Cost-benefit evaluation of voltage conditioners installation in industrialand commercial power systems

In industrial and commercial sectors, loads are becoming increasingly sensi tive to brief supply voltage disturbances. As a consequence, today voltage dips hale more impact than just a few years ago. Fast voltage conditioners, improving the load immunity characteristics and accordingly reducing the e xpected number of load interruptions or malfunctions doe to supply voltage dips, can allow large cost savings. Different categories of voltage conditi oners are existing today, ranging from energy-stored devices (like uninterr uptible power supply) to no energy-stored devices (like static voltage boos ter). To reduce the effects of supply voltage dips on a given plant, usuall y several different possible arrangements must be investigated, depending o n the conditioners type, size and bus location. To determine the optimal ar rangement is not always immediate. A methodology based on the minimum reven ue requirement (MRR) is proposed in the paper, and a numerical example is g iven as well.