Why Maintenance of Substation Equipment is Critical
A substation might not be the most exciting place to work, but it does contribute enormously to corporate efficiency. This is something that companies in the electrical transmission and distribution industry can mostly relate to.
Without a substation, you couldn't perform your daily activities optimally, due to an uncontrolled electric power supply. For an operational chain, you need a substation to provide quality power depending upon need. This role does not only ensure company safety but also improved performance for maximum returns.
While a substation can do all this, you need to maintain it well for quality delivery!
This is where utility maintenance companies come in. They specialize in the maintenance of substation equipment to ensure others like transmission tower companies conduct their activities successfully.
Utility Service & Maintenance, Inc. is here to ensure your business activities are never interrupted by a malfunctioned substation. Our team of professionals will conduct corrosion controls, life extension, and flashover protection services to ensure efficiency in your company.
We have been your preferred industrial coatings contractor for the last 70 years as we partner to protect critical electrical assets. Utility Service & Maintenance aims to help you reach your full potential through proper maintenance of a substation.
Substation Maintenance
Over 99 percent of the significant inputs in businesses today are run with electric power. This means that an unexpected power outage would disrupt the activities of the company. To minimize this risk, big companies build substations that deliver quality electric power for an operational chain.
A substation will gather all the incoming currents and modify the voltage released from the electrical infrastructure. The power will in turn flow safely until it is transferred as needed.
The maintenance of substation equipment is necessary to ensure maximum efficiency as the electricity will slow safely and constantly. You should conduct periodic maintenance so that your substation provides efficient long-term performance.
Routine maintenance services prevent future issues with the care of the substation. However, you need to consider the quality of services utility maintenance companies offer. Quality services will ensure a longer life for your substation equipment. Also, they’ll ensure safe and reliable power flow for increased performance.
The needs of your company will impact how the substation is operated and maintained. However, all utility maintenance companies should strive to provide quality services for optimal performance. The best technicians should have the latest substation maintenance tools along with advanced test equipment.
Any available technology and resource that could improve the performance, reliability, and safety should be at their disposal. These include:
Equipment to boost transformer life
Tools to improve circuit breaker life management
Resources to extend the life of substation equipment
Resources to cut costs and prevent outages through optimal maintenance
Technology to enhance SF6 management
Tools to enhance switching safety
Resources for proper fault current management and tools for grounding
Substation Painting
The use of Protective Coatings for Corrosion Control is the top practice among utility maintenance companies. The substation and transformer painting procedure in the industry involves a 360-degree coverage of the transformer radiator tubes. This means that a unique flow coating is needed for guaranteed protection.
Transmission tower resurfacing is also done to increase its use-life and increase efficiency in the substation.
Flashover Protection
The use of Silicone RTV coatings after dry abrasive cleaning of high voltage insulators will ensure flashover protection. The transmission and distribution companies clean and coat high voltage insulators to prevent pollution-induced flashovers.
Asset Management Planning
The role of transmission and distribution companies is to transmit and distribute power safely and efficiently. As such, proper asset management planning is necessary to ensure a substation stays operational throughout.
The utility maintenance companies can provide this service to prevent unexpected power outages. Professionals will conduct:
Substation coating specification preparation
Substation coating budgeting
Lead abatement project management
Padmount inspection and coating
Why Maintenance of Substation Equipment is Critical
It is the goal of every power operator to maintain power quality since it affects the entire transmission and distribution company. Transmission tower companies work to ensure competitive operations within their networks. This is why the management needs the company’s power quality information.
There are fixed or portable power quality measurements that technicians use to get power quality date from different transmission network nodes. The equipment with complex long-term measurements, on the other hand, is used to identify the cause of disturbance in the network. This equipment also comes with technology that can repair the problem to optimize the transmission and distribution network.
In some cases, the measurements may recommend the building of new substations to ensure quality power delivery. However, the management should be careful of uncontrolled expansion that could risk the complete disruption of company activities. If the company were to over-utilize or under-utilize the available resources, then problems could arise.
Unplanned substation development may lead to:
Increased losses
Voltage quality problems
Power quality issues
Poor reliability
All transmission tower companies in industries ranging from power to water treatment, municipal, petrochemical, oil, and gas, etc, need maintenance services. The utility maintenance companies should comply with different safety regulations like BASIC Plus, OSHA, Avetta, Browz, and ISNetworld to provide these services.
Benefits of Maintenance of Substation Equipment
With time, every equipment gets old meaning it's the "end of life." Regardless, companies are making upgrades left, right, and center to keep abreast with the changing technology. Another driving factor is the ability to meet consumer needs.
This equipment, on the other hand, relies on electrical power to function and perform their tasks. This makes proper electrical power supply a critical subject in a company. To meet this need, transmission tower companies have to ensure safe, reliable, and quality electrical power flow.
To do this, transmission tower companies have substations that require adequate maintenance for electrical equipment life extension.
Effective and thorough electrical maintenance will tell you the current state of the equipment.
What's more, the maintenance of substation equipment will help in predicting the "end of life" therefore, allowing for optimization of the "useful life."
Having access to such critical equipment life information will enable proper planning and budgeting. The company has time to search for a suitable replacement at competitive pricing to save on cost. You can take proactive measures to increase the use-life of the equipment and anticipate when an upgrade is essential.
This goes to show that conducting proper maintenance of substation equipment is critical for transmission tower companies.
Some of the benefits you can expect after periodic substation maintenance include:
Increase power system reliability
It is the objective of all utility maintenance companies to make their power system reliability to meet the power needs of different people. The power supply line has to safely transfer electricity from the source to the users, who have varying power uses.
Only with proper maintenance of substation equipment can you get power system reliability. Unexpected power outages are prevented as they would adversely affect many business operations, leading to losses.
A reliable electrical engineer and maintenance technician should remember that the success and failure of numerous businesses depend on the efficiency of the substation. Performing thorough substation maintenance will ensure there is quality power flow.
One way of improving substation reliability is advanced SF6 management coupled with transformer cooling to avoid power leaks.
Improve electrical equipment life
Upon the purchase of equipment, every user aims to make the most out of the investment. However, depreciation must occur as the years of use go by. This is under the classification of an unavoidable expenditure that may adversely affect the normal operations in a company. As such, for businesses, the longer the "useful life" of equipment, the better for it to minimize expenditure.
Conducting routine maintenance of substation equipment will help in predicting its "end of life." Knowing the current state of the said equipment will also allow you to fully exploit the useful life for optimal performance.
Also, you can plan to extend the equipment use-life through maintenance services like painting and coating. These maintenance strategies help in improving the performance of equipment while saving on cost. This is because you may not need an upgrade just yet if there's proper maintenance of equipment.
Ensure the safety of staff and contractors
When there’s a faulty line or other problem with the electrical system, a fire may be the result. Since electricity is highly risky, any issue within the system may cause unfathomable damage to proper and people.
For transmission power companies, ensuring the safety of staff and contractors is the number one goal when running a substation. The utility maintenance companies, on the other hand, work to keep the substations safely operational for employees.
Periodic maintenance will help identify underlying problems that may have otherwise caused losses in the future. The substation technicians will then be able to make early repairs or adjustments for the safety of employees.
Minimized unpredicted expenses and long-term costs
The maintenance of substation equipment is essential in improving the use-life so that the long-term investment isn't a loss. The utility maintenance companies should be able to predict the “end of life” of the equipment so that you can anticipate an upgrade or replacement. This will help achieve proper planning and budgeting.
Once you know the "useful life" of the substation equipment, you can optimize it better. Unpredicted repairs, upgrades, or replacements could lead to losses in a business.
Since you’ll know when a replacement is needed, you can conduct a market review on a non-urgent basis. This prevents unpredicted expenses and saves on long-term costs as you'll get competitive rates to compare.
Measure equipment condition
Know the state of your substation equipment will allow you to plan. In turn, you’ll be able to make repairs as needed and schedule component upgrades or equipment replacements.
If you learn that your equipment will attain its end of life in five, two, or ten years, then you can measure its condition occasionally to know its state.
There's no better investment for a business than in services or technology that provides anticipatory information. This is proper planning and budgeting are at the core of every successful one.
Increase the effectiveness of maintenance staff
The utility maintenance staff know that conservation of energy is crucial to optimize the power flow and the system in place. As such, electrical reliability can only be enhanced if a company understands its energy management needs.
Once the transmission and distribution companies and utility maintenance companies understand their role in electrical maintenance, operations will go on effectively. So, for the reliability and safety of substations, the maintenance staff should be highly effective.
Utility & Service Maintenance Inc.
Electrical failure and damage that occurs as a result of poor or lack of maintenance execution account for over half of the total insurance claims made in the U.S. For quality power supply that meets company safety and reliability levels, the management can consider preventive maintenance methods. These will not only prevent losses that will see companies save millions, but also maintain proper operation.
Utility Service & Maintenance, Inc. is here to keep you in service. The company utilizes modern equipment, advanced tools, innovative technology, and highly experienced personnel.
The electrical engineering team will conduct infrared inspections throughout the system while analyzing for underlying problems. This approach will allow the maintenance technicians to pinpoint the exact point of issue. As a result, more time saving will be possible with less repair effort. Also, this analysis minimizes the guesswork and promotes preventative maintenance.
Utility Service & Maintenance, Inc., like other utility maintenance companies, comes with an inclusive loss prevention technique. The aim is to increase reliability through energy conservation!
The USM certified electrical engineering and utility maintenance team is at the disposal of all transmission tower companies around. Besides substation painting, some of the other services the company offers to its esteemed customers include:
Transmission tower resurfacing
Asset management planning
High voltage insulator coating or cleaning
The USM will help the transmission tower companies understand their energy needs for optimal system use.
Don't wait for your substation equipment to undergo corrosion and breakdown before it can reach its full potential. Routine maintenance is standing between you and that life-changing performance.
Make a date with the USM team today for your power system requirements. You will get a thorough maintenance of substation equipment for improved efficiency!
