Brownouts: The Quiet Equipment Killer

Just because there is no lightning and thunder doesn’t mean your equipment is safe!

Brownouts can be more problematic then blackouts to delicate electronic equipment in some cases. Brownouts are defined as extended periods of voltage drop or sag coming from the power grid. In brownout conditions, most devices will continue to run, but with unexpected errors and possible long term damage to components. Brownouts can occur at the utility level like blackouts, but in many cases they can also occur within your building’s electrical grid, when a large local load is applied.

Twenty percent of the power problems we see are utility problems, like blackouts and brownouts, the other 80 percent come from the customer’s facility, because of inductive loads and switching. Dr. James T. Kennedy, of Lucent Technologies said that internal problems “are one of the two major problems we deal with.”
Uninterruptible power supplies installed on computer and network devices can protect them from local grid fluctuations within your building or switching station, if they provide AVR boost and trim features. Different types of UPSes are better suited for such applications.