STANDARD

A glass factory in France loses € 600.000 and 3 days of production due to the consecutive failure of two transformers. In a bank, a fire, resulting from neutral overheating, causes over € 1 million damage. These are not isolated events. Recent publications lead to a global bill for poor power quality of 500 billion euro per year, i.e. 50% of the turnover of the global electricity sector. For many business uses, the cost of poor PQ is higher than the electricity bill. And the cost is rising. It is caused by outages, dips, harmonics and other types of disturbances. Some disturbances are relatively new, such as harmonic currents and voltages. Others, like outages and dips have always been around, but the cost impact of these events is increasing dramatically. The cost of a single disturbance in a semiconductor facility can be as high as 3.8 million euro. Loss of power in a telecommunications facility costs e 30 000 per minute. The results are lost production, equipment damage, idling personnel, data loss, as well as consequential losses: revenue postponed, negative impact on cash-flow, loss of goodwill from customers, possibly even loss of market share. Sometimes, the effects are not so obvious, as in the case of harmonics causing extra, hidden losses in the system, and accelerated equipment ageing caused by the additional heat due to the harmonics. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228582602_The_Hidden_Cost_of_Poor_Power_Quality