Hotline of power engineering specialists:
More than 100 substations and 40 sections of overhead power lines of 35-110 kV of the Lipetsk region were examined by staff of the diagnostics service of IDGC of Centre - Lipetskenergo division from January to October this year, using the method of thermal control (TCE). This method allows with the accuracy up 0,05⁰C to identify areas of local heating, accompanying the emergence and development of electrical defects, and plan the work to address the identified defects.
Following the results of the survey of 35-110 kV equipment 132 defects were found. Of these, 32 emergency ones - were immediately eliminated, 79 defects are eliminated in the course of next outages and 21 defects - the elimination of which is combined with the implementation of planned repairs.
Using non-destructive diagnostics methods for the assessment of the technical state of electric equipment is one of the activities of the branch to ensure reliable operation of the power grid complex. This method has been used in Lipetskenergo since 1996. For this period, quickly tracking the temperature changes in a particular piece of equipment and its parts, recording and eliminating the heating at an early stage, the power engineers have prevented more than a dozen of emergency situations.
To date, all production units of the diagnostics service of the branch have been equipped with thermal imaging devices of a substation type. The combination of non-destructive methods of diagnostics with performance of other diagnostic work, such as oil sampling for analysis of dissolved gases in transformer oil, electrical and high-voltage testing, allows power engineers of IDGC of Centre - Lipetskenergo division receive full information about the state of the electric grid facilities.
"The big advantage of thermal control is that it is carried out without taking the equipment for repair, i.e. without switching off consumers. It is especially effective in combination with other diagnostic methods - chromatographic analysis of transformer oil, ultrasonic inspection and high-voltage testing," commented the chief of the diagnostics service of "Lipetskenergo" Vladimir Rossikhin.