A Transient Index for Reporting Power Quality Surveys

Impulsive transients are often blamed for the destruction of customer appliances. Advances in Power Quality (PQ) monitors will soon make it feasible to incorporate impulsive transients into routine power quality surveys. This paper considers how the transient events captured over a period at many sites may be reported in a simple but useful manner. The paper first summarizes a recent publication by some of the authors, which attempt to give a complete framework for the analysis of utility PQ data. This framework provides a basis for evaluating existing transient characterization practices as well as for the proposed new transient index that will be discussed in the paper. A review of current transient characterization practices and their limitations, followed by the development of new transient index for use in site ranking is given. The application of the new transient index is illustrated through an example.