For many industries, power quality monitoring is essential to ensuring uptime, efficiency and compliance. Several international standards exist to define the parameters that make up power quality, such as voltage, current and harmonic distortion. But what about the output file formats? With a diverse range of instruments monitoring dozens of parameters at any given time, synthesizing and acting on this data can be difficult.
Fortunately, there are tools that can help engineers pull actionable insights out of a sea of complex data and across different manufacturers’ devices. Let’s break down PQDIF — the key file format used for power quality monitoring — and how utilities and companies can make best use of it.
What is PQDIF?
PQDIF (Power Quality Data Interchange Format) is the recommended file format for power quality data as recognized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It’s used to exchange various types of power quality data between devices and software, embedding the necessary context so measurements and event records can be interpreted in the same “language,” regardless of the source.
Working with PQDIF
PQDIF makes aggregating essential power quality data from diverse instruments possible, but as a binary file format, PQDIF can be challenging to work with:
- Complex data files require software programs to read, parse and visualize.
- Large volumes of data can be slow to process and strain system resources.
- Incorrect interpretation of recommended practice by vendors is possible.
PQDiffractor® Helps You Get More from Your Power Quality Data
How do you maximize the value of your PQ data? A first step is PQDiffractor® — a premier, free PQDIF viewer for viewing, browsing, diagnosing and converting PQDIF files. With PQDiffractor, you can:
- Analyze and visualize data to diagnose power quality problems and identify trends.
- Rapidly validate data integrity to uncover recording errors.
How Can You Leverage This Data at Scale?
Accelerate the efficiency of PQDIF data analysis with PQDiffractor, a useful, simple and free tool for reading one-off PQDIF files. But for in-depth analyses, ongoing reporting and compliance purposes, you’ll need something more robust. That’s why Powerside offers two enterprise-level tools to enable advanced power quality monitoring at scale.
Choose PQView® for Customizable On-Premise Monitoring
PQView has been designed to harmonize the data from multiple vendor PQ analyzers in a common on-premise platform.
Leverage QubeScan for Advanced Remote Monitoring
QubeScan optimizes fleet analytics from its own Class A PQube devices, giving insights by application and industry types with the scalability and comfort of a secure, cloud-based platform accessible from your computer, tablet or smartphone.
Want to maximize the value of your power quality monitoring investment, but not sure where to start? Reach out to our team to schedule a consult or book a demo today.