What are the basic elements of a power quality survey?

A power quality survey helps to identify and resolve power-related problems in equipment or facility systems. It represents a systematic, comprehensive approach to problem-solving and typically incorporates the following elements:

1. Planning For a survey to be successful, appropriate planning efforts must be performed. The two most important are determining the survey’s objectives and its scope of activities. Typical objectives include solving a particular equipment performance problem, identifying and correcting sources of interference in a facility, identifying the overall power quality for a facility, or establishing the suitability of available power before installing new equipment. The scope of the survey will be affected by factors ranging from the size of the facility and complexity of its electrical system to the number and length of equipment event logs, the degree of involvement of managerial levels, and the number of power monitors and their placement.

2. Survey Preparation Once the design of the survey has been completed, preparation for the implementation will include the following:

• Data collection and documentation
• Assembly of required tools, such as a power monitor, circuit tester, multimeter and infrared scanner
• Site inspection will include both visual and physical inspection
• Placement, connection and setup of power monitoring system
  

3. Data Analysis Based on data gathered through the preparation phase, the following should be analyzed:

• Review physical inspection data
• Review site history and equipment event logs
• Plot power monitor event summaries
• Compare power events to equipment event logs
• Compare events to equipment performance specifications
• Extract key power monitor events
• Classify key power monitor events
• Confirm power monitor event correlation
• Identify cause of event
• Design and implement solution to event