CUSTOM POWER: an opportunity for energy conservation

The CUSTOM POWER concept, initiated by EPRI, provides the electric utility industry with a low loss technology, in the range of 0.5% to 1% to meet the power supply quality needs of customers who have sophisticated, sensitive loads. In addition to receiving quality power, customers can avoid the significant investment and electrical losses that are the result of customer installed power conditioning equipment. Judging from the current growth rate, a preliminary study indicates that CUSTOM POWER technology can offer energy savings up to 20000 MW by the year 2015. The authors discuss details of the development work in various power electronics controllers and raises the issue of economics for further discussion