Challenges in transmission and distribution for today and future are on the minds of many around the world. Power providers face economic, environmental and security challenges on a large scale, with an aged electric power grid and an expected demand for electricity to increase by more than 50% over the next several decades. Electricity Today T&D Magazine Live Online Forums deliver live content, networking opportunities and engaging virtual experiences to our community of T&D electrical engineering and maintenance professionals.
45 minutes presentation includes 10 minutes of Q&A.
1:00 pm - 1:45 pm
Dynamic Ratings
Key Gas Monitoring
As maintenance practices for utilities are quickly shifting from cyclic to a more condition-based approach, it has become a customary practice to install online monitoring for most high-value assets. Much of this monitoring has focused on dissolved gas analysis for power transformers. The formation of hydrogen and hot metal gases is typically the leading indicator of excessive thermal conditions developing within the transformer. This can result in solid insulation degradation, causing the unit’s premature failure. While there are several approaches to applying this type of monitoring, ranging from complex multi-gas systems to key gas monitoring, there must be a good understanding of the data being collected and how that data can be used to best determine the overall health of a particular transformer. When key gas monitoring is considered, it requires a good understanding of several factors to establish a successful monitoring program. This would include the types of conditions associated with various levels of hydrogen generation, where alarm points need to be set to best detect these conditions, and how to utilize offline tests in conjunction with key gas monitoring to provide the best assessment of transformer health.
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
Vibro-Acoustic as a Fast Diagnostic Tool for On Load Tap Changers
The functioning of an On-Load Tap Changer (OLTC) is complex, since a lot of mechanisms are operating at the same time. Classic testing techniques give very little information on mechanical problems occurring inside an OLTC while in service. This presentation shows how the vibroacoustic method is used as a fast diagnosis tool to easily detect mechanical problems in Tap Changers ON-LINE or OFF-LINE, before they create an outage. We will show also how simultaneous correlation of signals recorded by Vibroacoustic, Motor Current and Dynamic Resistance Measurement (DRM) allows a fast understanding of the internal movements of an OLTC. Each of these tests provides a piece of information that creates a complete picture of the OLTC's condition. Finally, we will present a real case showing how the electric utility New Brunswick Power uses this tool to properly adjust an OLTC.
Applications Engineer
Chris joined the Dynamic Ratings team in July 2019.
Prior to his present position, he served as Substation Asset Manager and chairman of the Substation
Safety Committee at Memphis, Light, Gas and Water. He has 27 years of experience in the utility
industry, primarily focused on the installation, service and maintenance of both substation and
distribution equipment. He has done extensive research and published multiple papers concerning the
interpretation of dissolved gas analysis testing. Chris is dedicated to assisting customers in finding
creative cost-effective solutions for improving safety and reliability across their entire electrical
system.
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.
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.
