A week’s lost production caused by 5 seconds’ power failure

Short interruptions to power supply, even as short as a millisecond, can stop a production plant.

At this chemical plant, a contactor failed for just under 6 seconds. Controls and operational equipment were affected, leading to an entire week’s production being halted. The losses included lost production, staff downtime, wasted raw materials, equipment damage and penalties to the electrical network operator. The aggregated cost to the company was just under €7.8 million. In the same production plant, the cost of a very short interruption or “voltage dip”, provoking a so-called “brown-out”, was calculated to be over €700,000.