Another Blackout
Sydney residents have suffered another blackout. While blackouts are not new, they are appearing much more frequently and with much greater impact. Of course, there are many causes of blackouts, but is very apparent that increased severe weather events, increased population density and minimal infrastructure investment have finally started to severely impact upon energy reliability and that this is now a very significant impost on business and the community.
Fortunately, the Australian electrical industry recognised this eventuality over 20 years ago and had the foresight to invest in economical monitoring equipment for cables and substations. This was prompted by the disastrous Auckland 1998 crisis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Auckland_power_crisis ) which, it has been reported, resulted in a 5% drop in New Zealand's GDP.
With substantial government funding, Australian electrical utilities and universities have produced an Australian made optical fibre sensor based monitor that is suitable for wide deployment. This system helps monitor and manage cables and substation assets. We have a problem and the solution - there is no longer any excuse for not monitoring power cables or substations using the very solution the Australian consortium developed to help.
Business, Scientific and Engineering Services
6 年Thermal failure of a power cables or other assets can?be avoided by monitoring. The Australian electrical industry developed a tool to do just this. The?recent failure was attributed to a power cable failure - if this were that case then there are a number of actions that?may have?be taken to prevent?a catastrophic failure. The exact actions? depend on the failure mode, the circuit protection systems, environmental conditions etc. - utilities are generally well?on top of this process.?which it it were resopnsibel to Obviously the systems in place at Hornsby did not prevent?a catastrophic event and the key question is why not? It may very well have not saved the cable (or most likely a faulty joint) but it may have allowed actions to be taken to prevent the subsequent catastrophic event and thereby limit the resulting losses. The?next question is, was this cable monitored using the systems that the industry developed to prevent such events, and if not, why not?
Director at DEL Engineering
6 年Could you draw a link between either of the most recent major outages and lack of the sensor you propose using?