Power system disturbances caused by a utility's normal operations

Abstract

Utilities construct various power system network configurations to service their customers are economically as possible and maintain continuity and quality of service. The authors present a case study of a customer's sensitive computerized processes, which were significantly affected by power-supply disturbances when their system was connected to an existing unproblematic power-system network configuration. The utility conducted an experiment to locate the origins of the power system disturbances by monitoring at several test site locations the disturbances generated by various normal utility activities (e.g. breaker operations, capacitor switching, etc.) and the operations of existing customer loads (e.g. motor starting). The methodology presented demonstrates that power system disturbance problems can be quickly resolved through field tests as opposed to theoretical analysis which can be problematic (e.g. due to lack of available data) and time-consuming.<>