On the detection and recording of voltage dips and interruptions

Voltage variations are the most common power quality events that may result in interruption of different industrial processes and significant financial losses. The electric power utility industry requires significant improvement in the quality of power provided to customers during faults or wide area system disturbance. This is related to the availability of tools that help energy management, planning and protection engineers to understand the processes in order to optimise the operation of the system under different abnormal conditions. The paper describes the most typical power quality events — voltage variations — that have the largest impact on sensitive customers.