Power Quality Costs estimation in Portuguese industry

This paper presents the main results of a survey conducted in Portugal to evaluate the costs associated with Power Quality disturbances in Industry (more specifically of four typical and most common voltage interruptions). The survey was conducted in different companies from different industrial sectors. Although Power Quality Costs estimation was the main issue of the survey, several other issues were analyzed in order to evaluate important matters such as customer satisfaction. From the analysis of the collected data, the vast majority of companies are satisfied with the Quality of Service provided by the utility, but they indicated the "utility" and "weather conditions" as the main responsible for power supply disturbances. It is clear that the Power Quality disturbances cause high costs to the companies in all the sectors analyzed. This study allowed to get a good picture and to quantify the Portuguese Power Quality Costs related with electrical power supply disturbances.