Power Quality

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Surge Protection Devices

Surge events, short-term transients in voltage threatening critical downstream equipment, happen for many reasons. The most common source is internal devices powering on and off: motors, transformers, photocopiers, fluorescent lighting ballasts, light dimmers, variable frequency drives and more.

They can also be generated externally by events like lightning, grid switching or electrical equipment in adjacent buildings. While seemingly innocent, surge events can wreak serious havoc on unprotected and inadequately protected facilities. They can disrupt, damage or destroy sensitive microprocessor-based devices (computers, programmable logic controls, etc.), resulting in premature aging of equipment, process interruptions and catastrophic failures.

The best way to prevent downtime due to an electrical surge is to develop and execute a facility-wide cascaded surge protection strategy. This requires understanding the exposure risks across your electrical distribution system per the IEEE® C62.44.1 standard:

• High exposure (Category C) at service entrances
• Medium exposure (Category B) at distribution panels
• Low exposure (Category A) at point-of-use equipment

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Power Factor Correction Devices

In an electric power system, a load with a low power factor draws more current than a load requires for the operation of the process and or building. These higher currents increase the energy lost in the distribution system and because of the costs of larger equipment needed to manage the wasted energy, electrical utilities will usually charge a higher cost to industrial or commercial customers where there is a low power factor.

Power-factor correction devices increase the power factor of a load, improving efficiency for the distribution system to which it is attached. Linear loads (induction motors) and non-linear loads, (rectifiers) distort the current drawn from the system. In such cases, active or passive power factor correction may be used to counteract the distortion and raise the power factor.

Capacitor and electronic means of power factor correction provide well-known benefits to electric power systems. These benefits include power factor correction, poor power factor penalty utility bill reductions, voltage support, release of system capacity, and reduced system losses.

A high-power factor signals maximum use of electrical power, while a low power factor leads to purchasing more power to obtain the same load kW, which you pay for in various ways on your utility bill. Eaton offers a free power factor site evaluation to help safely reduce energy consumption.

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Power Conditioning Devices

Eaton provides power line conditioning systems with exceptional reliability as they correct voltage sags, while maintaining uptime and productivity. Products are also available for the ultimate in isolation and noise suppression. These solutions range from small single-phase isolation units to megawatt sag correction units. Eaton has the engineering expertise and products to solve any power quality problem.

Protects equipment from:

• Voltage sags
• Line noise
• Voltage transients/surges
• Under/overvoltage events
• Swells
• Harmonics Ratings
• 500 VA to 50 MVA
• 50/60 Hz
• Voltage 120V to 36 kV
• Single-phase and three-phase

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Case Studies