Power Conditioning

Power conditioning is one of the lesser known but equally important functions of an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). Its main objective, of course, is to provide a source of electrical energy to maintain business continuity through an interruption of electricity or until an alternative energy source (such as a generator) starts.

Why the need for power conditioning?

There are issues related to electricity sector commodities that can cause problems for electronic equipment. These include, but are not limited to, subsidence, surges, brownouts, spikes and transients, electrical noise, harmonics, frequency variations and, of course, complete failures. At best, feeding problems can cause equipment (especially computer hardware and telecommunications) to stop or collision. At worst, they can lead to a complete breakdown - which leads to costly and disruptive repairs and / or replacement. In the case of computers they can also obtain data being lost or corrupted, which for many industries that are heavily regulated (such as banking and finance) can disrupt, harm to reputation and credibility, and in extreme cases, can lead to heavy fines or financial penalties.

Power conditioning, therefore, uninterruptible power supply, and associated equipment, is a process by which it monitors incoming power grid, it cleans and reduces the impact of problems such as those already highlighted. Some UPS, special filters, can reduce the effect of harmonics. All UPS to maintain frequency within prescribed limits and correcting frequency fluctuations. Ultimately the charges, which means protected upstream, enjoy a clean and regulated supply of electrical energy.

Power Conditioners

power conditioners attenuate spikes, transients and electrical noise voltages at low levels. They can be electronic solid state or transformer-based. When these types of problems predominate, and sensitive equipment is protected, that is where power conditioners are used, usually in industrial environments. Some power conditioners can also provide voltage stabilization on a window of input voltage (typically less than 20 to over 15%) and the output voltage regulation (usually plus or minus 5%). Models of this type can be referred to as constant voltage transformers (CVT) or ferroresonant type.

This type of transformer is more reliable than a solid structure to the electronic state and provides galvanic isolation (a way to prevent unwanted electrical current to travel between two separate units). is history, he conceives without power interruption of 1980 (known as Ferro UPS), which combined with a CVT Line Interactive UPS to achieve a no-break output. Although reliable and robust, this type of uninterruptible power supply is only practical for single-phase installations and could not compete on cost, noise, size and weight, with transformerless UPS designs that were beginning to emerge.

Automatic Voltage Stabilizers (AVS)

AVS offers protection against subsidence, brownouts and surges. They can be electro-mechanical or solid state electronic devices and are often called automatic voltage regulators (AVR). AVS typically have large windows input voltage (less than 40 to over 20%) to allow them to do their work. When presented with a low or high voltage power network, a control circuit selects a transformer tap setting Buck (resignation) or boost (STEP UP) the voltage to more acceptable levels. The output voltage tracks the input voltage window as it is, in general, no voltage regulation.

Some Stablisers incorporate automatic power filter to provide both the load and AVS protection against spikes, transients and electrical.