[RE-wrenches] Power Quality

[Philip Boutelle]

Try the PS 4000 Power Sight Power Analyzer (http://www.powersight.com/).
You can log current, voltage, waveforms, transients, distortions,
frequency, swells and sags, etc. You can get the graph and the data, so you
don't have to judge the appearance of the graph. The PS3000 doesn't capture
transients or distortions.

Anyone "working on a short term energy efficiency projects in
California" can borrow this tool for free from the PG&E Tool Lending
Library (http://www.pge.com/mybusiness/edusafety/training/pec/toolbox/tll/).
Fine print: *The project address is within the service territory of one of
California's Investor Owned Utilities (PG&E, Sempra, SCE) which support
this and other programs through the Public Goods fund, *so this should work
for you Peter, unless your customer is in LADWP or another municipal
utility.

You can set it up to log over long periods, and/or plug it into a laptop
for live readings while you load up the generator, plus save that data for
further analysis later.

-Phil Boutelle


On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 11:09 AM, William Miller <william at millersolar.com>wrote:

>  Peter:
>
> Excellent topic.  Just two weeks ago I was working on two Xantrex XW6048
> inverters connected to identical Kohler RES15 generators.  One inverter
> would connect to the generator, one would not.  I looked at the waveform
> with a very old, very cheap service scope.  The waveforms from both
> generators looked triangular.
>
> I looked at the waveform at an on-grid location and the waveform looked
> triangular, but less so.  Now I can't trust my scope.  I ask the same
> question you are:  What tool do we use to check power quality?  Can we
> judge a sine wave by it's appearance?
>
> William Miller
>
>
>
>
> At 10:43 AM 6/5/2012, Parrish, Peter wrote:
>
> Content-Language: en-US
> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
> **        **
> boundary="_000_C97976CE00E1154DBC70321CCE6BC4B309AF31A6EXCHMBX1StaffCa_"
>
>
> I would like to follow up on a discussion of under what conditions an
> anti-islanding compliant inverter would have problems with the utility
> power quality and off grid inverters would have with generator-derived
> power quality. I think that Bill Brooks pointed to a document a while ago
> about specific transient events, and we all know (or should know) the +/-
> 10% VAC and +/- 0.1 Hz requirements. Bill would you be so kind as to point
> us there again?
>
> What I would like to understand is the following: Is there a power quality
> analyzer (e.g. Fluke 430 Series II) out there can asses power quality and
> predict compatibility with the various grid-tied and off grid inverters?
>
> As far as off-grid inverters are concerned, what I imagine is a follows:
> -- Fire up a generator (e.g. Honda Eu3000iS), load it down with a
> reasonable resistive load (e.g. 1,500 kW), and look at VAC, freq, harmonic
> distortion, transient events -- and come up with a way to assess whether or
> not an off-grid inverter would work with the generator
>
> As far as grid-tied is concerned, monitor utility power and provide the
> same answer for grid-tied inverter.
>
> - Peter Parrish Peter T. Parrish, Ph.D., Chair Alternative Energy
> Department, College of the Canyons Room 700F 17200 Sierra Hwy. Santa
> Clarita, CA 91351 peter.parrish at canyons.edu O: (661) 362-3888 C: (323)
> 839-6108
>
>
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