IDGC of Centre — Voronezhenergo division held a press conference for the media following the operation results through the autumn-winter period

The press conference with the Voronezh journalists was held by Deputy Director for Technical Issues — Chief Engineer of IDGC of Centre — Voronezhenergo division Sergey Demidov.

The successful operation through the autumn-winter period was made possible thanks to the careful preparation of the branch to the peak loads. According to the Federal Agency for Construction and Housing and Communal Services of the Russian Federation, the Voronezh region entered the top five regions of the country in terms of readiness for the autumn-winter period. In this case, the Voronezh region in this rating was the best among the Central Black Soil regions and the second after the Moscow region — in the Central Federal District.

So, to ensure reliable and quality power supply to consumers during the autumn-winter 2012-2013, Voronezhenrego scheduled and successfully implemented 798 organizational and technical measures to prepare power equipment and personnel to work in the cold season. The implementation of a set of activities allowed to reduce the number of process failures by 46%, compared with the autumn-winter period of the previous year (from 3020 pcs. to 1624 pcs.). Undersupply of electricity significantly (by 55%) reduced (from 362.02 million kW/h down to 162.90 kW/h). During the time of the autumn-winter period 2012-2013 there were no accidents, fires and builds.

In preparation for the autumn-winter period measures were implemented aimed to perform integrated and major repair, clearing ROWs along overhead lines, maintenance of vehicles, staff training and provision with safety equipment. So, in order to improve the reliability of electric grids the power engineers replaced 2944 defective electric poles, repaired 352 switches and 537 transformer substations. To prevent blackouts of overhead lines due to their overlap with undergrowth and trees falling on wires of power lines clearing and expansion of ROWs in an area of 2379 hectares along overhead lines was performed. 0.4-10 kV cable lines, relay protection and automation, motor vehicles involved in the repair and maintenance work, and the means of supervisory control were also repaired.

To perform restoration operations the branch has 42 first responding mobile crews who work round the clock. In addition, in the event of emergencies other 8 crews of the branch are ready to work numbering 47 people, and 16 vehicles as well, equipped with tools, devices and food for three days. In addition, to provide power to critical customers and infrastructure for the period of work to deal with emergencies at the disposal of specialists of IDGC of Centre — Voronezhenergo division there are 113 standby power supply sources with a total capacity of 1.85 MW.

To combat natural disasters such as the «freezing rain» the branch developed and successfully tested in the run-up to the autumn-winter period «ice melting» activities on the wires of overhead lines of 110, 35, 6/10 kV. While operating through the autumn-winter period in January-February 2013 the branch repeatedly used the «ice melting» on the wires of 6/10 kV in the southern areas of the Voronezh region and by which the stable and reliable operation of the electricity sector was provided and no repetition of the events in the Moscow, Tver regions in winter 2010/2011 and Pskov region in 2012/2013 was allowed in the Voronezh region. In total the branch uses «ice melting» on 49 overhead lines of 6-110 kV (11 — 110 kV Conductors, 4 — 35 kV Conductors and 34 — 6/10 kV Conductors).

The successful completion of the autumn-winter peak load period was also influenced by the implementation of the investment program of Voronezhenrego. In 2012, the power engineers performed some huge amount of work on the construction and reconstruction of power facilities of the city and region. In total last year IDGC of Centre — Voronezhenergo division spent about 2.452 billion rubles on the construction and reconstruction of power facilities. Of these the costs for the modernization and reconstruction amounted to 1.6 billion rubles and for the new construction — 756.5 million rubles. Commissioning of fixed assets for the reporting period amounted to 2.2 billion rubles.

The major strategic project of Voronezhenrego’s investment program was the construction of a 110 kV cable line from 110/6 kV Substation # 2 to the 110/6-6 kV Substation «Central» and modernization of 110/6 kV Substation # 2 with the installation of 110 kV gas-insulated switchgear bays. As part of the investment project extensive work was performed to upgrade the 35/10 kV Substation for grid connection of customers, to re-equip 110/6 Substation # 27 with replacement of oil circuit breakers with vacuum, reconstruction and construction of a 10 kV and 0.4 kV Conductor and a 10/0.4 kV package transformer substation. The Conductor-1-20 kV was reconstructed with clearing of ROWs, as well as the Conductor 110 kV and 35 kV in the area of the motor road «Don».

For the past year, efforts of IDGC of Centre’s Voronezh power engineers also focused on the modernization and expansion of collection and transmission of data of emergency control in the part of the automated dispatch control system, installation of remote control for switchgear, and creation of a distribution and outage management system (DMS/OMS). As part of the modernization of electricity metering project and implementation of an automated information-measuring system of electricity the installation of modern electricity metering systems in residential buildings in rural and urban populations was provided.

According to Deputy Director for Technical Issues — Chief Engineer of IDGC of Centre — Voronezhenergo division Sergey Demidov, the set of measures implemented help the power engineers of Voronezh confidently to pass the 2012-2013 autumn-winter peak loads. «Now Voronezhenrego is preparing the grid for next winter. At the moment, the main efforts of power engineers are directed to perform maintenance campaign of 2013, which has been increased by 30% compared to last year. For example, just this month the cost of repairs amounted to about 18 million rubles. From experience I can say that a tremendous amount of the work will be clearing of ROWs off trees and shrubs, which is often the cause of technological disturbances in networks. Voronezh branch of IDGC of Centre will also have a lot of work on the construction and reconstruction of power facilities. Only thorough and continuous preparation of power engineers for the autumn-winter peak load period will allow to operate through it as successful as possible,» stressed Sergey Demidov.