Voltage Optimisation - Energy Savings

Energy Savings

The energy savings achieved by Voltage Optimisation are an aggregation of the improved efficiency of all equipment across a site in response to the improvements in the power quality problems outlined above. It has been and continues to be a key technique for savings in energy consumption.

Research in Taiwan suggested that, for an industrial supply, for voltage reduction upstream of the transformer, there is a 0.241% decrease of energy consumption when the voltage is decreased by 1%, and an increase of 0.297% when the voltage is increased by 1%. This assumed a mixture of loads including 7% fluorescent lighting, 0.5% incandescent lighting, 12.5% three phase air conditioners, 5% motors, 22.5% small 3-phase motors, 52.5% large 3-phase motors.

It is likely that a modern installation would have less opportunity: almost no incandescent lighting, partly high-frequency fluorescent lighting (no saving), higher motor efficiencies (so less waste to save). A northern European installation would not have the large number of small single phase motors for air conditioning.

The best potential for saving is probably with older lighting (incandescent or fluorescent and discharge lighting with conventional control gear. Therefore older commercial and office premises are likely to have a better saving potential than modern buildings or industrial sites.