Maintenance manager's guide to static ups

By Isabelle Heriakian / Published on Tue, 2010-07-06 16:25

This guide to static UPS maintenance first describes the working principles of a static UPS, then it explains the benefits of proactive maintenance. It lists the main issues static UPS may experience, and finally provides a step by step checklist of main attention areas.

 

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Classification of electrical installations in healthcare facilities according to reliability and availability of supply

By Isabelle Heriakian / Published on Fri, 2010-06-25 16:52

While the IEC standard for electrical installations covers safety aspects, healthcare professionals highlighted the need for a detailed assessment of the availability level of the facility power supply and the adequate performance of the electrical installation.

Leonardo ENERGY is pleased to introduce a new classification scheme for healthcare facilities in this discussion paper (open to comments from registered users). This classification scheme is based on two new concepts:

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Voltage Dip Immunity of Equipment and Installations

By HDK / Published on Thu, 2010-04-15 12:04

Voltage dips (also known as “voltage sags”) are short-duration reductions in voltage magnitude. Their duration is typically between a few cycles of the power-system frequency and a few seconds. The interest in voltage dips is mainly due to their impact on end-user equipment. Industrial processes may malfunction or shut down due to a voltage dip resulting in significant financial losses.

Voltage dips are due to short-duration increases in current magnitude, whereas voltage dips due to short circuits and earth faults are of most concern for customers.

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Electrical Safety in the Home

By Benoit Dome / Published on Mon, 2010-04-12 20:11

The presence of electricity in a dwelling involves two kinds of safety risks. The first is the most obvious and direct: the risk for the residents on electro-shock. The second safety risk is indirect and therefore more difficult to map: the risk of electrical faults causing fire.

Those risks can be reduced by the usage of safe electrical appliances and by a responsible behaviour of the residents. However, to make the system humanfail- proof, a proper design of the electrical system in the house is imperative.

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Evaluating Environmental Performance in Low-Carbon Energy Systems

By Sergio Ferreira / Published on Wed, 2010-03-10 15:48

Developing economic well-being and preserving a healthy environment are not opposed forces but do, on the contrary, have a primary relationship and require a similar way of thinking: maximising the efficiency of a product over its life cycle will minimise its total financial cost as well as the total environmental impact over its life cycle.

The case studies below were developed to substantiate this Life-Cycle-Thinking by delivering high-level messages supporting decision making on the sustainable energy arena.

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Energy Efficiency in the Food and Beverages Industry

By Sergio Ferreira / Published on Tue, 2010-02-16 16:20

This Application Note provides an overview of available measures for energy efficiency improvement in the food and beverage processing industry. It is based on examples from theory and practice.

This study is not intended to be an exhaustive description of every operation in the sector, but rather tries to describe the most significant process-specific energy efficiency measures and reinforce these with practical case-studies.

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Intelligent E-Transportation Management

By HDK / Published on Fri, 2010-01-15 16:35

This paper describes the performance of the network of a typical future residential concept area, as has been studied in the Intelligent E-Transportation Management project. Several scenarios have been elaborated by load flow simulations. The study investigated what level of introduction of electric vehicles, heat pumps, photovoltaic systems and micro combined heat and power plants is feasible in this network. Possible overload situations are examined and the opportunities of demand side management for the power grid are investigated.

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The maintenance manager's guide to circuit protection

By Isabelle Heriakian / Published on Thu, 2009-12-17 17:51

In this guide, circuit protection is detailed as a way to ensure an installation is safe and functional. This document is concerned primarily with protection against the effects of over-currents and fault currents for property protection, but the improvements presented may also lead to secure people as an indirect benefit. There is a focus on circuit breakers as well as on issues that are likely to arise in circuit maintenance and it takes a systemic approach.

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Dementia and Technology

By Guy Kasier / Published on Mon, 2009-12-14 14:23

The technical aids to enable elderly people to live at home for longer do not differ so much from those that can be used to help dementia sufferers and their home carers in the home situation. The difference lies primarily with the videophone (although this could also improve social contact for non-dementia sufferers) and the GPS wandering detection techniques. In a home situation with a dementia sufferer, the emphasis is primarily on offering support to the carer, who may or may not live in the home.

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IT and Telecom: maximum system availability demands continuous power supply

By Isabelle Heriakian / Published on Fri, 2009-11-06 01:00

To achieve system availabilities of the order of the six “9”s and beyond, IT and Telecom service providers are totally dependent upon a continuous power supply. Power variations or interruptions create significant disruptions for sectors that are judged by the reliability of their services.

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Power Quality Control In An Industrial Estate

By Isabelle Heriakian / Published on Thu, 2009-11-05 01:00

This case study presents a methodology for improving power quality in an important industrial estate. A project was initiated to reduce the number of interruptions and enhance power quality in the estate and focused on reducing weak points in the power distribution system by inspecting distribution lines in both customer and utility areas. Once weaknesses were identified, corrective action would be taken and preventative measures put in place to prevent re-occurance in order to provide high power availability to customers.

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When ICT & Electro-technology meet

By Guy Kasier / Published on Wed, 2009-10-21 14:19

Once an electrical installation had been installed in a home in the past, that was it. So, when a domestic electrical installation was fitted, it was and in a many cases still is considered to be an unmodifiable fixture. In fact, it has always been quite difficult to make any changes to a classical electrical appliance once it is installed. Fortunately the arrival of integrated home systems means that such flexibility is now available to us (see: Definition of integrated home systems), even if the communications aspect (see: Increasing communication) is, admittedly, still in its infancy.

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Low Carbon Electricity Systems

By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Wed, 2009-09-09 11:54

This document is an overall report of the seminar “Electricity in the next decade”, the first in an annual series of events regarding “Low carbon electricity systems”. KEMA, ECI and Leonardo ENERGY are jointly organising these events.

Next to the topics presented during the first event, a few additional topics have been added in order to create a white paper and a more complete picture on the theme “Electricity in the next decade”.

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Wireless Power Transmission

By Peter Vaessen / Published on Tue, 2009-09-08 07:04

An option when there is no alternative

It is clear that wireless power transmission systems in the range of 100 W to 100 kW  cannot compete with traditional systems just looking at the costs. At places where economic competition is not the prime consideration, it can be an option. Microwave wireless power transmission can supply power to places that are difficult to reach. Especially small communities in rural areas could be supplied with power using WPT.

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Effects Voltage Sag on Single-Phase Domestic and Office Loads

By Hans De Keulenaer / Published on Wed, 2009-09-02 14:54

This paper presents the effects of voltage sags on domestic and office equipment and provides equipment sensitive curves for safe and reliable operation based on the experimental results.

With the increased usage of sensitive electronic equipments in various industries, offices and household appliances, it is important to protect them from any power quality disturbances to avoid unnecessary losses of any kind. From the several types of power quality disturbances, the most frequent and concerning for electric utilities from a customer point of view was voltage sag.

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Testing Centres for Motor Efficiency

By Sarah Hatch / Published on Tue, 2009-09-01 10:33

A task of the IEA 4E EMSA Project - The International Energy Agency (IEA) Implementing Agreement for a Co-operating Programme on Efficient Electrical End-Use Equipment (4E) was set up in 2008 and is currently supported by around 12 countries. A new Electric Motor Systems Annex (EMSA) was launched at the end of 2008 and is made up of a number of Tasks.

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Transformers in power distribution networks

By Stefan Fassbinder / Published on Mon, 2009-08-31 08:33

Why do we need transformers? The answer is simple: impedance. If power losses in electricity distribution networks are to be kept within reasonable limits, then large amounts of electric power have to be transmitted across long distances at the highest feasible voltage. In absolute terms, the higher the trans-mission voltage, the smaller the current and hence the smaller the (resistive) power losses in the transmission cables. But increasing the transmission voltage also reduces a given power loss in relative terms.

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Unscheduled stoppages cost oil refineries millions

By Isabelle Heriakian / Published on Tue, 2009-08-04 09:21

A power supply interruption to an oil refinery can trigger a chain of catastrophic events.

This is due to the multiple interlinked chains of electrical systems and the mixture of highly volatile materials on which the processes are based.

Ensuring power system reliability is essential to avoid putting staff and neighbouring areas at risk, and to minimise costly incidents and production stoppages.

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Chapter 6 : static FC/TCR compensator

By Isabelle Heriakian / Published on Tue, 2009-08-04 09:03

Industrial facilities are source of major disturbances to power system due to more and more large power loads being installed that, apart of their good functional properties, are characterised by negative impact on the quality of power.

The adverse impact of non-linear loads on a power system can be mitigated by means of compensation equipment like fixed capacitor (FC), thyristor controlled reactor (TCR) - FC/TCR.

The purpose of FC/TCR compensator is compensation of the fundamental component reactive power and filtering selected current harmonics.

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Housing for the elderly – a guide to best practice

By Guy Kasier / Published on Wed, 2009-07-15 09:42

A WelHops study some years ago assessed the needs of the elderly regarding the buildings and surroundings in which they wish to live. Still as relevant today as it was when it was carried out, this study ran from May 2005 to September 2007 as part of a European INTERREG IIIC project. Taking part were partners from Italy, Sweden, the UK, Spain, and Hungary.

The project objectives were to: -

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