Power quality analysis and its effects on energy meter readings and life expectancy

Maintaining a power supply with exquisite power quality level involves the frequent monitoring of electrical parameters from the load side as well as the source side. Neglecting the common power quality issues can lead to huge amount of losses, from the equipment downtime point of view as well as in terms of economy. A model of the electrical energy meter is simulated in MATLAB SIMULINK which can be used to measure the losses in the system, and these results are compared with the experimental results. This paper formulates losses as a function of power quality and a relation is made for the major power quality losses. Experimental analysis is done for undervoltage and overvoltage condition in two different load conditions. Increase in temperature occurs due to these losses incurred due to such disturbances. By obtaining the temperature, the Arrhenius equation can be used to calculate the life expectancy of the equipment connected at the load side. This paper aims at providing live updates and monitoring, regarding the power quality level and the losses incurred under use so that improvement measures can be carried out thus increasing the life expectancy of the equipment.