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Power Quality Investigation

We measure what's actually
happening on your line.

These go unsolved for years because nobody measures during the event. The vendor may suspect the equipment. The utility may say its power is clean. Until the system is measured during an event, neither explanation has been confirmed. Measurement is the only thing that settles it, which means leaving instruments on the system long enough to catch something that might happen twice a month. We check grounding and wiring first, since that is cheap to rule out and expensive to miss, then watch voltage, current, harmonic content and frequency until an event turns up. Whether it is inside your fence or upstream of your service, you will know which.

You find out what is tripping the line, and the fix holds because it was aimed at the cause.
Choosing an approach

What most facilities try before they measure anything.

Replace whatever tripped, then call the utility. Both are reasonable responses, and both tend to happen more than once.

Trust the Vendor's Diagnosis

The vendor proposes a fix based on their product. They can't evaluate your incoming power or wider system, and they're selling the fix.

Fine when the equipment is clearly the issue and everything upstream has been ruled out.
Live With It

Schedule around the trips and treat them as a cost of doing business. Cheapest short term, but the losses just stop getting counted.

A real option when the trips are rare and cheap enough that solving them isn't worth the spend.
Independent Power Quality Investigation

Monitoring is installed at the panels to capture real trip events, showing whether the cause is utility-side or facility-side before anyone proposes a fix.

What you need when the vendor and the utility keep pointing at each other.
How we help

How we investigate the problem

This runs as a defined sequence, and it ends with a specific finding you can put in front of the vendor or the utility.

01
Site Survey and Monitoring Wiring and grounding checked first, then recorders put on the panels where the problem actually shows up rather than wherever is easiest to reach. Dranetz and Fluke power recorders, ground resistance testers, and a megohmmeter when insulation is in question.
02
A Real Data Collection Period Monitoring stays on the system long enough to catch a real event, which on an intermittent problem can mean several weeks. A two-day snapshot on a fault that happens twice a month tells you almost nothing.
03
Utility-Side vs. Facility-Side Analysis Timestamped waveform captures show which direction the disturbance came from. A motor start inside the facility and a fault out on the feeder look nothing alike once you can see the current and voltage together.
04
A Specific Remedy, Tied to the Cause A recommendation aimed at what the data actually showed. Harmonic filtering, a different starting method, a coordination change, or a conversation with the utility, depending on which one the measurement points to.
One thing worth saying: "it must be the utility" is almost always the first assumption a facility reaches for, and it's usually wrong. Most power quality issues that cause unplanned downtime originate inside the facility, in load interaction, grounding, or equipment that was never sized for the demand it's actually seeing.
Engineering Review

Tell us what is tripping, and roughly when it started.

We review what you send and follow up about what monitoring would likely show, and where we would start.

Request an Engineering Review →

You speak directly with an engineer about your situation and the next step.

  1. 1You send what you have
  2. 2An engineer reads the symptoms
  3. 3We tell you where we'd put the recorders
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