in voltage for minutes or hours, other incidents happen so quickly they may go undetected. These events may include voltage sags or swells, harmonic distortions, transients and more. Some power quality events are caused by outside sources like severe weather or a neighboring facility pushing energy back onto the electrical grid then causing a ripple that hits your facility. Others are caused by new or existing equipment within your facility or at your local utility company. Whatever the cause, these less noticeable events can cause dysfunction in your processes and harm electrical components.
According to Brock Walker, Automation Consultant with Kirby Risk Electrical Supply, the power quality events that go unseen can wreak the most havoc. Without some type of power monitoring system, most facilities really have no idea how poor power quality is affecting their internal processes.
Unfortunately, poor power quality is often evident in areas where industrial growth is booming due to increased demand. Coupled with the increased use of more sensitive electronic equipment in industrial facilities, power quality events are on the rise.
Walker says if customers are seeing electrical components short out, trip or have a shortened life span, the need for monitoring incoming power is critical. “Every time there is a power ripple, whether it is a voltage sag, which means they are losing voltage, or if it is a voltage spike, which means they have too much, it is essentially beating those components up.
Let's say a drive or a VFD is supposed to last 25 years. If you're putting that on poor power, now that VFD may last half its life.” He recommends installing the i-Sense® Voltage Monitor from Allen-Bradley® to track voltage-based power events.
WHY THE I-SENSE® VOLTAGE MONITOR MAKES SENSE
The i-Sense® Voltage Monitor from Allen-Bradley® is an essential tool in monitoring incoming power quality. Once installed, i-Sense® technology uncovers vital data about voltage-based power events. This data is then transmitted to the i-Grid® server through a cloud-based application via Ethernet or modem. Here, the event data is collected, analyzed, correlated and sent back to the i-Grid® subscriber through text or email event notifications within a matter of minutes.
Now, with power quality data and reports at hand showing the cause of your power quality event, you have a basis to take swift and targeted action to get your facility up and running again with minimum downtime. This data can help you determine a mitigation strategy to help you evade the consequences of these power quality issues.
KEY BENEFITS OF THE I-SENSE® VOLTAGE MONITOR
(from Rockwell Automation Bulletin 1608 Power Quality Products)
Diagnose Downtime Quickly
- Power quality issues are a frequent cause of downtime and are difficult to diagnose without monitoring in place
- Instant notification via text or email when an event occurs
Cost-effective, Permanent Monitoring Solution
- Permanent monitoring is more effective than temporary solutions at diagnosing random power quality events
Easy-to-use Web-based Application
- Access complete event information and history from any internet-connected browser
- No software to install, configure or maintain
Voltage Event Tracking
- Documents the most common source of disruptive dirty power events in utility feeds
Multiple Configurations Within Single Unit
- 26 voltages between 100-480VAC
- Modern or Ethernet connectivity
- 50/60 Hz auto-sensing
To prevent the consequences of power quality issues, proving that issues do exist is key to determining if mitigation steps are needed, says Walker. According to most customers' sustainability plans, obtaining better energy efficiency while preserving component life is a goal over the next two to four years. Installing voltage monitors such as the i-Sense® can help customers achieve this goal by pinpointing power quality disturbances and determining their root cause to take next steps to eliminate their effects on machines and processes.
Case in point, Walker says Kirby Risk has a customer located in an industrial park northwest of Indianapolis that recently installed the i-Sense® Voltage Monitor. Within the last 10 months, this customer has logged 186 power quality events with the voltage monitor system. Each of these events, whether big or small, can potentially cause damage to electrical components.
As a result, this customer installed the DySC® Voltage Sag Protector, a nearly maintenance-free mitigation solution that protects against voltage sags and brief interruptions that cause a majority of downtime and equipment/component damage in a facility. (Learn more about mitigation solutions in the Winter 2023 Connected Magazine.)