Improved health assessment of Substation using holistic condition monitoring

Abstract:
The paper presents the modern-day challenges of the utilities in dealing with several monitoring solutions available in the market without a clear direction of how to interpret this data coming out of different constituent assets. A unified framework is thus proposed, where the operational behavior, performance, life cycle and usability of individual assets are monitored and presented in a utility substation. Such a framework is built on a condition monitoring platform that helps assessing the assets on a continuous basis, defines the interdependencies amongst different subsystems and present clear actionable directions to different stakeholders of the substation, namely- the asset owner, operator, maintenance and service personnel. The holistic solution encompasses the entire signal chain from sensors to system informatics, built on a unified data model platform that covers generic asset properties, independent of manufacturers and communication interface of sensors. The anomaly detection is handled by the performance models of various assets of an entire substation, which are compared for its current value against its historical baseline, thereby presenting a uniquely optimized and cost-effective maintenance strategy.