Industry Insights
Our take on power quality, harmonics and power factor correction topics from across the industry.
Power quality and power factor correction are moving fields. Here's our commentary on discussions worth reading from engineers and manufacturers across the industry, with links back to the original posts.
Why Continuity of Supply Matters in Medical Electrical Design
Ortea recently supplied ISME medical electrical panels built around an IT-M isolation transformer system to a healthcare project, designed to keep power running through a first earth fault rather than tripping the supply. In critical spaces like operating theatres, ICUs and anaesthesia rooms, the priority isn't just efficiency — it's continuity, with the system signalling a fault without interrupting care. As an Ortea OEM support partner, we work with this same IT-M technology on UK sites where uninterrupted supply isn't optional.
Read the original post on LinkedIn →Why Hot Cables Aren't Always a Load Problem
When cables run hot, the instinct is often to upsize them — but a recent post by Flavia Feng is a useful reminder that harmonic currents can be the real culprit. Harmonics push current at frequencies above the standard 50Hz, increasing AC resistance through skin and proximity effects, and triplen harmonics don't cancel in the neutral the way normal three-phase current does, so neutral conductors can overheat even when phase currents look normal. It's exactly the kind of issue our on-site power quality surveys are designed to catch before cables are damaged or replaced early.
Read the original post on LinkedIn →Static VAr Generators vs Capacitor Banks: Picking the Right PFC Technology
Not every site needs the same power factor correction technology. A recent Ortea post makes a clear case: traditional capacitor banks remain a cost-effective choice for steady, predictable loads, while Static VAr Generator (SVG) technology suits sites with fast-changing demand, offering continuous, near-instant compensation. For plants with a mix of steady and dynamic loads, a hybrid of both is often the most precise answer — the same logic behind the different real-time PFC solutions we quote depending on a site's actual load profile.
Read the original post on LinkedIn →What a 100A Active Harmonic Filter Buys a Manufacturing Site
Poweronics Ltd shared a good example of what active harmonic filtering delivers in practice, following a 100A AHF commissioning on a manufacturing site's LV distribution. Beyond correcting power factor, the filter cuts THDi/THDv to compliant levels, balances load across phases, reduces neutral current and lowers thermal stress on cables and transformers — freeing up usable capacity in the existing supply rather than forcing a costly network upgrade. It's a similar outcome to the APF installation in our own case studies.
Read the original post on LinkedIn →THDi vs THDv: Two Numbers That Get Confused Often
It's a mix-up we see often: THDi and THDv sound similar but measure different things. As Ivy Wang explains well in a recent post, THDi (current distortion) tells you what a load — like a VFD, UPS or rectifier — is putting into the system, while THDv (voltage distortion) tells you how much of that shows up in the voltage waveform at a given point, which depends on the strength of the network itself. The same load can produce very different THDv readings on different supplies, which is why we measure both during a site survey rather than relying on one figure alone.
Read the original post on LinkedIn →Capex or Opex? Why PFC Investment Works Best as Both
A useful framing from a recent Ortea post: efficiency projects don't have to be a straight choice between capital spend and ongoing running costs. Equipment like power factor correction, capacitor banks and filtering is naturally capex, but the returns depend on the opex side too — monitoring, alarms and preventive maintenance that keep the equipment performing over its service life. It matches our own approach: we don't just install PFC equipment, we support it with ongoing servicing so the investment keeps paying back for its full 10-20 year lifespan.
Read the original post on LinkedIn →Have a Power Quality Question of Your Own?
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