Cost-benefit analysis of voltage sag mitigation methods in cement plants

Voltage sags are responsible for nuisance process trips in modern automated industrial facilities, thereby resulting huge financial losses to customers. Therefore, both utility as well as customers are having greater concerns for the improvement in power quality. Everyone wants to determine the optimum solutions. To do this, one need to evaluate solutions at all levels of the power system from the utility´s transmission and distribution system to the end user´s secondary system. One needs to compare the cost of these improvements to the benefits to determine the cost-effectiveness of the improvements. Therefore, options for improving the voltage sag performance of the supply system should be considered for these facilities based on traditional engineering economic principles. Cement manufacturing process is very vulnerable to voltage sags. This paper describes the importance of the voltage sag problem in such plant and possible mitigation methods.