Process Control Protection Against Power Line Interruptions

Power dips, interruptions, and disturbances occur frequently throughout a plant power distribution system that adversely affect plant lighting, computers, process controls, and drive systems. Critical processes that must operate continuously require an uninterruptible power supply to protect against both long-and short-term interruptions. However, most industrial processes are not critical and need only be protected against power transients and short duration outages. Process equipment with properly supplied ride-through capability can prevent waste and downtime. It is the intent of this paper to discuss short duration power line disturbances; the type of , control and stored energy system available to protect against these disturbances; and the advantages and disadvantages of the various approaches available to ride through power line disturbances.