Staff Report
Embracing new technology can be a daunting task -- and on-line monitoring is no exception. It brings with it the promise of reduced operating costs, increased efficiency and better maintenance records. And experts say that as the electric utility trudges toward deregulation, its popularity will continue to grow.
Electricity Today spoke with three different vendors of on-line monitoring products to get their perspective on what to expect if and when your organization decides to go the on-line monitoring route.
On-line Monitoring Helps Stave Off Costly Problems
No one has to tell Rebecca Montague, marketing manager of monitoring products for Cleveland, Ohio-based monitoring products vendor GE Harley Products that on-line monitoring is a hot topic for utilities. "We have a monitoring conference coming up next week, and I have double the people I usually get," she said.
Montague tells her customers that the value of monitoring lies primarily in the information it provides - but first you have to learn how to interpret it.
"I think it's im-portant to understand that anyone can monitor, (but) it's the diagnostic end of it that's really key for customers. You need to be able to do a diagnostic on equipment, (and understand) why this temperature information is important."
For instance, say there's a need for six to 10 tap changes per day; unless someone is sent in to analyze the situation first-hand, it's hard to get a good feel for what's going on. "We have people doing tap changes for a week and then all of a sudden equipment's not running," she said.
But, using on-line monitoring tools lets you gather data that could tell when something is on the verge of going wrong, instead of having to find out the hard way. This compiling of data or "trending" helps stave off costly problems before they start. It also helps companies free up their staff resources.
Working with it for the first time can be confusing, but many vendors, including GE Harley Products, will walk new users through the go-live process, she added. "If and when a customer does get into it, we can help them set up those parameters, and help understand how your transformer and load tap changes operate over a period of time," Montague said.
According to Montague, though the initial investment in on-line monitoring products can be a hit on operating budgets, it may also yield long term savings. "It's the predictive maintenance, it's all of it together, reliability centered maintenance, predictive maintenance, extending the user life of the equipment," she said. "And it's trending. As assets start to age, how can we make sure we can keep them online as long as they're supposed to be?"
Extending the Life of Aging Equipment
Intelligent Controls Inc. (INCON) agrees that predictive maintenance -- the ability to forestall equipment failure and extend the life of aging equipment -- is the driving force behind on-line monitoring. But the company says that for those new to it, the first time they see it actually go-live can be a confusing experience. "Then you say, 'what do I do with it?' And the industry is trying to sort that out right now, and there's even a lull sometimes in purchase activity," said Enrique "Rick" Sayles, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing with INCON, a maker of electronic measurement devices for the power and petroleum industries, based in Saco, Maine.
"The best way to approach on-line monitoring," Sayles said, "is to find the right balance between the need for information and the costs that are incurred when a customer takes the system live." To that end, Sayles said INCON does provide uses with some guidance including how to analyze information, which he said can give new users quick payback on the initial investment.
When it comes to rolling it out, how long the process will take really depends on a user's needs, Sayles added. It's a process he says that can take anywhere from three to nine months on average. Usually, the roll out starts slowly, but picks up steam as people begin to get comfortable with the tool.
"Once the company says Ôwe agree with you that it does what it does', then it moves fairly quickly through an organization, and they begin a scheduled plan for upgrading equipment. It would be nice if there was a standard criteria ...but in reality, each customer has different criteria, and we're happy to work with them."
And as the technology's popularity continues to grow -- INCON alone estimates that its business is up by nearly 25 per cent over last year -- it also continues to evolve.
For instance, though on-line monitoring has largely been restricted to the realm of transmission and distribution, according to Sayles, there exists a growing trend to use on-line monitoring in a generation environment. "What we're seeing now is that some of the monitoring equipment that might be used in transmission might be used in the generation side as well," Sayles said.
Need for more indepth monitoring
Robert Chenier with GE Syprotec Inc., a transformer monitoring and management company based in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, said his customers are becoming much more knowledgeable about on-line monitoring. And he adds that he has found little difference in levels of acceptance among his U.S. and Canadian customers.
In his view, the biggest value for users is the ability to fill monitoring gaps. "It fills the gaps between DGA's (dissolved gas analysis) which are usually performed on an annual basis. A lot can happen between those two periods -- transformer faults can appear overnight," Chenier said.
As for what is driving the technology forward, he said it's the need to make monitoring more in-depth. "Complete transformer monitoring and substation monitoring is the future, not just gases, but other parameters, such as water, oil, tap changers, bushings, partial discharge monitoring, current, fan and pump, etc." ET