When you think about the electrical power needed to run your facility, your primary concerns are most likely how much it costs and how much power your facility needs.
However, an equally important factor is the quality of the power as it runs through your facility. If your facility’s power is running inefficiently, it can cause unnecessary disruptions that can lead to unexpected downtime and costly damages to your facility and equipment.
If you’re asking yourself, “How would I even know if my power is ‘dirty,’ and what could I do to make it clean?” We don’t blame you. HESCO has been helping our customers streamline their facilities and assisting with their electrical service needs for over eight decades, so we have experience dealing with the issues caused by dirty power.
That’s why we’re going to walk you through the steps you can take to keep your facility running cleanly and smoothly.
What Makes Power ‘Dirty’?
To understand dirty power, it is important first to define clean power. Clean power is just a term for any electrical power free of abnormalities like spikes and voltage drops; This kind of power comes through an outlet with little to no electrical “noise.”
Courtesy of https://electricalworkbook.com/voltage-sag/
Dirty power is an umbrella term that includes several possible abnormalities in your electrical system that can be disruptive and costly to your facility. This is characterized by a distorted sine wave with a total harmonic distortion exceeding 10% or more.
Sine waves are representations of how electrical power alternates in a smooth, predictable pattern over a distance. These waves vary in amplitude (how high and low, or positive and negative, the wave flows) and frequency (how quickly a wave reaches its highest and lowest points before returning to zero).
Harmonic distortion occurs when the pure sine wave of a signal is distorted by additional waves or “harmonics” that are multiples of the original frequency. These extra waves are not part of the ideal, smooth sine wave but instead create distortions that can affect the quality of electrical power.
More simply, dirty power is power that, from either an internal or external source, is afflicted with electromagnetic noise that causes interference with your power supply.
Courtesy of Power Quality Analyzing – The Electrical Department Company
Some of the most common symptoms of dirty power include:
- Power surges, swells, and interruptions
- Flickering and blinking lights
- Transformer issues
- Poor network communication
- Premature motor failure
If you notice one or more of these disturbances in your facility, don’t ignore them; they could be a telltale sign that your power is dirty and that steps need to be taken to change that.
Why Clean Power Matters
Dirty power can come from a myriad of sources, some external and some internal. It is mostly caused when electrical devices manipulate the current of a circuit (like switching between AC and DC power), causing spikes and surges in frequency that reverberate through your facility.
Specific disturbances can include:
- Low power factor: a low ratio of real power to apparent power caused by inductive loads connected to a system.
- Over-voltages/voltage sags: increases or decreases, respectfully, in voltages at abnormal values. These are often caused by utility switching, ground faults, utility switching, and starting large loads.
- Normal mode noise: low-level signals added to the original power signal caused by computers and switching power supplies.
- Harmonics: signals with duplicate frequencies of the original signal caused by switching loads and computer networks.
- Outages: total losses of power to systems caused by equipment failure and acts of nature, such as lightning or storm surges.
Why Clean Power Matters
No matter how dirty power originates in your facility, the disruptions it causes in your everyday operations can be disruptive and expensive.
Dirty power disruptions account for about $15 billion in annual costs, most of which come from unexpected downtime caused by affected machinery. This downtime can cost anywhere between $14,000 and $6 million per hour, depending on the type of facility and the extent of the damages.
Dirty power issues also affect your facility on a wide scale, extending past the initial point of failure. Devices can be subject to costly malfunctions, suffer operation inefficiency, and become even more susceptible to further electrical problems.
A failure in one piece of equipment can mean failure for even more devices that are connected to it, leading to further problems past the initial point of failure.
How to Clean Up Your Power
About 80% of dirty power issues occur on the customer side of the electric meter, which means that you can take immediate steps to clean up your power and ensure your facility is functioning with reliable power.
If you notice any of the above symptoms in your electrical grid, there are a few immediate things you can do to alleviate your system’s issues. A qualified electrician can come to your facility to evaluate your system, find where your power issues originate from, and help you with remedies.
The following devices are just a few examples of technologies that can be used to protect your equipment from dirty power:
- Power conditioners: devices that remove electromagnetic and radio interference from AC lines and smooth out voltage fluctuations.
- Voltage regulators: stabilize the DC voltages used by computer processors and other elements; they also can be used on a wider scale to control plant outputs.
- Uninterruptable power supplies: a power system with an automated backup of electrical power to be used when the main power source fails.
- Harmonic filters: a device that reduces the amplitude of specific harmonic frequencies in a wave.
- Surge protectors: an appliance that protects AC circuits from short-duration voltage spikes.
All these devices can be prescribed based on the root cause or installed preemptively to prevent large-scale problems. It’s also important to keep in mind that some machinery is more sensitive to power fluctuations and must be monitored more closely or with different instruments.
Other simple steps you can take to fix dirty power include:
- Turn off appliances that are not in use.
- Use analog power meters instead of “smart” meters.
- Switch to devices/appliances that use electricity smoothly (like incandescent/LED lightbulbs).
The Power is in Your Hands
Now that we’ve gone through some of the biggest causes of dirty power, as well as some of the easiest steps you can take to clean it up, you should feel equipped to solve any dirty power problems you might have so you can stop problems before they start.
The HESCO team is happy to answer any questions you might have about the equipment and devices mentioned here; we are also happy to assist you in evaluating and equipping your facility with the tools you need to keep it running safely and efficiently. Contact HESCO today.