Every year environmental conditions cause billions of dollars of damage to valuable electronic and electrical gear and data. Lightning strikes, high winds, earthquakes, and other environmental conditions can cause unstable and dangerous power line conditions including high voltage surges, sags, and power loss in power grids, which endanger downstream mission critical systems and other sensitive electrical and electronic gear and data. Since many electronic and electrical devices are highly sensitive, these voltage vagaries can have damaging effects on the devices connected to power grids. Various surge protection devices are available that attempt to protect electronic equipment from electrical surges and other undesirable electrical phenomenon that result from destructive environmental conditions.
However, these surge protection devices are unreliable. Most surge protection devices leave a conductive path in place, eliminating their ability to deal with large surges. Many other protection devices use sacrificial components, which creates the possibility of inopportune power interruptions. The preferred way to protect critical electrical and electronic systems is to electrically isolate them. Devices that will automatically isolate circuits in response to lightning threats been have devised. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,674,625, entitled “Lightning Protection Systems,” was designed to prevent high voltage charge from crossing its insulative barrier.
While lightning is a major threat to electronic and electrical gear and systems, it is by no means the only threat to reliable line power. Any of several environmental conditions can greatly affect the quality of line power. For example, ice storms create havoc by weighing down the power lines and causing branches and trees to fall onto the lines. High winds and seismic activity can cause power lines to fall, or to swing into contact with adjacent lines creating dangerous power conditions. Additionally, flooding and temperature extremes can also greatly affect power quality. As such, there are devices that monitor for these types and other similar types of conditions that can initiate the isolation of electrical or electronic devices.
While these devices do provide some protection, they come with several drawbacks. First, the protection devices protect individual electronic and electrical devices. If there are multiple electronic and electrical devices spread throughout a home or office that require protection, several protection devices are needed. Therefore, each protection device requires a specific connection to the electric or electronic device. Second, although there are several monitoring devices for various conditions, each device can only monitor one condition. Thus, several different devices must be used in order to provide protection from different environmental conditions. As such, connecting multiple devices can be an arduous and expensive task. As such, there is a need to efficiently and effectively isolate electric loads.
In addition to causing power surges that can damage valuable electronic and electrical equipment, environmental conditions can lead to a loss of power. Secondary power sources, such as generators, can be used to provide power in times when the power utility's electrical grid system has failed as a result of these environmental causes. Many secondary power sources include a transfer switch which allows switching from a primary power source, like a utility power grid, to a secondary or tertiary power source, such as a generator. These transfer switches may be manual or automatic, or a combination of both. Automatic transfer switches (ATS) can monitor incoming utility power and, upon sensing an interruption, activate the secondary power source and switch to it. However, there is often a delay before the secondary power source is activated. This is particularly the case when using a gasoline or diesel generator, which may take 10 seconds or more to bring the auxiliary power online.
This loss of power, while temporary, can have a tremendous impact. For example, may types of manufacturing deal with molten materials such as metals, glass, ceramics, PVC, or fiber optic material. The loss of power for these processes permits the material to cool and/or harden within the production facility, which ruins the material batch and frequently damages the manufacturing equipment. Hospitals are another area where a temporary loss of power can lead to disastrous results, including the loss of life. This concern is so great that many hospitals employ individuals to watch for storms or other environmental conditions that could lead to power failure and bring auxiliary power sources online before the loss of power occurs in order to prevent any interruptions of power.
To combat this problem, a wide variety of processes and devices have been utilized to activate and deactivate ATS-based electrical power systems to prevent the loss of power. For example, and as discussed above, manual on-site means have been employed to activate ATS's. Localized lightning detectors and lightning detection networks have been used to activate ATS-based electrical power systems as well. However, in each case, the sensing devices and/or their interface connections to the ATS must be custom-designed for the specific type of ATS system. If more threat-monitoring devices are desired, the user must initiate another custom-designed system. The task of customizing the sensor devices and their connections is cumbersome and expensive, especially when upgrading their electrical power systems as new generations of ATS systems appear.
Given the problems discussed above, there is a need for a device that is compatible with a broad range of ATS and other switching systems. Additionally, such a device should be able to communicate with a broad range of sensor devices that provide protection from a wide variety of conditions that threaten the integrity and/or quality of an electrical power supply. Also, the device should provide a means of initiating a preemptive secondary power source to eliminate any loss of power, as well as isolating loads from possible power surges. The device should provide a means of sensing when the threat condition has passed and reliable utility line power has been restored, and automatically transferring the loads back to utility line power.