Power Management System Look Likes: A power management system is founded on a digitized power distribution network, including connected devices and sensors that collect data from key points across your electrical infrastructure, from your facility’s service entrance, across all feeders, down to final distribution and loads.

Real-time power information can be acquired from stand-alone power metering devices or from devices that have embedded metering capabilities such as protection relays,breaker trip units, motor control units and variable speed drives. You may already have a large number of these smart devices in place, ready to be connected and used as part of a more complete, fully digitized solution.

All of your important electrical assets can be monitored, including transformers, medium voltage (MV) and low voltage (LV) switchgear, generators, transfer switches, power control panels, distribution panels, motor control centers, uninterruptable power supplies, and harmonic filters. A wide range of data can be continuously gathered 24/7, supporting monitoring and analysis of real-time power conditions, power quality, how efficiently energy is being consumed, and the health of equipment.

Operational information about the power system is provided with situational awareness in mind through a variety of easy-to-use web applications including electrical mimic diagrams, power events analysis, power quality and electrical equipment trends, reports and dashboards. The user interfaces of a Power Management system are highly specialized and engineered for specific Power Management functions. Even though electrical power data can be easily shared with other systems. . They are simply not designed to provide the operational intelligence required for the real-time operation and maintenance of electrical assets and the power distribution network as a whole.

How Does It Help Your Facility?

The newest power offer deep functionality to cover a range of important applications relevant to all types of facilities. In recent years, there have been significant advancements in power, while providing greater ease of use for facility teams. This means operations and facility teams can reveal and respond to opportunities and risks faster.

Here’s a brief look at the types of applications ,

Electrical system health and efficiency. Continuously monitoring whether the three phases of power are balanced on all parts of your distribution system will help you maximize efficiency, avoid overloads, and identify any potential faults in loads like motors. Monitoring for excessive neutral current can identify grounding problems and wasted energy. Power factor is another parameter that should be measured, since a low value indicates energy is being wasted. Since it can also incur a penalty on your utility bill, you may need to take corrective steps, such as installing a capacitor bank.

1. Capacity management. Analyzing historical trends will help identify circuits that are more heavily loaded or, worse, at risk of tripping breakers due to overloading. This is especially vital when operating a critical facility with backup power systems, such as hospitals or data centers.

2. Equipment monitoring. Though some power quality problems can come from the utility grid, many come from within your own electrical distribution system. As facilities modernize to improve energy efficiency, the addition of LED lighting, VSDs, and automation equipment can produce harmonics.

3. Power event analysis. Electrical distribution networks regularly experience power disturbances that travel extremely quickly through the system and are short lived. Advanced power quality monitoring devices capture these disturbances at distributed points.