Influence of voltage dips on industrial equipment: Analysis and assessment

This paper presents a study of industry equipment electrical responses under voltage dips with different magnitude, duration and point-on-wave initiation. The analysis provides electrical sensitive curves for safe and reliable operation based on experimental tests performed over real AC-contactors, ground fault relays, variable speed drives, industrial computers and lighting loads. The presence of a relevant scatter-band where the sensitivity of some equipments in the presence voltage dips responds in a stochastic manner is analysed. The effect of the working temperature of the device is studied as well. A detailed description of the testing procedure is provided, proposing additional voltage dip parameters to characterize the equipment sensitivity in detail. In this way, existing standards and previously published contributions are reviewed and compared with the obtained results. The obtained results are useful for OEMs, Utilities as well as Uninterruptible Power Supply Manufacturers; where a more precise counting of equipment failures due to voltage dips is essential for an economic and technical assessment of power quality.