The Seven Types of Power Problems White Paper 18 Revision 1 by Joseph Seymour Contents > Executive summary Click on a section to jump to it Introduction 2 Many of the mysteries of equipment failure, downtime, software and data corruption, are the result of a prob- Transients 4 lematic supply of power. There is also a common problem with describing power problems in a standard Interruptions 8 way. This white paper will describe the most common types of power disturbances, what can cause them, Sag / undervoltage 9 what they can do to your critical equipment, and how to Swell / overvoltage 10 safeguard your equipment, using the IEEE standards for describing power quality problems. Waveform distortion 11 Voltage fluctuations 15 Frequency variations 15 Conclusion 18 Resources 19 Appendix 20 RATE THIS PAPER white papers are now part of the Schneider Electric white paper library produced by Schneider Electric’s Data Center Science Center
[email protected] The Seven Types of Power Problems Introduction Our technological world has become deeply dependent upon the continuous availability of electrical power. In most countries, commercial power is made available via nationwide grids, interconnecting numerous generating stations to the loads. The grid must supply basic national needs of residential, lighting, heating, refrigeration, air conditioning, and transporta- tion as well as critical supply to governmental, industrial, financial, commercial, medical and communications communities. Commercial power literally enables today’s modern world to function at its busy pace. Sophisticated technology has reached deeply into our homes and careers, and with the advent of e-commerce is continually changing the way we interact with the rest of the world.