Dirty Power

[delectric123]

I once talked with a manager from a hog facility who said they used to have problems with circuit boards going bad on their ventilation equipment(SKOV Ventilation out of Holland). The electrician blamed it on dirty power and he installed some kind of device at each breaker panel, that "cleans" it, absorbs surges, and was also supposed to decrease the power consumption from all the fan motors and fluorescent lights. And apparently, since then they've eleminated the problems of boards going bad, plus he claimed they had the lowest electrical bill last year compared to similar operations. I am trying to get into contact with the electrician on what that device is. Meanwhile, has anybody ever heard of something like that? is it actually so effective? Also, what is the best way to actually determine that there is dirty power? With a $2500 Power Quality Analyzer? I have an Oscilliscope, could I check with that?

 

[kwired]

I once talked with a manager from a hog facility who said they used to have problems with circuit boards going bad on their ventilation equipment(SKOV Ventilation out of Holland). The electrician blamed it on dirty power and he installed some kind of device at each breaker panel, that "cleans" it, absorbs surges, and was also supposed to decrease the power consumption from all the fan motors and fluorescent lights. And apparently, since then they've eleminated the problems of boards going bad, plus he claimed they had the lowest electrical bill last year compared to similar operations. I am trying to get into contact with the electrician on what that device is. Meanwhile, has anybody ever heard of something like that? is it actually so effective? Also, what is the best way to actually determine that there is dirty power? With a $2500 Power Quality Analyzer? I have an Oscilliscope, could I check with that?

Everything is dirty in a hog facility:lol:


Sounds like nothing more than a surge arrestor, and maybe a capacitor. I find it hard to believe it decreased power consumption by any noticeable amount, unless a power factor study was done and it was sized for the application, but even then would only save on line losses unless the facility is penalized for poor power factor.

 

[iceworm]

I once talked with a manager from a hog facility who said they used to have problems with circuit boards going bad on their ventilation equipment(SKOV Ventilation out of Holland). The electrician blamed it on dirty power and he installed some kind of device at each breaker panel, that "cleans" it, absorbs surges, and was also supposed to decrease the power consumption from all the fan motors and fluorescent lights. And apparently, since then they've eleminated the problems of boards going bad, plus he claimed they had the lowest electrical bill last year compared to similar operations. ...

bull (cough) pucky Color me skeptical

To paraphrase MH in one of his classes:
Any time you hear, "dirty grounds", "harmonics", "ground loops", "surge" as the cause, that usually means the speaker doesn't know the cause.

I'll add "dirty power" to the list.

... Meanwhile, has anybody ever heard of something like that? is it actually so effective? ...

Well, almost. I have read reports/papers on industrial sized power conditioners, and of course, proper sized cap banks can reduce harmonics - but neither of those fit a panelboard sized gadget. As for the savings, unless there is an issue with penalities associated with harmonics exceeding spec at the PCC, or low power factor penalities - there isn't much one can do about the KW required. And I don't see panelboard sized gadgets fixing either of those.

I've sized and installed Cap banks for pf correction and harmonic reduction that actually worked. I've never installed nor been around industrial sized power conditioner. Biggest I've seen is maybe a few tens of kw. So I don't have any data on exactly how well those work.

... Also, what is the best way to actually determine that there is dirty power? With a $2500 Power Quality Analyzer? I have an Oscilliscope, could I check with that?

I've never used a $2500 power analyzer, so I don't know. I've got a $10K one that works really well. I can set it to record, pick triggers for high speed recording, go back in a day, week, month and see exactly all of the transients, harmonics, demands, sags, swells, pf, in nauseatingly, excrutiating detail. And I've even been able to make ocassionally useful recomendations.

Even a good scope would be really tough to see anything other than continuous harmonic distortion. I've set one to trigger and record and even caught a few transients. But you just get one event and none of the rest of the data.

AND, I'm not a "dirty power" whiz - so could be I'm all wet.

ice

 

[robbietan]

I once talked with a manager from a hog facility who said they used to have problems with circuit boards going bad on their ventilation equipment(SKOV Ventilation out of Holland). The electrician blamed it on dirty power and he installed some kind of device at each breaker panel, that "cleans" it, absorbs surges, and was also supposed to decrease the power consumption from all the fan motors and fluorescent lights. And apparently, since then they've eleminated the problems of boards going bad, plus he claimed they had the lowest electrical bill last year compared to similar operations. I am trying to get into contact with the electrician on what that device is. Meanwhile, has anybody ever heard of something like that? is it actually so effective? Also, what is the best way to actually determine that there is dirty power? With a $2500 Power Quality Analyzer? I have an Oscilliscope, could I check with that?

yep sounds like a capacitor with a TVSS. lowest electrical bills probably since the addition of the caps resulted in a power factor discount. wish I was in the same business. lol

well an oscilloscope may mean more work as most power analyzers are high tech oscilloscopes with a lot of goodies thrown in. some good analyzers come for a lot less than $2,500 and do very much the same work as the high priced ones