BlogPower & facilities
Power quality problems and their symptoms
By David Otieno, Senior ICT Consultant 1 min read
Flickering lights, random restarts and failed power supplies often point to power quality problems that can be measured and fixed.
Not every power problem is an outage. Poor power quality damages equipment gradually.
Common problems
- **Sags and swells:** short drops or rises in voltage.
- **Surges:** brief, high spikes.
- **Harmonics:** distortion from electronic loads.
- **Frequency variations:** common on generator power.
Symptoms
Unexplained restarts, flickering lights, overheating transformers and frequent power supply failures.
Measure
Power quality analysers record what is happening over days.
Fix
Voltage regulation, online UPS units, filtering and correct earthing, depending on the cause.
Generators and power quality
Generators can produce voltage and frequency variations, especially when large loads start. Some UPS units refuse generator power that is out of tolerance. Test equipment on generator power before relying on it.
See our power solutions.
About the author
David Otieno
Senior ICT Consultant
David Otieno writes about cybersecurity, physical security systems, power resilience and running IT reliably day to day.