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Recent Challenges of Condition Evaluation for Substation Equipment in Japan

M. UEDA* H. NAKAJIMA K. TSUBOI

Kansai Electric Power Co. TEPCO Power Grid Chubu Electric Power Co.

K. ITO T. SAIDA R. SHINOHARA

MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC Co. Toshiba Energy HITACHI Ltd.
Systems & Solutions Co.

Japan

SUMMARY
In Japan, many new substation equipment has been installed to meet increasing electric power
demand from 1960s to early 1990s. Since the equipment is now getting old and deteriorating,
maintenance and replacement cost is expected to increase. On the other hand, current electric
power demand in Japan is stable and transmission fee needs to be reduced. Therefore, it is
relevant for utilities to consider the effective use of existing equipment. In order to realize
effective asset management, collecting equipment condition data and evaluation of
performance degradation are essential.
This paper describes recent challenges towards the evaluation of equipment degradation trend
utilizing equipment condition data.
First of all, the authors have studied the approach to collect and utilize equipment condition
data. Traditionally, substation equipment condition data has been manually collected and
recorded during regular patrol inspection. In order to collect such data effectively, utilities and
manufacturers are developing a Maintenance Information Collection System to automatically
gather massive information using sensing technology.
In addition, maintenance and failure records are stored in the Maintenance Management
System in Transmission Sector. This system makes it possible to grasp the residual life and
quantify the operational risk of equipment. This approach enables the utilities to judge
whether to carry out maintenance or to renew ageing equipment.
Next, the authors have investigated evaluation of transmission equipment degradation. In
Japan, most of the GIS were installed in 1970s and has been operated for over 40 years. It is
of concern that these aged equipment may cause failures which is of great operational risks.
Based on these operational risks, it is required to evaluate degradation of equipment to judge
whether extension of life or replacement is appropriate. An investigation on first generation
GIS was conducted by utilities and manufacturers to evaluate degradation of equipment.
Based on degradation evaluation of equipment, utilities can make a replacement/renewal plan
of individual equipment. Factors such as 1) number of breaker operations, 2) difficulty of
maintenance works and 3) weak points of GIS’s/breakers design are used to evaluate the
appropriate timing of replacement/renewal.

KEYWORD
Condition based maintenance - evaluation for degradation - GIS - Maintenance evaluation
sheet

ueda.masato@c2.kepco.co.jp
1. INTRODUCTION
In Japan, many new substation equipment has been installed to meet increasing electric power
demand from 1960s to early 1990s. Since the equipment is now getting old and deteriorating,
maintenance and replacement cost is expected to increase. On the other hand, growth rate of
electric power demand in Japan has dropped and demand for reducing transmission fee is
increasing. In order to avoid drastic increase in transmission fee, investment in substation
equipment has been limited. As a result, utilities are changing their investment focus from
replacement or installing new equipment to effective use of existing substation equipment.
Both equipment condition monitoring and deterioration evaluation are essential in making
effective maintenance and replacement plan.
This paper reports recent challenges of collecting substation equipment condition data and
evaluation methods for equipment deterioration trend. Examples of actual applications are
also mentioned in this paper.

2. APPROACH IN COLLECTING SUBSTATION EQUIPMENT CONDITION DATA

AND APPLICATION

2.1 Maintenance Information Collection System

Transformers and circuit breakers are equipped with various monitoring equipment such as
thermometers, pressure gauges and operation counters that provide useful information for
monitoring equipment conditions and ageing degradation. Such information system to collect
those maintenance information automatically are gradually being introduced.
The system gathers the information from operation counters and temperature sensors
equipped in major equipment. These information are transferred and integrated in a server
through IP network system and can be accessed by a PC located in a remote maintenance
office (Fig. 1). Introduction of the system improves operational efficiency.

B substation
Transfer Panel Server

Tr
temperature Maintenance office
and/or
number of
operations IP network
Tr

Tr

Transfer Panel
CB
C substation

CB
Transfer Panel
A substation
Fig. 1 Maintenance Information Collection System

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 (1) Reduction of repairing time
When a fault alarm is issued, operators are required to travel to the site to check various
sensors such as thermometers, pressure gauges and operation counters in order to identify the
faulty part which could prove to be time consuming.
Installation of the system makes it possible to obtain the necessary information remotely
thus enabling to shorten the repair time. (Fig. 2)

Check maintenance Server Maintenance office

data in the server
though computer
Collecting maintenance data before
going to the substation
The number
of operation Operator dispatch to the substation
etc for repair

Tr

Tr

Transfer Panel CB
Fault Point
Transfer Panel C substation
CB
A substation
Fig. 2 Response against fault

(2) Improves efficiency in collecting maintenance information during patrol inspection

It takes time for regular patrol inspection because operators had to check each data such as
temperature, pressure and the number of operation and to record them to the computer system.
By installation of the system, maintenance data can be remotely accessed through computers.
Patrol inspection period for a large substation which has 16 GIS units and four transformer
banks was reduced by 30%.

2.2 Maintenance Management System in Transmission Sector (MMST)

Maintenance Management System in Transmission Sector (MMST) is a system to centrally
manage information of T&D facilities such as transformer and circuit breaker. Work
efficiency and quality improvement is achieved.

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 Facility information management Maintenance evaluation
Electronic registration of the drawing Construction
document system
Drawing Connection with other
system
Geographic
Centrally
Access to
Information MMST equipment data
System managed data
Up load
・Equipment specification
・Maintenance record
Link with affiliated company ・Maintenance plan
etc.
Extended maintenance cycle

Agreement Maintenance Plan

Maintenance work
Inspection plan
Patrol plan

Enter data on mobile Fault data

computer Work plan management
Fig. 3 Maintenance Management System in Transmission Sector (MMST)

Examples of data managed by Maintenance Management System in Transmission Sector

(MMST) are described below.

(1) Equipment specification

Operators are able to access the latest equipment data from their own PCs. There is no
need to go to the site for this purpose. The system enables to register, modify, delete or
search equipment specifications, network diagram and spare part information.

(2) Maintenance record

Necessary maintenance data is stored in this system such as patrol inspection, planned
(unplanned) maintenance, failure, repair and improvement work records.

(3) Maintenance plan

By registering the maintenance/construction standard and maintenance area, long term
and annual maintenance plans are made based on these standards and previous data.

2.3 Utilization of maintenance evaluation sheet

The system is able to make a maintenance plan to deal with equipment life extension by
referring to the equipment data stored in the system, such as past failure records and number
of years in service. It is essential to have a quantitative guideline to judge the appropriate
timing for maintenance. Maintenance evaluation sheet is used to judge the equipment
conditions and life expectancy.

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By entering the data in the MMST to maintenance evaluation sheet, equipment condition and
estimated remaining equipment life can be obtained. We can also quantify the risk regarding
equipment condition. Maintenance evaluation sheet for transformer (Fig. 4) has begun to be
used. Before introduction of the system, in order to determine whether to repair or to replace
or which equipment to replace, each individual maintenance office had their own criteria.
Introduction is now possible for each maintenance office to make a judgement based on a
common criteria.

Fig. 4 Maintenance evaluation sheet

3. TECHNICAL EVALUATION OF T&D EQUIPMENT DETERIORATION

3.1 Deterioration evaluation research of GIS
Considering the situation that a lot of equipment are ageing, it is inevitable for utilities to
focus on effective asset management and it is necessary to gain knowledge regarding
deterioration evaluation in order to decide whether to carry out life extension maintenance or
to wholly replace the equipment. In Japan, many of the GIS installed in 1970’s have operated

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for more than 40 years and there is a need to establish the deterioration evaluation. This
section reports the deterioration assessment method of GIS, which was investigated by
utilities and manufacturers on initial type GIS manufactured before 1985. GIS components
were classified by the impact given on refurbishment judging from possibility and/or
difficulty of field repair of individual component.

Table 1 Deterioration and impact on refurbishment of GIS components

Impact on GIS/ Component of Component of GIS
refurbishment GIS Circuit-breaker (CB) Disconnector (DS)
Conducting contact Conducting contact
Bus Flange(O-ring) (silver plate/grease) (silver plate/grease)
Large Insulating spacer Shaft seal Shaft seal
Busbar [depending on CB model] [depending on GIS model]
(grease/packing) (grease/packing)
Internal mechanical section
Insulator
Tank Grading capacitor Internal mechanical section
Medium Bg/VT/LA Closing resister Insulator rod
Monitoring device Mechanical section Mechanical section
(Oil block, Accumulator,
Oil pump)
Frame
Nozzle, Arc contact, Solenoid, Solenoid, Electrical
Electrical component
Small Electrical component, Control component, Control Wire,
Control wire
Wire, Consumables Consumables
Consumables

Quantitative deterioration evaluation was made on "flange part (O ring)", "contact part" and
"shaft seal part" which are difficult to be repaired in the field thus better to make replacement.
Insulating spacers and busbars are also classified as Large in Table 1. However, these
components are not included in the evaluation because they have longer design life than other
equipment and there was no significant deterioration in the past investigation. As an example,
O rings, which significantly influences deterioration of GIS, took 30 to 60 years, depending
on material, to reach 80% of the compression set at + 3σ value (about 0.1%) in outdoor use.
The end of life of O ring is defined as the point where the compression set reaches 80%. Life
extension of parts that are better to be replaced rather than maintained were also studied.
These results enable to make equipment renewal plan that will prioritize replacement of
equipment with higher risk of failure. The evaluation makes it possible to carry out efficient
equipment renewal.

3.2 Evaluation method

Based on the above deterioration evaluation, equipment maintenance or renewal plan is made.
Three criteria are used for evaluation. These are number of circuit breaker operations that is a
factor of deterioration progress, ease of securing maintenance personnel and/or parts that is a
maintenance factor and CB/GIS structural weak points.

(1) Maintenance risk

It becomes difficult to secure maintenance parts and maintenance technicians for old age
equipment. This is a risk to hinder quick recovery in case of failure. Considerable cost is
involved in keeping these parts or personnel. Higher evaluation point is given if the time
to obtain them is short.

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(2) Structural weak points of GIS
As the GIS design in Japan has improved from the initial model, its reliability on network
operation has become higher. Improvements are made on the number of breaks per
interrupter, interrupting and operating method, sealing of the flange surface and location
of insulating spacers and detachable devices to minimize power outage.
As the ageing of initial type GIS progresses, incidents such as mechanism trouble and gas
leakage occur well. These GIS may require long outage time for parts replacement owing
to the location of the insulating spacers or detachable devices. GIS having such design
will need to be replaced sooner than others and will need to be given higher priority. One
example is indicated in Fig. 5. Main busbar of this GIS is composed of only one gas
component. In the case of a fault within the main busbar, the gas in the main busbar has to
be evacuated and the gas pressure in adjacent compartments need to be reduced (Fig. 6).
Lines A, B and C will then be de-energized causing big impact on the whole network.

No gas compartment between Lines

C Line B Line A Line

No detachable devices between lines

Fig. 5 Internal structure of GIS

A Bus B Bus
A Line stop

B Line stop

C Line stop

： Compartment at atmospheric pressure

： Compartment at reduced gas pressure
Fig. 6 GIS gas compartment

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(3) Number of operations
Contact wear due to operation is one of the factor of CB or DS performance deterioration.
There are some parts that cannot be replaced at site and number of operation would be a
major factor in determining the renewal program.

(4) Prioritization of replacement equipment

We can make an evaluation taking into considerations the three criteria, maintenance risk,
structural weak points and number of operations as indicated in Figure 7. Total evaluation
point of three criteria are considered against the number of years in service to prioritize
the equipment to be replaced.
(Maintenance response risk・Structural weak
points of CB / GIS・number of operations)

: Replacement
Rating Score

target

Ageing
Fig. 7 Replacement target indicator image

4. FUTURE OUTLOOK
In order to maintain and manage substation equipment for long period of time, it is essential
to implement asset management taking into account technical, operational and economical
evaluations.
We will work on the development of a comprehensive evaluation system, MMST, in
automatically getting the data of maintenance evaluation sheet and operating costs. For that
purpose, we will keep collecting data and knowledge in the future. Furthermore, as new
technologies such as IoT and AI are advancing at a very high pace, utilities and manufacturers
are sharing their knowhow and developing a system applying such technologies to efficiently
monitor equipment conditions.

5. BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] Electric Technology Research Association.‘‘Advance maintenance strategies for gas
insulated swichgear’’ (Vol.70 No.2 2014 page 8-20)
[2] Electric Field ‘‘Iot technology merged to new demand response’’ (Vol.56 No.661 2017
page 34-40)