Overview
Electric power companies require solutions that limit the danger of power distribution breakdowns, such as blackouts and brownouts, which are frequently caused by outdated infrastructure. A breakdown can have serious consequences for the clients and communities they serve. The expenses of unscheduled maintenance and restoring system operation might be enormous.
Viper has collaborated with a company known for being an innovator in the creation of clean, safe, and dependable energy. We worked with the substation engineering team at one of the company's facilities to offer service to over 1.5 million customers.
Challenge
Viper was asked by the Substation Support Manager to devise a method of monitoring various substation locations. He requested a remote monitoring solution that could be transferred from one site to another as needed due to the significant cost required to cover every substation location in the state. Following these preliminary discussions, Viper worked closely with the Substation Support Engineer to build a solution that would suit their requirements. As a result, Viper created an innovative, portable technology that can be temporarily installed at practically any substation. Using such a system, engineering teams are better equipped to respond to sudden changes in real time, allowing for uninterrupted uptime while operating securely and productively.
The Substation Support Engineer stated that prior to contacting Viper Imaging, his team relied on manual inspection, utilizing portable thermal imaging cameras to spot problems before they became failures. Due to time and manpower constraints, as well as the increased potential for human mistake, these old procedures proved inadequate in preventing downtime. He stated that a CCVT (Capacitively Coupled Voltage Transformer) can fail in one minute, causing severe downtime. "This also poses a safety risk, as CCVTs can burst during failure, ejecting shrapnel that might injure employees or damage other equipment," he noted. The benefits of continuous remote monitoring over manual examination are obvious.
Solution
The system monitors temperature rises in substation components and may alert when a component exceeds or falls below a pre-set temperature range, providing early warnings by email, text, and control point verification. This enables preventative maintenance and decreases the likelihood of catastrophic failure. ViperVision software interfaces with the industrial platform controller directly via a number of common protocols. Real-time temperature data is shown on a monitor, and hot areas are visible before excessive heat or insulation loss causes failure. The software analyzes and compares the data to predetermined parameters, triggering an alarm if necessary. These settings can be changed depending on the demands of the application, and all data can be stored for process analysis and quality control.
Outcome
The Substation Support Engineer and Equipment Testing Team have cited the following main benefits after deploying Viper's Rapid Deploy Substation Monitoring System:
- Portability and ease of use — requiring only power,
- improved plant staff safety and reduced danger of breakdown
- Time and manpower were saved.
- Plant management can benefit from remote thermal monitoring.
- The ability to plan for maintenance, as well as
- Improved power delivery reliability.
This system's data is relied on by the engineering and testing teams. When asked which feature of the system they rely on the most, the Substation Support Engineer replied, "The capacity within ViperVision [software] to draw regions of interest is a significant time-saver." He also mentioned that the team is significantly reliant on the system's portability.
As demonstrated in this study, ViperVision software in conjunction with FLIR thermal imaging cameras provides a viable method for detecting temperature in order to assess substation component dependability. With the added benefits of simple setup and portability, this is a very strong substation monitoring system.
Read More: https://techninja99.blogspot.com/2023/02/thermal-camera-substation-monitoring.html
