PQube is a registered trademark of Power Standards Lab for an electronic measuring instrument that records

power quality Electric power quality is the degree to which the voltage, frequency, and waveform of a power supply system conform to established specifications. Good power quality can be defined as a steady supply voltage that stays within the prescribed range, ...

and electric energy on the electric power grid.

Applications

PQube instruments are widely used to gather data for academic research, and at

United States Department of Energy National Laboratories The United States Department of Energy National Laboratories and Technology Centers is a system of facilities and laboratories overseen by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) for scientific and technological research. Sixteen of the sev ...

and state energy regulators. U.S. federal government agencies use PQubes to detect power quality issues – for example, the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

tracks disturbances at radar control centers. Each PQube instrument is traceable to the

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...

, so often these instruments are used in international academic and research environments. PQubes are a key element in many

smart grid A smart grid is an electrical grid which includes a variety of operation and energy measures including: *Advanced metering infrastructure (of which smart meters are a generic name for any utility side device even if it is more capable e.g. a f ...

projects, recording power disturbance and power flow data to examine efficiency and reliability effects.

Information on the Web

Approximately 50 PQubes, located in approximately 40 countries, have been designated by their owners as free public sources of information at http://map.pqube.com . The site is updated approximately every 2 minutes with worldwide power quality and energy recordings. Data from these PQubes can be used, for example, for developing and testing power quality algorithms. "Fukushima, Mexico and Slovenia: Free Electric Power Recordings for Researchers"
/ref> Available data include daily, weekly, and monthly files in GIF and

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CSV format. Voltage and current oscillographs are recorded during every power disturbance and these worldwide locations, and are freely available. Data from each worldwide site is updated approximately once per minute.

References

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External links

Data from the PSL PQube
Power Standards Lab Scientific instruments