UV Disinfection Systems and Power Quality

There are 52,000 community drinking water systems in the United States that come under the scope of new rules issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to improve public drinking water safety. Compliance with these news rules has significantly increased interest in the use of ultraviolet light (UV) water disinfection systems. However, UV systems are known to shutdown unexpectedly due to power quality problems: leaving the drinking water flow untreated. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the reason for the use of UV disinfection systems and the implications of and solutions for their sensitivity to power quality problems.