Since Congress passed legislation a few years ago that requires utilities to open their transmission lines to other power companies, the utility industry has been stirring with the prospects of deregulation. Electric utilities must soon go the way of other recently deregulated industries such as airlines and telephone companies. This means utility customers will have a choice in purchasing their electric energy the way telephone customers choose their long distance company. While the quest for lower price is the main drive behind the current move toward deregulation in the electric utility industry, ultimately, the total value of the power being purchased will be the deciding factor between the winners and losers in the new market.

Historically, purchasing power has been a simple task for end users because power was sold on a "take it as is" basis. All of the variables such as quality, availability, reliability and price were worked out by the utility companies, regulators and consumer advocates. Once the deregulation efforts begin, consumers will get something they haven't had before… choices. Beginning with larger users, consumers may have the choice of supplier, terms and conditions of service, price, length of contract and various grades of power availability, quality and reliability. In other words, the electric utility industry's product will change from a regulated commodity to a versatile product with numerous differentiating factors that will make up power value.

One of these factors that will certainly be of concern to building owners is power quality. Take a look around any commercial building or certainly any industrial facility and electronic equipment and devices can be found everywhere. Many are obvious like personal computers, printers, copiers, and fax machines. Others are behind the scenes like packaged controls on HVAC equipment including roof-top units, chillers, boilers, variable speed drives, lighting and of course building automation controllers. Recent trends towards more distributed control systems will also serve to further increase the number of electronic control devices in a building. Most of these electronic devices, many of which include a micro-computer, require relatively tight power system tolerances to operate continuously and reliably. Even a very brief, moderate electrical disturbance can cause electronic devices to do crazy things or even completely shut down. The more electronic devices there are in a building, the greater the potential problem electrical disturbances may cause a facility manager or building owner.

As deregulation continues to grow, the field of power monitoring will grow as well. In addition to monitoring the traditional power usage values of energy consumption (KWH) and power demand (KW), monitoring various power quality parameters will also become important. Before making the choices in service that electric utility deregulation will bring, monitoring a building to determine that building's electrical requirements will be critical in arriving at the best total power value. For some buildings the best value will be reliable, low priced, low quality power. For others the best value may be highly stable, high quality and higher priced power. Monitoring power will be just as important after the choice of an electric utility provider has been made. Commercial building owners and industrial facilities will benefit from the ability to monitor and verify the actual performance of their power provider against their energy supply contracts both in terms of billing and quality.

How can Kele help you, our dealers take advantage of these trends by allowing you to monitor, diagnose and track power usage as well as power quality in their facilities?

We are excited to introduce our new, next generation Power Monitoring Interface, the PowerTrak 9000. Until now, monitoring numerous power parameters required using several different types of transducers. The new PowerTrak eliminates the need for using multiple transducers by monitoring up to 23 different power system usage as well as power quality parameters. Any three-phase or single-phase, 50 or 60 Hz electrical system from 120 to 600 volts can be monitored by the PowerTrak using standard current transformers and without the need for potential transformers.

The PowerTrak provides remote and/or local monitoring of power system usage parameters including:
- total system KW power demand
- sliding window KW
- peak sliding window KW
- KW for each phase on wye systems
- KWH energy consumption
- total system KVA, and
- KVA for each phase on wye systems.

Power quality can consist of several different parameters. The PowerTrak will monitor basic quality parameters most typically required in commercial and light industrial applications. These parameters include:
-true RMS system voltage and phase voltages
-true RMS system current and individual phase currents, and
-system power factor and power factor for each phase in wye systems.
Monitoring these parameters will serve as a tool for you and your customers to diagnose power quality problems such as high or low voltage conditions, phase unbalance, phase loss, phase reversal and low power factor.

The PowerTrak offers some really exciting features. One of the most exciting is the auto-configuring feature. With the simple push of a button, the PowerTrak auto-configuring feature will identify, and, through its internal electronics, correct for wiring errors to provide accurate output data. What does this mean to you? The auto-configuring feature will save you from the time-consuming troubleshooting and the trial and error wire swapping that is normally required with power monitors to correct wiring errors such as backwards or reversed polarity CT's and incorrect phasing of voltages with CT's.

In addition to the KWH pulse output, the PowerTrak is equipped with two independent 4-20 mA outputs. Using DIP switches, these real-time analog outputs can be easily configured to represent various power parameters. In other words, you choose what each 4-20 mA signal will represent. By the way, if you want to continuously monitor all of the different PowerTrak parameters, it's no problem. In the near future the PowerTrak will have a communications port allowing access to all of its power parameters.

The optional LCD display is like a window into the facility's electrical system. The display has two lines. Each line can be individually scrolled to display locally any of the power system parameters monitored by the PowerTrak.

As things continue to change and develop with utility deregulation, power usage and power quality will certainly be issues to be dealt with. Kele and the PowerTrak 9000 will be there to provide opportunities to take advantage of these emerging trends in building automation and power monitoring.