Eaton Power Conditioning
A sag is a 10% to 90% drop in the supply voltage. Sags are short duration events caused by faults on the utility system or by the starting of large motors, and can be accompanied by voltage distortion, transients and phase shifts. Voltage regulation is another potential problem that occurs when voltage fluctuates over 10% for long periods of time from one minute to many hours.
The effects of a voltage sag on a plant or production facility can be devastating. In the United States alone, voltage sags cost production facilities billions of dollars every year in downtime and lost production. The cost of poor power quality depends on many factors, but it generally costs between $50 to $400 per kVA of total load. For a 10 MVA plant, that translates into a cost of between $500,000 to $4 million annually.
A power conditioner or automatic voltage regulator (AVR) can correct power quality problems, like brownouts, surges, over-voltage, sags, voltage imbalance, unbalanced current, line noise and others issues that cost business billions of dollars each year. Automatic voltage regulators and power conditioners from Eaton can correct these power quality problems and help you improve that all-important bottom line.
Sags can result in:
- Increased operating costs
- Safety hazards
- Equipment failure and damage
- Need for product reworks
- Reduction in product quality
- Increased clean-up
- Increased labor costs
- Increased scrap materials
- Increased investigation cost