An area that lacks attention in most facilities is electrical reliability.  In most commercial and industrial facilities poor electrical programs will directly impact energy costs by an average of 25%.  Power quality losses through neutral and ground alone can impact electrical costs by 9% average in addition to directly effecting operations and monitoring.  When included along with power conditions from the incoming meter throughout a plant’s branches this number jumps up several orders.  It is not unusual for a facility that is not performing some level of electrical reliability and maintenance programming to be spending up to half of their electrical energy costs on poor practices.  In this presentation we will review the steps related to a basic electrical reliability infrastructure survey that can be performed in a matter of a few days.  The objective is to assist the facility group in identifying the ‘hanging fruit’ successes that will assist in driving the success of an electrical reliability program.

Howard W Penrose, Ph.D., CMRP is the president of MotorDoc® LLC, a veteran-owned small business, a past-chair of the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals (SMRP), an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) various Power Engineering Society and Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society standards development committees, and Chair American Clean Power (ACP) standards committee and ACP powertrain committee.  Dr. Penrose is a leading researcher in Electrical Signature Analysis prognostics and continuous monitoring and electric machinery machine learning and augmented intelligence practical applications.  He is a 5-time recipient of the UAW/GM people make quality happen award, as well as being involved in the development of the LVAD heart-pump, low atmosphere flywheel insulation systems, high-temperature electric machine design, GM hybrid vehicle technology, and John Deere hybrid construction machine design and training.  He is a past senior research engineer for the UIC Energy Resources Center (industrial/utility programs) and a committee member of US DOE commercial/industrial motor, VFD and pump-systems programs in the 1990s.  He is the SMRP government relations chair of smart-grid, infrastructure and cybersecurity subcommittees and similar positions with other professional societies.  He has been a Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional since 2005 and holds professional machine learning and data science/engineering certifications from Stanford University, University of Michigan and IBM.