Emerging standards and measurement methods will be discussed along with techniques for dealing with common problems economically. Please contact the author by email, fax or post as outlined in the resource box accompanying this article, or get in touch with Electricity Today directly. There will be regular features answering your questions, recommendations for further reading and a selected Website. The way we use the electrical supply within our facilities and, to some extent, the way it is delivered by the utility, will have an impact on the equipment connected to that supply. The simple answer is the predominance of power conversion loads which exist on the grid.
Some equipment performs more than one type of conversion and the result always has some trade-offs.
The side-effects of large concentrations of power convertors often leads to what are currently defined as power quality problems. There is, however, a school of thought which tends to react somewhat poorly to power related problems in a facility. Power problems obey the laws of physics. Power quality today, as a field of work, often involves reactive measures. At times, power quality only becomes a concern in facilities when operational problems are encountered.