Analyser from Outram Research helps energy provider to resolve a power-quality problem

After one residential customer complained about flickering lights and a potential faulty electrical installation, a senior engineer deployed a PM7000 power-quality analyser from Outram Research that uses the patented Single Cycle Adaptive Store data management technique to search for and record those waveforms most likely to be the cause of power-quality problems.

The PM7000 allowed the engineer to zoom in on the exact times that the flickering occurred and to identify sags in the voltage that were followed by very short periods of oscillation to even lower voltages.

This detail illuminated the small anomalies in an otherwise normal-looking recording that enabled him to identify the cause as a nearby sewage treatment plant, which was using a solid-state starter to apply waves of reverse power to gradually stop a large pump motor, preventing water hammer when the valve was closed.