The term power quality is applied to a wide variety of electromagnetic phenomena on the power system. The increasing application of electronic equipment and distributed generation has heightened the interest in power quality in recent years, and this has been accompanied by the development of a special terminology to describe the phenomena. Unfortunately, this terminology has not been consistent across different segments of the industry. This has caused a considerable amount of confusion as both vendors and end users have struggled to understand why electrical equipment is not working as expected. Likewise, it is confusing to wade through the vendor jargon and differentiate between a myriad of proposed solutions.
Many ambiguous words have been used that have multiple or unclear meanings. For example, surge is used to describe a wide variety of disturbances that cause equipment failures or misoperation. A surge suppressor can suppress some of these but will have absolutely no effect on others. Terms like glitch and blink that have no technical meaning at all have crept into the vocabulary. Unscrupulous marketers take advantage of the ignorance of the general public, selling overpriced gadgets with near-miraculous claims for improving the power quality. Of course, this all comes with a money-back guarantee. Readers can protect themselves by obtaining a better understanding of power quality vocabulary and insisting on technical explanations of how a gadget works. Our basic rule: If they won’t tell you what is in the box and how it works, don’t buy it!
No comments:
Post a Comment