Substation Equipment Monitoring and

Diagnostics: Part 1
By Ron Farquharson and Ken Caird
The electric utility industry has seen unprecedented changes in recent
years due to deregulation of the industry. Not the least effected is the
management of primary equipment assets throughout the utility. In
particular, maintenance of primary equipment in substations, has
frequently been delayed in order to reduce O&M costs.
At the same time the majority of the primary equipment in Western
countries was installed before 1965 with an operating life of
approximately 30 to 40 years depending a range of factors. In North
America primary equipment is ageing at the rate of 0.7 years per year
net of upgrades and replacements etc. Equipment is not only aging
but is increasingly operated at higher levels -- impacting equipment
life and possibly reliability. In the process of reducing maintenance
budgets utilities have lost a lot of knowledge and expertise through
downsizing and early retirements.
In the drive for efficiency primary equipment maintenance programs
have been cut or rolled back. At the same time customers, power
pools, regulatory agencies (and ISOs in the future?) are demanding
higher and higher levels of availability and overall reliability. The
electric utility apparatus engineer, stuck in the middle, seems to be in
a 'no win' situation.
There are now a wide range of new (to electric utilities)
methodologies and technologies available to aid the engineering
team in dealing with these conflicting interests. The technology
solutions tend to fall into one of three groups:
a. off-line monitoring devices
b. on-line monitoring devices
c. on-line diagnostics systems
In order to provide the most cost effective on-line solutions,
monitoring data from these Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) needs
to be integrated onto an existing common platform using standard
protocols and LANs. The preferred common platform appears to be
the substation RTU or automation system as it is designed to perform
this type of device interfacing, is likely already in place or is required
for many other purposes such as protection, SCADA, metering,
planning. Monitoring refers to the accumulation of basic data such as
temperature or pressure thresholds. Diagnostics refers to the
intelligent grouping of related data including statistically significant
values and trends which are then processed through an expert system
to generate a more complete knowledge of the condition of the
equipment and recommended actions to be taken.
This article will provide a top level overview of the current options
available to utilities including the application of reliability centred
maintenance (RCM) programs, base line equipment monitoring
sensors, basic equipment monitoring algorithms for use at the
substation, IED integration issues for sensors, substation automation

LAN technology necessary for equipment monitoring, advanced

sensors and new expert systems for equipment diagnostics and
predictive maintenance.
Background
Traditionally, utilities have used a time-based preventative
maintenance system. Periodically the utility maintenance personnel
would take the equipment out of service and 'tear the equipment
down' for a maintenance check.
This time based approach had a number of drawbacks:
1. The equipment had to be taken out of service in order to perform
diagnostic tests.
2. After diagnostic tests and 'tear downs' often nothing was found
wrong with the equipment (i.e. wasted time and resources, which
translates to higher costs).
3. Failures occurred shortly after the maintenance check (i.e.
equipment was not put back together properly or 'infant mortality').
4. Limited ability to respond to certain types of failure modes that
progress quickly from the incipient to critical stage. An example of
this scenario is transformer bushing failures.
5. Requires extensive apparatus knowledge and experience.
6. Expensive to implement and administer
As utilities started to come under deregulation in the 1990's, utilities
faced pressures to reduce costs, which forced them to reevaluate
maintenance intervals and restrict hiring or reduce maintenance staff.
These staffing limitations also caused a backlog of maintenance jobs
which in turn caused maintenance intervals to be greatly extended.
As a result utilities have started to see a dramatic increase in primary
equipment failure. Maintenance costs may have gone down but this is
increasingly now offset by higher repair costs after failure.
Since utilities cannot afford to go back in time and go back to the old
ways of doing things, utilities have started to look at new methods of
maintaining their assets. The methodology most commonly used is
'Reliability Centered Maintenance' or RCM which also utilizes Failure
Modes and Effects Analysis or FMEA.
An example of a substation apparatus that consumes significant
maintenance efforts and impacts reliability is the transformer load tap
changer. The LTC is generally viewed to be the cause of about 40 per
cent of transformer failures. Figure 1 shows the temperature affects
on the transformer LTC tank when contact coking results in arcing and
hence overheating as the LTC is operated.
Why, When and Where to Implement Monitoring and
Diagnostics
Manual inspection can trigger appropriate maintenance if a failure
characteristic can be observed and a predictable pattern recognized.
However, on-line condition monitoring is the only effective choice if
any of the following occur:
- The failure characteristic cannot be identified by routine inspection.
- The failure development time is shorter than the inspection period.
- The failure characteristics are not predictable in advance.

Continuous on-line monitoring can provide many other benefits to the

utility.
On-line condition monitoring only alerts maintenance personnel when
equipment needs maintaining. This allows utilities to move from a
periodic-based maintenance schedule to a just-in-time maintenance
program.
At a utility in the U.S., on-line monitoring has allowed them to move
from a 5-year breaker maintenance schedule to a 12-year average
maintenance schedule. This utility routinely checked 87 LTCs annually.
Now, they only receive about 5 LTC maintenance alarms a year from
their on-line monitoring system.
There was a payback of less than 2 years for their substation
diagnostic system. The utility has now implemented this system at
over 60 substations. They estimate the overall savings at 40 per cent
of their O&M expenses, as compared to their previous scheduledbased maintenance program, while enhancing reliability.
Summary benefits of on-line monitoring and diagnostics include the
following:
- Reduce inspection costs.
- Reduce maintenance costs.
- Reduce failure-related repair or replacement costs.
- Enhance system reliability: fewer unplanned outages.
- Provide better planning for scheduled outages.
- Defer planned upgrade or replacement capital costs.
- Reduce insurance premiums.
- Retain knowledge of most skilled staff (expert system).
- Provide wide access to key knowledge.
To broadly implement continuous on-line monitoring, the economic
evaluation process may involve a number of analysis tools. These
tools include Fixed Charge Rate Analysis or Discounted Cash Flow
Analysis. However, where sites fall into a special category, such as
system critical sites for transmission, generation step-up sites,
stations with troubled equipment, or where the loads are especially
critical, the normal economic evaluation may not apply.
Where and When to Implement On-Line Monitoring and
Diagnostics
RCM is a technique aimed at identifying the most appropriate
inspection and maintenance tasks to preserve functional reliability.
The technique can be aimed at components or defined systems. RCM
uses FMEA and risk assessment techniques to select maintenance
tasks that are directly related to high-criticality failure causes. The
same methods can select monitoring that is directly related to
advising condition or impending failure information.
FMEA or failure modes and effects and criticality analysis (FMECA)
identify the following:
- The failure modes.
- Their possible and probable causes.
- The system and component effect(s) of that failure.
- The 'criticality' involved.

Criticality is viewed in the context of risk. Therefore, risk identification

is an integral part of RCM. Risk can be defined as the product of the
chance of an event occurring and the impact of such an event.
Using a ranking system, risk or criticality can be ranked from highest
to lowest. In this case:
- Product numbers 1 through 3/4 are high risk (A).
- Numbers 4/5 through 8 are medium risk (B).
- Numbers 8/9 through 14 are low (C).
- Numbers 15 to 20 are minimal risk (D).
Risk can then be quantified using a matrix of these products. Any
issue such as financial impact, customer impact, safety, environment,
or legal can be ranked in the risk (criticality) assessment.
Once a utility business has a justification and objective for monitoring
and diagnostics, a risk based analysis such as the one above can be
useful in determining which stations and primary equipment should
be monitored for which failure modes.
Furthermore, the matrix can be used to determine whether basic
monitoring is sufficient or more comprehensive diagnostics are
needed. Finally, a per site economic or value analysis for on-line
monitoring and diagnostics must be conducted.
Reminder
When discussing these issues you should remember that the term
'monitoring' describes basic parameter measurement with threshold
alarms. The term 'diagnostics' indicates the addition of sophisticated
analysis, an expert system capable of providing an assessment of the
equipment condition and suggested actions.
Credits
[1] 'Equipment Monitoring Selection as a part of Substation
Automation' Panel Session presentation to IEEE Winter Power Meeting,
February 1999 by W. Bergman, TransAlta Utilities.
[2] CEA Project 485T1049 'On-line condition monitoring of substation
power quipment --- utility needs' January 1997.
Ron Farquharson and Ken Caird are with GE Harris. This article was
reprinted with permission from GE Harris' Newsletter 'Synergy'. Part 2
will appear in the next issue of Electricity Today.