Reliable and safe
Further reduction of risk
- UniGear Digital provides a reliable switchgear solution which minimizes the risk of outages and increases switchgear availability.
- UniGear Digital helps you to reach your business targets.
- Moreover, UniGear Digital increases safety for your operating personnel.
How is it possible?
- As the IEC 61850 digital communication replaces hard wiring, you can supervise the signals between panels. Errors with these signals will be immediately detected to avoid contingencies. The protection function also operates faster with IEC 61850 GOOSE compared to conventional hardwiring.
- With online monitoring and diagnostics of the temperature rises of critical connections, the condition of the circuit breaker, and/or the partial discharge of the panel, it is possible to identify the risk at an earlier stage and avoid further failures.
- Temperature rise indicates the quality of primary connections within the panel, such as in the busbar connections, breaker connections, and cable connections. Online monitoring of temperature rise provides a reliable way to identify such risks andalert the user.
- The condition of the circuit breaker over a its long lifetime is continuously monitored through every run-time open or close operation, much more accurately than offline testing. Throughout the dedicated diagnosis, alarms as well as electrical wearing can be estimated, to determine when the next maintenance activity is to take place
- Insulation performance is the most critical aspect when designing switchgear. Due to harsh environment, insulation can be subject to accelerated ageing. The online monitoring of partial discharge provides an effective manner to capture such deterioration of insulation as early as possible and avoid disruptive failures.
- Voltage sensors do not use any iron core therefore they are immune against grid disturbances, such as ferroresonance.
- Ferroresonance phenomenon is a typical, unpredictable network disturbance affecting voltage transformers. It usually appears in cable networks with an isolated neutral or not efficiently grounded systems. Due to the transient conditions (such as switching processes, failures or ground faults), the circuit might oscillate and exchange reactive energy within the oscillating circuit. A voltage transformer containing iron core represents an inductive part of an oscillating circuit. A permanent and high circulating current is then produced in primary winding, which causes a lot of heat on the primary side of the voltage transformer. This heat might result in a voltage transformer explosion and damage to the switchgear panel or even injury to operating personnel. Additional equipment must be used to protect voltage transformers against this phenomena, such as smart devices (such as ABB’s VT Guard Pro) or a dumping resistor. Voltage sensors, on the other hand, represent a ferroresonance-free solution, due to an absence of any iron core, therefore there is no need to use any additional equipment.
- Sensors provide an error-free connection to a protection relay. The use of sensors increases safety for your personnel, asthe maximum level of secondary signals during normal operation is only a few volts.
- Sensors are equipped with a secondary cable for connection to a protection relay. Sensor cable type is a shielded cable with an industrial RJ-45 connector (CAT-6). Sensor technology prevents accidents caused by human errors. Practically, the secondary circuit of the current sensor can be left open with no risk of high voltage on the secondary terminals.