Power Quality
Diagnostics and Power Quality
Power factor correction, harmonic filters, thermography and predictive testing for industrial facilities.
What it is
Power quality is defined by five variables: amplitude, frequency, waveform, phase balance and continuity. And it splits into two things that are often confused.
Quality of service has to do with time: continuity of supply. That one is CFE's responsibility. Quality of power has to do with the signal: variations in waveform, frequency and amplitude. That one, to a large extent, is generated by your own process.
Where your money goes
Below 0.90, CFE applies a direct charge on your bill. It is the easiest penalty to correct and the one that has been paid the longest without anyone reviewing it.
Transformers and conductors that heat up with no apparent load, capacitors that fail early, protective devices that trip for no visible reason and motors that lose service life. The bill does not itemize it; maintenance pays for it.
Phase unbalance increases losses and heats motors. Transients damage control electronics cumulatively, until one day it does not start.
A capacitor bank installed to correct power factor, on a network with harmonics and without a prior study, resonates with the fifth harmonic and destroys equipment — including the bank itself. Measuring the spectrum first costs a fraction of what that mistake costs.
Harmonics
Variable frequency drives, rectifiers, induction furnaces and switched-mode power supplies do not draw sinusoidal current: they chop it. The result is a distorted wave that heats everything it passes through.
Representation of a wave with fifth and seventh harmonic content, typical of loads with a six-pulse rectifier. Your plant's real spectrum is measured, not assumed: it determines whether the filter should be tuned passive or active.
What we do
Almost anyone will sell you a capacitor bank. Very few measure the spectrum first, and even fewer know what to do when the bank goes into resonance. Harmonic filters are the scarcest technical capability in this market.
Three-phase analyzer at the points that matter, for long enough to capture the real production cycle.
Sizing, supply and installation of a capacitor bank, with resonance verification.
Design and installation of tuned passive or active filters, based on the measured spectrum.
Inspection of switchboards, connections and transformers, with a report on severity and intervention priority.
Continuous-logging equipment, so it stops being a snapshot and becomes a movie.
Questions
If your bill has no power factor charge and your maintenance team reports no recurring failures in switchboards or motors, you probably do not have a problem that justifies the study. In an initial review we tell you so with your bill on screen.
How we work
Seven-day campaign with a Class A analyzer.
Engineering based on your real load curve.
Supply and installation inside your fence line.
GTO Vigía sustains the result after construction.
Energy solutions
In a short meeting we review your bill with you, on screen, and tell you what is worth measuring.
We work with plants on medium and high voltage. By sending you accept our privacy notice.
Strengths
GTO Energy offers electrical engineering tailored to your plant. Request your diagnostic and start by knowing where the opportunity is.
Fully creditable if you implement. No charge if we find no package that pays back in under 4 years.
Compliance reports based on RES/550/2021, filed with the CNE and CENACE.
We service plants installed by others, starting with a condition survey.
Partners with trademark-use authorization
Group clients since 1983
Also: Cuadritos, Productora Nacional de Papel and Telemar.
