Design and development of a prototype operating parameters monitoring system for high voltage switches using IoT technologies

Abstract

Currently, almost all of the high voltage circuit breakers and gas insulated systems (GIS) are filled with SF6 under pressure. The unintended leakage of SF6 has dramatic impacts on both the environment and on the equipment itself. A large leak burdens the environment with hundreds of tones of CO2 equivalent and poses a major safety risk for the grid equipment. Therefore, close monitoring of the SF6 in high voltage switchgear is practically required in order to ensure the stability of the electric grid. Very few substations currently have the infrastructure for the remote monitoring of their assets and retrofit solutions for older substations are either uneconomic or entirely unfeasible. This work is focused on the development of a new, open monitoring system that will be inexpensive, minimally intrusive, and infinitely expandable in terms of both hardware and software. The developed monitoring system should allow transmission system operators to remotely monitor the essential values of their most important assets, which will also offer them a reaction time to avoid critical failures.