Stroombewaking

Stroombewaking is a term used in electrical engineering to describe the ongoing monitoring of electrical current and related parameters in power systems to detect abnormal conditions. The aim is to prevent damage, enhance safety, and improve reliability and efficiency by identifying overloads, short circuits, leakage currents, or tampering with installations.

Typical implementations combine sensors such as current transformers or Hall-effect sensors with digital monitoring units. These measure instantaneous current, voltage, power quality indicators, harmonics, and leakage. Data is analyzed through thresholds, waveform analysis, and pattern recognition to trigger alarms or protective actions. Protective relays and circuit breakers may be coordinated to interrupt power when dangerous conditions are detected. In modern systems stroombewaking is often integrated with building management systems, data centers, or industrial control networks via standard communication protocols.

Applications span industrial plants, commercial buildings, energy infrastructure, data centers, and marine or transportation environments. It is used to monitor distribution boards, switchgear, and critical loads, and to support preventive maintenance, energy management, and safety compliance.

Benefits include earlier fault detection, reduced risk of electrical fires, improved safety for personnel, minimized downtime, and opportunities for energy optimization. Challenges involve preventing false positives, ensuring reliability of sensors and communications, cost and complexity of integration, and maintaining calibration and compatibility with existing standards and equipment.

See also: electrical protection, arc-fault detection, leakage current monitoring, power quality analysis, smart grid, protective relays.