The technology making modern facilities smarter, more efficient and more electrified is also changing the electrical environment those facilities depend on. As equipment becomes more digital, understanding Power Quality is becoming increasingly important to keeping it operating reliably.
That means the response needs to start with evidence: measure what the electrical system is doing, understand the condition, then engineer the right solution.
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Modern facilities are not only becoming more electrified; they are becoming more digital.
Variable speed drives, automated controls, power electronics, LED lighting, UPS systems, solar inverters, battery storage and EV charging are now commonplace across industrial, commercial and critical facilities.
These technologies improve efficiency, control and visibility, but they also change the way electricity is drawn, switched and managed within a site. Many can contribute to harmonic distortion or other Power Quality conditions while also being more sensitive to disturbances in voltage and waveform quality.
That combination – more electrically complex systems and more sensitive loads – is why modern facilities need a different approach to Power Quality.
Rather than starting with a product or assuming the equipment showing the fault is the source of the problem, the electrical condition needs to be measured and understood first. The response can then be engineered around the evidence and verified afterwards.
This rapidly evolving environment is behind Hexeis' expanded Power Quality offering, bringing investigation, engineering, mitigation technologies, delivery and ongoing monitoring together under one model.
The fault may not be where you think
Power Quality problems rarely announce themselves clearly. They can remain hidden for months or years, presenting instead as unexplained equipment trips, overheating electrical assets, recurring control faults, production interruptions or equipment that simply does not behave as expected.
Take one remote university research station, for example. Motor problems emerged after a solar power system was installed; automated Power Quality monitoring identified a DC offset from the solar inverters that was contributing to motor overheating and energy loss. The symptom was appearing at the motors, but understanding the wider electrical environment was necessary to identify what was happening.
The opposite can also occur: an electrical problem can be assumed when the cause lies elsewhere. At another site, repeated high-bay lighting failures had been attributed to harmonics and a $40,000 filter was recommended. A seven-day Power Quality investigation found something different: the lighting control system was using the wrong type of light contactor (switch), which was causing the damage. Installing harmonic filtering would have treated the assumed cause rather than the actual problem.
“The challenge is that the symptom often appears at the equipment level,” said Damian Assaillit, General Manager at Hexeis. “A drive trips or a controller faults, so naturally that is where the investigation starts. But if the underlying electrical condition has not been assessed holistically, replacing the component may not solve the problem."
That is why Power Quality needs to be approached as an engineering problem before it becomes an equipment-selection exercise.
Measure first. Engineer second.
Different electrical conditions can create very different problems – and they require different responses.
A voltage sag lasting milliseconds can be enough to interrupt a sensitive process while much of a facility remains energised. Harmonic distortion can add heat and losses to the electrical network without creating an obvious failure. Poor power factor can increase current and reduce the usable capacity of existing electrical infrastructure.
As the electrical environment has changed, the technologies available to manage these conditions have evolved too. Modern active Power Quality solutions can respond dynamically to changing site conditions rather than relying solely on fixed or stepped correction.
An Active Harmonic Filter, for example, continuously measures harmonic distortion and injects compensating harmonic currents to reduce it. The principle is similar to active noise cancellation headphones: identify the unwanted electrical "noise", calculate an opposing signal and use it to reduce the distortion.
For sites with changing reactive power requirements, Static VAR Generators provide continuously variable compensation rather than the fixed switching steps associated with conventional capacitor banks.
Voltage disturbances present a different problem again. Active Voltage Conditioning can dynamically correct sags, swells and other voltage variations before they reach sensitive equipment, helping prevent nuisance shutdowns and process interruptions.
Real sites may also experience several of these conditions at once.
At a frozen food production facility, Power Quality monitoring identified harmonic distortion as the principal concern alongside poor power factor, reactive demand and voltage variation. A power factor reading of approximately 0.91 was part of the picture, but conventional power factor correction alone would not have addressed the main reliability issue.
Hexeis instead developed a solution combining active harmonic filtering with dynamic reactive power compensation, based on the way the plant load was actually behaving.
“There is no single Power Quality solution that solves every problem”, Assaillit said. “The right response depends on what the site is experiencing, how the loads are behaving and often the nature of the overall electrical infrastructure on site. The technology only comes after everything is analysed.”
The equipment is only part of the solution
Diagnosis determines what needs to be corrected. Delivery determines whether the solution works as intended in the real electrical system.
Hexeis's expanded Power Quality capability supports that process from initial investigation through to implementation and ongoing performance monitoring.
Depending on the project, Hexeis can supply selected Power Quality technology, engineer and integrate a solution with the customer's preferred contractor, or provide turnkey delivery from study through to commissioning.
For more complex projects, that can extend to power system analysis and simulation, electrical system design, protection coordination, switchboard and supporting infrastructure, licensed electrical installation, commissioning and post-implementation verification.
Where appropriate, the completed solution can also be integrated with the Hexeis Energy Infrastructure Management System (EIMS) for ongoing visibility and monitoring.
That matters because commissioning should not be the end of the Power Quality process. If a solution has been engineered around a measured electrical condition, post-implementation data provides the evidence that the condition has actually improved and can provide earlier visibility if new issues emerge.
“Installing the equipment is not the end of the process”, Assaillit said. “We want to verify the impact afterwards. If we have engineered a solution to address a measured problem, the customer should be able to realise those results.”
What this means for your facility
As facilities become more automated, electrified and digitally controlled, understanding the quality of the electrical environment is becoming part of understanding the reliability of the facility itself.
The different approach is an evidence-led one: look beyond the immediate symptom, understand what the electrical system is actually doing, engineer the response around those findings and verify the result afterwards.
Hexeis' expanded Power Quality offering has been built around that process: investigate, engineer, deliver and verify.
If your site is experiencing recurring trips, overheating, unexplained equipment faults or other electrical behaviour that is proving difficult to pin down, the next step is a conversation.
Tell us what you're seeing, and we'll help determine the most useful next step.