On September 24, 2023, I posed an article in which I explained how poorly maintained switchgear could lead to long-lasting power quality issues. In that article, which was based on an actual incident in Benoni, Gauteng, South Africa, I mentioned that the voltages of two of the three phases increased by more than 51% while the third phase dropped to a value which was almost zero. I also stated that further investigation was needed “to determine the cause of the voltage discrepancy”. The content of this article was also posted on other media with links sent to several people I believed should be made aware of what could be happening without anyone knowing about it. Amongst them was someone who, from what I was told, sent the information to the municipality. I even placed the pertinent parts of the article in a newsletter that was sent to those on a mailing list, including people at Eskom.

In that same article, I commented that I am not sure whether an investigation will be done. Almost five months later and numerous more attempts from my side to “escalate” this kind of issue, and I have not been contacted. So, I am beginning that believe that the municipalities and/or Eskom is unperturbed about issues of poor Power Quality.

On October 2, 2023, I posted another article in which I stated that “In many cases operators and maintenance crews are unaware of the negative consequences that phase imbalances can have on LV networks and electrical equipment. Current imbalances would lead to a reduction in the serviceable loading capacity of LV cables and distribution transformers. Because of the imbalances, some of the phases could carry higher loads while the remaining phase or phases could be lightly loaded but, the limiting factor for the addition of three-phase loads is the current on the highest loaded phase or phases.

“Current imbalances can also cause additional heat losses in distribution transformers and LV cables in both the phase and neutral conductors. These types of losses represent a significant part of the total losses occurring in LV networks.

“When end users, such as municipalities, are supplied by unbalanced voltages, induction machines and power converters face adverse effects such as reduced efficiency, increased losses, potentially dangerous overheating and, in some situations, premature failures. At severe voltage or current imbalance levels, some types of protection relays could malfunction, leading to miscoordination, nuisance tripping and lack of selectivity.”

In that same article, I also said that such issues are usually not restricted to just the one substation. Often it may affect an entire region, depending on where the fault is located. There be many such issues going unnoticed.

Late December 2023, I learned that people in the Magaliesburg area are having to replace electric motors and other electronic equipment quite frequently. Earlier this week, while in the Magaliesburg area, I noticed the signs of an Unbalanced Network. This has probably been going on for many years, listening to those living and running businesses in that area.

On November 7, 2023, I posted an article in which I pointed out how unbalanced voltages, phase-shift variations, and harmonics disturbances would result in enormous economic losses. This was aimed at accountants and financial officers to make them sit up and start to notice how some financial losses at their businesses are preventable. I mentioned how “customers on that feeder [the one in Benoni], are most likely paying around 237.27% more than they ought to”.

Now, the question is: is there an Unfazed Attitude Towards Power Quality Issues?

Judging by the lack of action from all those who have or must have seen these articles, I would say YES, there certainly is Unfazed Attitude Towards Power Quality Issues.

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In the mid-eighties, as part of my function, I was asked to help and solve a problem of one of our client’s constant complaints about “power failures”. This client was the National Accelerator Centre (NAC) in Faure, Western Cape. Today it is called the iThemba LABS. According to their website, this is the largest accelerator facility in the Southern Hemisphere and the only Cyclotron facility on the African continent.

When I contacted them to find out what the issues were, I was invited to visit them and given several private tours throughout the facility so that I could understand the intricacies of their operation. On more than one occasion, I was taken all the way through to the operating room so I could understand the consequences of power interruptions. I was also shown the damages that was caused every time there was a “power interruption” and explained how long it took them to repair the damages. However, after my first visit, I pulled all the daily incident reports and could not find any power interruptions that occurred on the corresponding dates.

I could not argue that there were no “power interruptions” since I saw the damage. I then enlisted the services of our specialist department. At this point, I must stress, that the kind of instrumentation that is currently available on the market, did not exist. Most of it had to specially build and for a particular function.

Approximately a month later, the specialists came back with, what people may describe today, as rudimentary instrumentation. This was installed at the substation with clear instructions that no-one else were allowed to enter that substation without my presence. Wire was strewed all over the floor. Essentially, the main instrument was a high-speed analogue-to-digital converter that could be trigger by set parameters which then records everything on a computer that we bought specifically for this exercise. When an event occurred, everything before and after an event was recorded. Today, this is a built-in standard function of my Power Quality Monitor. The purpose of that instrumentation was to give us a set of data that we could analyze to determine the cause of power distortions.

After collecting the data, I spend a considerable amount of time to find a correlation between the event recorded at that substation, and anything that happened on the entire network which could have been related. This was a mammoth task and I spent long hours going through daily incident reports obtained from both the local and national control centers.

During this exercise, I found that some of the incidents related to the tripping of 400- and 132kV circuit breakers over a thousand kilometers away.

With this information, I went back to the executive of National Accelerator Centre. I told them that my news was not good and there was nothing we could do about the problem. Whatever caused the “power distortions” was within the power supply limits at that time. I did, however, undertook to help wherever I could, and it was then that I contacted a friend at a European company with presence in South Africa, to come up with one or more solutions. One of those solutions was a motor-generator set with a massive sized flywheel. Whether that was implemented, I am not sure since I was promoted shortly afterwards and move to a different part of the country.

The primary reason for this blog is that, at that time, I was supported by all my seniors all the way up the ranks, and they often visited the site to find out how they can be of assistance. Judging by what I see and experience now, I doubt if this will happen today or anytime soon.

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