Tools for supplying premium quality power

The electric utility industry has done a good job of minimizing the long term outage, but for some industries, reliable power is not good enough. There is an increasing demand for premium quality power. The proliferation of sensitive electronic equipment at industrial and commercial sites has resulted in an increasing number of major power users who are sensitive to temporary voltage disturbances, momentary outages, and voltage fluctuations. An EPRI survey of distribution power quality reveals that that the average site experiences several voltage sags per month. Many sensitive critical processes are impacted by these events resulting in significant production losses and demands for better quality power that is free of voltage disturbances, fluctuations and momentary interruptions. A commercial framework for power quality is needed to support the implementation of these technical solutions within today´s business environment. This paper discusses the concept of premium quality power, technical solutions, and applications. The authors discuss thyristor controlled reactors and thyristor switched capacitors which are two tools for static VAr compensators, and SSD, a micro-SMES system