The application of disturbance recorders for cost effective protection and switchgear monitoring and maintenance

The operation and performance of circuit breakers and protection equipment is being monitored by microprocessor based disturbance recorders that are linked to the electricity utility´s SCADA system. The recorders are able to record protection operating times, the circuit breaker mechanism response times, and the currents interrupted by the circuit breaker under fault conditions. The values of fault current interrupted can be accumulated for each circuit breaker and be used to optimise the post fault maintenance regime. A databank of the information is being assembled to allow condition based maintenance to be introduced for circuit breakers and protection equipment