Schneider Electric, a global specialist in energy management and automation, has developed an intelligent equipment that will help electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) to fix grid faults.
The equipment is termed “Self-Healing Grid”, and according to Schneider Electric, it needs minimal human effort to operate.
Mr Ifeanyi Odoh, the company’s The Head of Offer on Strategy and Business Development, disclosed that Schneider Electric had also held a one-day utility end- user training organised in collaboration with Bolarmark Engineering Ltd. in Lagos.
According to Odoh, the products include the Smart Ringmaster (RTU T300 & SCADA); Pix Rof and Auto-Reclosers.
“What we have done basically is to provide more intelligent and advanced equipment that enables systems to be smart grid ready and to be able to at the basic level, restore service operation automatically within seconds needing less human intervention.
“As such, it reduces operational downtime of DISCOs) to less than a minute,’’ he said in a statement.
Odoh noted that the new solutions will save DISCOs significant operational costs, time and money.
“With the aid of equipment such as the Ringmaster RMU, switchgears, transformers, transient or passive faults which occur 75 per cent of the time, will be addressed. This will save downtime for DISCOs.
“Take for example, you are driving and you knock down a pole, the system will isolate the line feeding that particular point as close as possible, localise the fault and restore power to the rest of the community not affected so that only that particular pole would then be localised or separated for manual intervention.’’
He also revealed that the training had over 30 participants from about five electricity distribution companies and other stakeholders in attendance.
The participants came from Eko, Ikeja Abuja Ibadan Lagos State Electricity Board, Viathan Utility and Bolamark Engineering Ltd.
It centred on improving the grid reliability and efficiency, getting DISCOs to improve on System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) and System Average Frequency Index (SAFI).
It also examined improving energy efficiency to minimise technical and non-technical losses and distributed energy resource integration to enhance grid stability and accommodate alternative sources of energy like solar, wind, gas among others.
In addition, Schneider Electric head of channel marketing, Omobolanle Omotayo, said the solutions would benefit not just the DISCOs but also consumers with the aid of smart devices such as efficient utility meters, sensors and release devices connected to software that could be read on mobile devices, or on the web and managed remotely to reduce the face to face time.
He explained that the equipment would help to reduce the issue of load shedding by the companies.
