Products   Power Quality Solutions

What's Your Power Quality Problem?

With the ever-increasing use of sophisticated controls and equipment in industrial, commercial, institutional, and governmental facilities, the continuity, reliability, and quality of electrical service has become extremely crucial to many power users. Electrical systems are subject to a wide variety of power quality problems which can interrupt production processes, affect sensitive equipment, and cause downtime, scrap, and capacity losses. Momentary voltage fluctuations can disastrously impact production . . . extended outages have a greater impact.

The most common power quality problems are:

Voltage Sags
Voltage sags are the most common power problem encountered. Sags are a short-term reduction in voltage, and can cause interruptions to sensitive equipment such as adjustable-speed drives, relays, and robots. Sags are most often caused by fuse or breaker operation, motor starting, or capacitor switching. Voltage sags typically are non-repetitive, or repeat only a few times due to recloser operation. Sags can occur on multiple phases or on a single phase and can be accompanied by voltage swells on other phases.
Power Interruptions
Power interruptions are zero-voltage events that can be caused by weather, equipment malfunction, recloser operations, or transmission outages. Interruptions can occur on one or more phases and are typically short duration events, the vast majority of power interruptions are less than 60 seconds.
Voltage Flicker
Voltage flicker is rapidly occurring voltage sags caused by sudden and large increases in load current. Voltage flicker is most commonly caused by rapidly varying loads that require a large amount of reactive power such as welders, rock-crushers, sawmills, wood chippers, metal shredders, and amusement rides. It can cause visible flicker in lights and cause other processes to shut down or malfunction.

S&C PureWave® Family of Power Quality Products

S&C offers PureWave® power quality systems, the broadest selection of products offering whole-facility protection from virtually any power quality problem from 380 volts through 34.5 kV. These large-scale systems can be tailored to your specific power quality problem to offer the most economical and cost-effective solution. These products are designed to protect an entire facility from the impact of power quality problems. No longer is the data center the only area receiving protected power—the factory floor, offices, and support areas can all be economically protected. Power quality problems can shut down whole factories and processes, causing significant product loss, maintenance and repair expense. For plants running 24/7 or near capacity, it is often impossible to recover from this lost production.

S&C has manufactured power quality products and systems for industrial and utility applications for over 20 years. S&C’s Power Quality Products Division's PureWave® line has realized significant success providing power quality solutions to the continuous process and service industries. As one of the few companies developing large-scale, outdoor and indoor power quality systems to protect entire facilities, S&C PureWave products ensure a consistent and reliable high-quality power supply at industrial and commercial installations worldwide.

Which PureWave Product Is Right For You?

Use the product selection table below to determine the best solution for your power quality problem:

Power Quality Problem	Power Quality Solution
	Uninterruptible Power Supply System	Dynamic Voltage Restorer	Distributed Static Compensator	Adaptive VAR Compensator
Voltage Sags < 50%
Voltage Sags > 50%
Power Interruptions   < 60 Seconds
Power interruptions   > 60 Seconds
Voltage Flicker

  When applied with a backup generator.