Downtime Avoided with Arc Fault Protection

When power protection is evaluated the need to consider arc fault events is often neglected. However, the risk is at a high price when it takes so little to be safe. Explosion risk and costly downtime can be avoided with the SELCO D1000 system

Most people tend to think that their switchboard will be sufficiently protected by e.g. overcurrent and a short-circuit relay. While this may be true for low voltage switchboard with small current, traditional circuit protection will not be sufficient for medium and high voltage switchboards, which harness larger amounts of energy. The same applies to transformer stations, wind turbines, and diesel electric propulsion systems.

The challenge is, all of these applications are under a constant threat from arc flashes, which may happen due to breakdown of the isolation between conducting materials inside the enclosures – e.g. between busbar rails or between transformer primary or secondary phase connections. An arc of an arc fault has the same properties as the arc of a welding process. However, the difference is the welding equipment is keeping the energy to its arc under control, while the arc fault is typically ‘let loose’ and fed by all the energy available to the application – that is unless the application is very quickly disconnected by an arc protection system.

OPTICAL SENSORS IN PLUG-AND-PLAY SOLUTION
The devastation of an entire switchboard, a transformer station, or a wind turbine nacelle can be very costly, not so much because of the damage inflicted, but mainly because of the time it would take to rebuild the installation. An arc fault happening on a dynamically positioned vessel placed beside an oilrig could cause the vessel to lose propulsion and result in an environmental catastrophe. A burned-out power distribution switchboard at an IT data centre could cause prolonged downtime of customer IT systems, which would almost certainly affect customer confidence – and ultimately ruin the business.

With the D1000 Arc Protection, SELCO has made arc protection easy and affordable. The D1000 consists of a single module supporting up to six optical point or fiber optical sensors. One D1000 will cover an entire switchboard and is more or less a plug-and-play installation. With extremely fast arc fault and overcurrent detection, event logging and selfsupervision the system is the efficient way to reduce damage and improve safety.

 

Source: Nor Shipping