By Moses Uwagbale
Schneider Electric has developed intelligent equipment that will help electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) and others to fix major faults in the nation’s grid system and restore power after disruption within minutes.
The equipment is known as “Self-Healing Grid’’ solution with minimal human intervention, the leading digital transformation, energy management and automation giant said.
The Head of Offer, Strategy and Business Development, Schneider Electric, Mr Ifeanyi Odoh, who made the disclosure on Sunday said the company had also held a one-day utility end- user training organised in collaboration with Bolarmark Engineering Ltd. in Lagos.
Odoh said the products which include the Smart Ringmaster (RTU T300 & SCADA); Pix Rof and Auto-Reclosers would also be useful to other stakeholders in the power sector.
“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.
According to Odoh, 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 disclosed that the training had over 30 participants from about five electricity distribution companies and other stakeholders in attendance.
The participants were drawn 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.
The Head 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.
The statement said that PAE and Product Manager for Schneider Electric, Moyosore Oyefuga, while speaking, noted that the new equipment would bring extra level of visibility on the network so that DISCOs could accurately improve their forecast and make more informed decisions.
He explained that the equipment would help to reduce the issue of load shedding by the companies.
““With the kind of automations we bring, some loads could be deferred if for any reason, DISCOs realise that there is a little bit more demand than supply or vice versa.’’
