During this winter we have seen a rising interest in power quality measurements at Swedish thermal power stations. Our rental instruments have been in constant operation. We have, therefore, supplemented our fleet of instruments further to guarantee high availability.
We know from experience that many users want to measure when they perceive problems that need immediate action. By collecting and storing data they can create a basis for understanding what is going on in the plant. During the winter measurements we observed that all thermal power plants have had their own unique problems.
Measuring RVCs is important
In this example the generator had been running for 2 hours while the level of flicker rose to a PST value around 2.0 which led to many customers got in touch. A deeper analysis of the measurement data shows that the high level of flicker is due to the fact that more than 5,000 power surges between 4% – 5% are recorded during the same period. After various data analyses and comparisons with production logs it was clear that there was a fault with the magnetization of the generator. With knowledge of the cause, one can go ahead and solve the problem.
