Power Quality Solutions and Energy Savings

One of the most significant changes in the  Power Quality industry in the past five years is  the method of selling Power Quality solutions. Originally, Power Quality solutions were sold as  an insurance policy to avoid potential damage from power disturbances such as transients,voltage sags, interruptions or harmonics. Today, many Power Quality solution providers have found it more effective to promote energy cost reduction associated with their products rather  than to deal with the soft savings associated with minimizing downtime or reducing damage to electrical equipment. The problem is  that some of these solutions providers have  significantly overstated the savings and the  customers are deceived. While these solutions provide excellent protection, they often provide  very little, if any, energy savings. This paper will discuss work being done to evaluate the actual savings expected from various Power Quality  solutions and will give some guidance as to the  selection of these solutions based on energy savings.

Introduction

Everyone wants to save energy – and why not? With the cost of energy rising at unprecedented rates, even a small amount of savings can be a significant amount of money. The problem is that in  most cases, the “low hanging fruit” has already been picked. This  leaves the door open to new/alternative energy saving devices. One category of devices that claims to save energy is Power Quality (PQ) solutions. Several types PQ devices “claim” to save energy – some more than others. The amount of savings “available” from these devices appears to be directly proportional to the mystique of the device and the passion of the salesperson representing the product. Some of the “black-box” PQ solutions available today apparently correct all known PQ problems while reducing energy costs by 10-30%. With a savings like that, why wouldn’t a controller consider these solutions? While most reputable manufacturer and consultants can quickly see through the black smoke, some of the not-so-obvious techniques are running rampant and getting through to end users (commercial, industrial and even residential) tarnishing the reputation of the entire industry.

Why is it that this is a “new” technique in selling? It capitalizes on the reduction in technical staffing at most facilities evaluating solutions, and relies on the complicated nature of PQ solutions. It also  fits well with the need to demonstrate a short capital payback period  that is required by most companies today. Capital budgets are  hard to come by and having a solution that shows a “real” payback in two years or less is an easy sell. Power Quality solutions have historically been sold as insurance policies to protect against the “next” damaging sag, surge or interruption without guarantee of the number of times where the benefits are hard to qualify. By contrast energy savings offers easy justification.

In addition to these overstated claims, many times these so-called all-in-one solutions may solve one problem but tend to exacerbate another. They are applied without consideration for the system as a whole. For example, some “black-box” solutions correct power factor using standard low voltage capacitors but may do so without regard to potential overvoltage concerns or harmonic resonance considerations. This paper summarizes the authors’ experiences with several of these equipment suppliers and the sales methods that they use to confuse the end users enough to close a sale.