Power quality standards are needed in the power quality industry. How can utilities deliver and their customers receive the quality of power they need without power quality standards? How can the electronics industry produce sensitive electronic equipment without power quality standards? How can the power conditioning industry produce devices that will protect sensitive electronic equipment without power quality standards? They can t.

The power quality industry recognizes that power quality standards are critical to the viability of the industry. Therefore, stakeholders in the power quality industry have developed several power quality standards in recent years. They recognize that the increased interest in power quality has resulted in the need to develop corresponding standards. They realize that the increased use of sensitive electronic equipment, increased application of nonlinear devices to improve energy efficiency, the advent of deregulation, and the increasingly complex and interconnected power system all contribute to the need for power quality standards. Standards set voltage and current limits that sensitive electronic equipment can tolerate from electrical disturbances. Utilities need standards that set limits on the amount of voltage distortion their power systems can tolerate from harmonics produced by their customers with nonlinear loads. End users need standards that set limits not only for electrical disturbances produced by utilities but also for harmonics generated by other end users. Deregulation increases the need for standards so that the offending organization causing poor quality problems is held accountable for fixing the problems. As power systems become more interconnected, contracts based on standards...