Application of smart sensors to the measurement of power quality

Today's businesses depend heavily on electrical services for lighting, general power, computer hardware and communications hardware. With the generalized use of sophisticated electronic devices, industries are shifting toward almost entirely electronic IT systems. PQ events are of increasing concern for the economy because today's equipment, particularly computers and automated manufacturing devices, is highly sensitive to such imperfections. Traditionally the control and supervision of a plant distribution network has mainly been focused on the protection of the network. Relatively little attention has been focused on the quality of the electrical energy. Metering technologies and communications systems have advanced to enable the development of web-based sensors. Power Quality is one area where these smart sensors can be very valuable. This paper investigates the challenges and possibilities in the development of distributed PQ measurement systems. This paper describes the challenges and lessons learned from this work.