The focus of our Electrical Substation Live Online Forum will be substation reliability, security and stability. The changing environment in the energy sector creates a need for substation system operators to be able to robustly evaluate the impact that possible measures have on the dependability of supply of their networks. Electrical substations are is considered an important part of the power grid, and this has gained significant focus for electrical power system planners and operators to improve reliability. Our FREE Live Online Forum is a great way to learn from leading Electrical Substation professionals who are speaking on subjects about current or future technologies for reliable power substations.
45 minutes presentation includes 10 minutes of Q&A.
12:15 pm - 1:00 pm
Group CBS
Substation Maintenance Activities To Increase System Reliability
Adhering to comprehensive substation maintenance testing leads to more system reliability. Addressing even the most minor operational or functional issues immediately when discovered during routine inspections is crucial to avoiding preventable failures. As such, it's important to ensure that predictive and proactive maintenance is performed and any deviations from standards are addressed in a timely fashion. Learn how becoming an early adopter of “new technology” improves the accuracy of accessing and monitoring substation equipment
1:00 pm - 1:45 pm
H2SCAN
Transformer Life Expectancy – How long will your transformers last?
This presentation will summarize various industry data to provide insights into how long transformers typically last. Factors such as application, design, manufacturing, operation, and maintenance all affect the performance and expected life of transformers. Monitoring the performance of these critical assets is a good way to mitigate the risk of unforeseen failure.
1:45 pm - 2:30 pm
Critter Guard
An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure
Critter Guard has published their own curated statistics on the frequency and type of animal related outages for power utilities. It's not a matter of IF you'll experience an animal outage, but a matter of WHEN. This presentation will detail Critter Guard's efforts to prevent animal outages and keep the power on!
2:30 pm - 3:15 pm
Zensol Automation INC
Methodology for the maintenance program of high voltage substations
In this presentation, you will find a summarized description of a typical high voltage substation maintenance program structure and its main components. We will show some real examples inspired from Hydro Quebec maintenance program methodology. We hope it will give maintenance planners managers enough insight to shape their electrical equipment maintenance programs or initiate one if it does not exist yet.
3:15 pm - 4:00 pm
I-Gard Corporation
Safer and Quicker Absence of Voltage Testing
The two standards that detail the requirements of verifying that current carrying conductors are de-energized are NFPA70E (CSAZ46 in Canada) and OSHA.
NFPA70E has undergone updates in 2015, 2018, 2021 and will be updated further in 2024 with respect to conducting the absence of voltage test.
This forum will discuss the evolution of this safety standard, outline the product options and discuss in detail what is and what is not allowed.
The focus will be on how using a UL approved absence of voltage tester that meets UL1436, is not only the quickest option but the safest option.
Concerns about the use of technology will be addressed and answered.
4:00 pm - 4:45 pm
TransGard LLC
Animal Mitigation: To Expensive to Ignore
We read about it almost every day across the country: animals like squirrels, raccoons, snakes, and birds enter substations for warmth, food, security, or simply out of curiosity. They make contact with sensitive equipment, creating short circuits, tripping breakers, damaging equipment, causing fires, and ultimately shutting off service to thousands. In many areas, wildlife intruding into power equipment has become the leading cause of outages – even more common than storms or vegetation.
A single substation outage can cost tens of thousands of dollars in equipment repair or replacement, man hours and more. The annual cost to utility companies for recovering from animal-related outages is estimated in the billions of dollars, not including the cost of lost commercial activity, lowered productivity, and consumer dissatisfaction.
Animal-caused outages are a problem that is too significant and expensive to be ignored, and one that is largely preventable.
In this presentation, Bill Marks, Director of Sales at TransGard LLC, will give an overview of the challenges posed by different types of animals and birds, and ways in which substation managers can protect their facilities – and their reputations.
President & Owner
John is the president and owner of Critter Guard. He has led and/or managed product development and global sales & operations management teams in energy and process industry for more than 30 years. He holds a bachelor of science in chemical engineering from Mizzou. He resides in the Wichita, KS area.
Vice President of Engineering
Sergio Panetta is the VP of Engineering at I-Gard Corporation. Sergio is a graduate of McMaster University (BEng ’83, MEng ’97) with over 3 decades of electrical engineering experience in switchgear design, commissioning and troubleshooting, and power system protection and Power system grounding. He continues to actively increase awareness on Electrical Safety on a global front. Sergio is a senior member of the IEEE, member of the IET, and has been awarded Consulting Engineering status with the PEO professional body. Sergio is a member of several industry working groups such as the working group chair of 3003 ( Grounding and Bonding which addresses standards like , 3003.1, 3003.2) Chair of C57.32a, Representing Canada for TC14, and, TC 64 for IEC Committees. Active member of P1584, P1814. Sergio is actively dealing with electrical safety and best practices including CSA, IEEE, IEC, and UL, Sergio is the author and owner of several US Patents related to electrical safety
Vice President, Transformer Product Sales
Leon brings more than 25 years of experience including an extensive background in electric substations and online transformer monitoring. He started his career at Ameren in St. Louis, where he held various positions including substation design, transmission regulatory and real time power trading. He brings a proven track record of achieving leading results in sales growth at GE and Qualitrol where he was responsible for a wide range of substation and transformer monitoring products. He is a professional engineer and a member of the IEEE Power and Energy Society. He received his electrical engineering and MBA degrees from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
Solutions Director, Asset Management and Monitoring Technology Solutions Director
Co-presenter with Leon White from H2Scan
Responsible for online monitoring solutions, including bushings, PD, DGA and general I/O to support
analytics and alert management; managing a small team involved with conception, design, delivery and
implementation of monitoring devices and systems. Provides strategic direction to asset management
initiatives, with special reference to condition assessment and health indices, in a risk management
environment.
Director of Sales
Bill Marks is the Director of Sales for TransGard LLC, a leading provider of
animal-deterrent
equipment to substations. Bill brings more than 30 years of experience as a successful sales and management
professional serving both national and regional level. His experience in GIS mapping and data management,
aerial
photography, and photogrammetry — a method for obtaining measurements and generating 3D models from a
defined set
of photographs and software — has helped TransGard and its customers target critical locations in
substations that
are susceptible to animal attacks.
About TransGard LLC. Based in York, Pennsylvania, TransGard delivers patented substation protection
exclusively
engineered to eliminate substation outages caused by climbing animals and birds. TransGard’s innovative
fences and
Laser Bird Defense system have been deployed at 4,000+ locations in the U.S. and Canada.
President
Fouad Brikci obtained a Doctorate in Electronics in 1977 and a master's degree in Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Automation in 1975 both from the University of Bordeaux, France. During his 40 years and more of experience, he was a lecturer at the Ecole Polytechnique in Algiers, Algeria and a researcher at CNRS-LAAS, Toulouse, France. He is currently the President of Zensol Automation, Inc., a company founded in 1990 and located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Zensol is a world leader in the field of acoustic diagnostics for circuit breakers and on-line tap changers (OLTC). Zensol also has extensive expertise in conventional maintenance testing applied to high-voltage circuit breakers.
VP of Business Development
Mose Ramieh is Vice President of Business Development at CBS Field Services, a Group CBS company. Mose has been in the electrical testing industry for 24 years. He is a Level IV NETA Technician with an eye for simplicity in the execution of acceptance andmaintenance testing.
