Continuous Switchgear Monitoring
Implementing continuous monitoring gives electric utilities the ability to collect data generated during the switchgear’s normal operating conditions, thereby providing awareness to problems in real time. Real-time trending during full load electrical stresses, vibration, insulation breakdown, and environmental influences, quickly provides insight into the health of the utility’s asset. When performing continuous monitoring, it is not critical to identify the exact location of degradation, but to understand the trend of the defect over time. Possessing the ability to monitor and trend the most common failure modes allows for planned maintenance events to assess the health of the asset over time versus running the risk of asset failure resulting in unplanned downtime. Common failure modes include excessive temperature, partial discharge (PD), and humidity.