Power Quality Monitoring: 5 Benefits

Updated Jan. 30, 2020

In order for your business to run efficiently and effectively, you need electricity. If you experience a dip or spike in power, your efficiency suffers, and you run the risk of several other problems. In order to prevent issues and allow your business to perform at its best, you need to implement power quality monitoring (PQM).

Some businesses face steeper losses than others. Eight key U.S. market segments studied by E Source forfeit about $27 billion per year due to power outages.

More specifically, the E Source report found that manufacturers tend to suffer the most from outages, followed by financial service companies, and healthcare facilities. The revenue loss alone is enough reason to jump in and set up a power quality monitoring system, but let’s take a closer look at what exactly this is.

What is Power Quality Monitoring?

Power quality monitoring measures the supply of power to AC power units. This includes voltage, current or power factor. A sudden, or even a gradual, change in power can greatly affect your power quality, reducing your efficiency or causing other problems.

Power quality refers to the delivery of the necessary energy to electronic equipment in order for it to run properly.

PQM will gather and analyze electricity measurement data into useful information that can inform upgrades and changes. A typical monitoring system measures:

1. Voltage
2. Electrical current
3. Sometimes ground quality if unbalanced loads or harmonics are detected

Common Electrical Problems Caused by Power Quality Issues

• Automatic Resets
• Data Errors
• Equipment Failure
• Circuit Board Failure
• Memory Loss
• Power Supply Problems
• Software Corruption
• Overheating of electrical systems

What causes these issues? Well, it can be a variety of things like power surges, voltage sag, transients, and interruptions can cause the voltage to fluctuate outside of the healthy range.

Benefits of Power Quality Monitoring Systems

Now that you have a bit of an idea as to what can happen if you have power quality problems, let’s take a look at some of the benefits that come from being proactive when it comes to monitoring electricity in your facility.

PQM and Studies Detect Disturbances

A power quality monitoring system informs diagnostic electrical testing (or studies) that are performed on your machines to tell you how they are doing. Pro Circuit provides temporary monitoring of these machines and your power systems to check for power distribution and possible disturbances that can decrease productivity.

By detecting issues early on, you can fix them before they become much bigger problems.

Prevent Interruptions

When you have an interruption of power – be it a dip, a spike, a surge or an outage – your service, and your machines, stops, even if only briefly. Even a brief interruption, especially several over many days, weeks or months, can lead to significant decreases in efficiency and productivity. When you suffer these interruptions, your output, in turn, suffers as well.

Save Money and Maintain Productivity

If your power is not optimal, or is interrupted, your business faces severe decreases in productivity. Not only that, but power surges or dips can lead to malfunctioning, or even broken, equipment. When this happens, you need to have your machinery fixed.

These fixes can be costly. So, not only do you lose out on money because you’re not producing as much as you would normally be able to, but you lose even more to repairs. By not earning as much and spending more, this brings you further away from your financial goals.

By finding issues, through power monitoring and quality studies, you not only save money, but can also generate more revenue in the long run.

They Allow for New Machinery

If you add new machinery, your power gets redistributed in an attempt to run it along with all of your current machines. If your service or panel isn’t big enough, you are likely to run into dips in power and decreased productivity. Before you add new equipment, a power quality study can tell you if you need to upgrade your service or increase the size of your panel in order to keep your efficiency and productivity the same, if not better.

Increased Safety

If power is improperly provided to machines, they run the risk of overheating. When machines overheat, they run the risk of breaking down. Some overheated machines can even catch fire, which creates a very dangerous situation for not just your business, but your employees as well.

When your business is destroyed by fire, you lose money to repairs and by being completely shut down. But if the fire is devastating enough, your employees could be injured, if not worse. Power quality monitoring can help prevent any of these problems from happening by detecting issues early on.

Don’t let your efficiency and productivity suffer. Pro Circuit can provide you with power quality monitoring and studies to keep your business running smoothly. Contact Pro Circuit today to request a bid!