Practical Examples of Power Quality Solutions
Discover how our power quality solutions are successfully implemented. Voltage-driven active filters ensure reliable emergency power, while effective mains management reduces production downtime and lowers energy costs. With active filters and tuned power factor correction, we’ve prevented production disruptions and eliminated unwanted harmonics.
Nowadays, nearly all the consumers connected to the electricity supply network constitute non-linear loads. Their non-sinusoidal current draw distorts the supply network voltage and thus generates harmonics. This results in overloading of the connected devices and installations, which can disrupt the infrastructure of a company even to the point of jeopardizing operational reliability. Passive or active filter systems provide a remedy for this situation.
In present-day factories and other installations, electronically controlled drives with motion controllers are being used more and more for energy-efficient production. However, their frequency converters have the disadvantage of inducing supply-side perturbations with severe harmonics, which can lead to plant upsets and even total stoppages.
Power factor correction systems are effective in reducing the reactive power of nonlinear loads. In many companies, systems of this type are continuously in operation. If the power supply is also heavily polluted by harmonics, filters are a great help. Unsatisfactory power quality, however, cannot always be attributed to clearly identifiable causes. This means that despite measures having been taken, electrical faults still occur in the machinery, greatly disrupting production. This is often caused either by power factor correction systems that are not detuned, thus making resonance occur, or by the trend to ever more electronic loads, which generate supply-side harmonics. FRAKO offers customized solutions to combat these problems, employing network analyses, detuned power factor correction systems and, when required, active or passive harmonic filters.
A reliable power supply, free of disruptions, is essential for machinery and manufacturing systems to continue producing with no breakdowns. The growing use of loads with non-linear characteristics, drawing non-sinusoidal current from the supply, results in an ever-increasing pollution of the network with harmonics. Power supply companies alone cannot always guarantee stable network quality; in many cases a company’s own active filters or power factor correction systems help to improve power quality at its installations.
Systems of this type require monitoring and maintenance. This can be done either by the manufacturing company itself or by a specialized service provider such as FRAKO. Remote maintenance means that a manufacturer can concentrate on its core competencies—while production continues in full swing.
If an automated production process or business operation grinds to a halt for no apparent reason, refrigeration systems trip out or the radio hums at a low frequency, harmonics in the electrical installation are very often to blame. These are frequently caused by electronically controlled equipment with nonlinear characteristics, for example dimmers, chopper-type power supply units or frequency converters. A detailed analysis of the network can quickly shed light on the issue and reveal the causes. Unscheduled interruptions of normal operation are not just a nuisance; they engender additional costs, cause loss of production or can even damage equipment and installations, possibly leading to dangerous situations. If the harmonics are generated within a company's own infrastructure, it has sole responsibility for eliminating them through active or passive filters. The power supply company is not liable for this problem.