New Insulation Condition Detectors For US Service Provider Companies

A new range of dual sensor instruments for detecting, locating and measuring Partial Discharge (PD) activity in Medium and High Voltage assets is now available for companies providing services to US power owners and operators.

The No-Outage Electrical Testing Company, based in Plant City, Florida, has been appointed sole distributor to the US service provider market for EA Technology's award-winning range of instruments.

No-Outage President Don Genutis (pictured with the UltraTEV Plus+) said: "EA Technology's instruments represent a remarkable change in PD detection, because they measure Transient Earth Voltage (TEV) effects deep in the insulation, as well as surface ultrasonic emissions.

"The ability to measure internal discharges in energized equipment, such as switchgear, is a major advance in diagnostic testing. Engineers can now make a highly accurate assessment of the condition of live assets. They can also identify faults as they are developing and before they lead to failures.

"EA Technology estimates that PD activity is a critical factor in around 85% of disruptive substation failures, so the ability to locate and quantify the insulation condition is essential."

Based at Capenhurst in the UK, EA Technology has more than 40 years' experience working with HV assets and its scientists were the first to recognize the importance of TEV effects, in the 1970s.

The company's first dual sensor hand-held PD instrument, the UltraTEV Detector, won the Queen's Award for Innovation – Britain's top industrial award – in 2007. The UltraTEV range has now been expanded and adopted as standard equipment by power engineers across the UK industry, and from the Middle East to China.

Mr Genutis added: "The UltraTEV Plus+ hand-held is the most valuable first pass PD detection instrument on the market, because it gives engineers an immediate indication of both ultrasonic and TEV activity and alerts them when they are at critical levels. We think an UltraTEV Plus+ should be in every service engineer's toolbox."

"Level 2 PD investigations are carried out with the UltraTEV Locator and UltraTEV Monitor. The Locator uses time of flight measurement between two probes to both quantify and pinpoint the source of activity. The Monitor measures and records variations in PD activity including intermittent discharges over time, so the data can be analyzed to produce an extremely accurate picture of the risk of failure due to insulation failure.

"Using the full range of UltraTEV instruments is a surefire way of identifying the majority of PD faults which would lead to failures and outages."

SOURCE: No-Outage Electrical Testing, Inc.