# Addressing multiple utility power issues at once



## just the cowboy (Sep 4, 2013)

You could go with a AB power monitor 1000 connected together to a small PLC and HMI. That would let you trend and alarm with out going for a top line analyzer that you will only be using the above information. Yes some basic PLC and HMI skills are needed to learn to do this. Just a thought.

As for power factor are you getting penalized or just worried? 
If just worried don't, the POCO is the driving factor in this decision, they don't like bad power factor.


----------



## gpop (May 14, 2018)

You have your basic must haves like tvss but after that it really comes down to knowing what you have and what has been damaged in the past. (we don't know voltage or how many amps we are talking about)

We could be talking about a company that's heavily plc dependent with lots of vfd's and networked solutions or we could be talking about a simply plant with lots of stop/start buttons.

A modern company covered in sensors knows that dropping 20-30 grand on a ups is minor compared to replacing 300k worth of sensitive electronics. Add another 50k-75k worth of suppressors, phase protection and its still seems like money well spent. 

Ive gone in to other places that simply asked for problem. 
Fans that were running from a breaker panel with no overload protection (drop a phase and watch the smoke). 
No tvss on the main so first lightning strike cost 7 x 40hp vfd's, etc.

When cash is tight start with whats happened in the past and pick the low hanging fruit first. Also get a free lightning survey done by a vendor. They will measure all the ground rods and tell you what a perfect surge suppression system will consist off. A good vendor will know that a perfect package price tag will get thrown out so you can ask them to work in stages from what you need now to what you would like in the future.


----------



## olfactory (Oct 17, 2020)

just the cowboy said:


> You could go with a AB power monitor 1000 connected together to a small PLC and HMI. That would let you trend and alarm with out going for a top line analyzer that you will only be using the above information. Yes some basic PLC and HMI skills are needed to learn to do this. Just a thought.
> 
> As for power factor are you getting penalized or just worried?
> If just worried don't, the POCO is the driving factor in this decision, they don't like bad power factor.


Thanks for the input. PLC/HMI stuff isn't a problem.

We _are_ being penalized, but the accountants haven't crunched the numbers yet, so I can't yet determine what our budget would be in order to get a good ROI on power factor correction equipment.




gpop said:


> You have your basic must haves like tvss but after that it really comes down to knowing what you have and what has been damaged in the past. (we don't know voltage or how many amps we are talking about)


Sorry, should have included that. Nothing crazy here - everything is 480. As mentioned, we're talking about 8 different service entrances, all between 2000 and 6000 amps.




gpop said:


> We could be talking about a company that's heavily plc dependent with lots of vfd's and networked solutions or we could be talking about a simply plant with lots of stop/start buttons.


This place is leaning towards the first scenario, but not so full of sensitive components that money is no object. I have to thread the needle here, cost-wise (see below).




gpop said:


> A modern company covered in sensors knows that dropping 20-30 grand on a ups is minor compared to replacing 300k worth of sensitive electronics. Add another 50k-75k worth of suppressors, phase protection and its still seems like money well spent.
> 
> Ive gone in to other places that simply asked for problem.
> Fans that were running from a breaker panel with no overload protection (drop a phase and watch the smoke).
> No tvss on the main so first lightning strike cost 7 x 40hp vfd's, etc.


The latter is exactly what's going on here. Lightning, phase loss, TOVs, and no protection whatsoever. Those 3 are the main cause of equipment damage at this place, I've been told, lightning being the least common, but still an issue in need of addressing. However, considering my previous comment, I have to be somewhat choosy with how much I spend. There's a culture problem at this place, and while things are slowly improving, protective equipment like this is a tough sell, beyond the bare minimum. Not flashy enough for them, I guess 😬. I want to deliver something at a price point that the powers-that-be can stomach, but which won't just be a band-aid that provides more imaginary peace of mind than actual protection. I'll need to be able to justify the costs under some pretty severe scrutiny. I'm confident I can do that, and I'm crunching the numbers as we speak, I'm just not able to go all-out with every bell and whistle.

I greatly appreciate everyone's time and willingness to share their experience and suggestions.


----------



## paulengr (Oct 8, 2017)

Best power monitor for the money is an SEL 735. But can be a bit of a learning curve. Much simpler is a Shark 200 with say V3. With the Sharks (several versions) you just connect to the web server. Both essentially continuously monitor and record events but since the SEL does this at high speed (waveform level) it’s much more detailed. Software is free.

The Square D Powerlogics is nice as far as it’s cheap and gives basic information directly on screen on the unit but not as detailed as the other two.

As far as power factor unless you are tariffed on your bill or some rare situation like reaching limits on a cable or transformer, power factor correction will never pay for itself. Lots of snake oil sales people make all kinds of stupid claims about it. And even if you are tariffed it highly depends on your rate schedule. For instance in Dominion or Duke West it pays for itself in under a year but in Duke East it’s a waste of money.

Best to monitor because all kinds of stupid claims by the utility and others often get made blaming the utility when it’s not their fault or when it’s their fault but hard to prove. Rattling the cage of the state BPU is where your leverage is but works best if you join your states large utility users group which is a pack of lawyers that spend their hours beating yo utilities to get better service and rates.


----------



## PokeySmokey (Nov 14, 2017)

If you power factor is due to inductive loading, and you have a spare synchronous motor which can be separately excited and run with little or no load, it may work as a rotating capacitor. You would have to do calculations to determine if this will work.


----------

