Öresundskraft enhances grid reliability with continuous cable monitoring
The first Swedish operator to put continuous cable monitoring on its grid — a twelve-circuit trial that more than doubled to twenty-eight.
The first company to bring continuous cable monitoring to the Swedish power grid
Outages prevented by repairing the weak spot or rerouting the connection before the fault occurs
System operators able to digitalize their operations
About Öresundskraft
Öresundskraft is an energy and communications company in northwest Skåne, owned by the Helsingborg municipality in Sweden. It delivers electricity, district heating and cooling, and gas to 125,000 private and business customers. A large part of the electricity grid originating from the distribution station at Stattena in Helsingborg is monitored continuously.
The challenge
Over the next ten years, more than USD 1.5 trillion of annual investment will be needed to expand and reinforce power grids so they can carry a growing share of renewable energy. Grid operators like Öresundskraft need new technology to mitigate outages and improve both the societal and the financial outcomes of their operations.
Öresundskraft needed to decrease the downtime caused by faults in medium-voltage cables and secondary substations. By installing partial-discharge monitoring on selected cable circuits, the goal was to minimise both the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) and the System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) of downtime on the medium-voltage grid.
Our contribution
Following successful trials, Öresundskraft expanded its roll-out from twelve to twenty-eight installations. The technology is a sensor at each end of a circuit, together capable of monitoring up to five kilometres of power cable including intermediate power stations.
The system detects faults — short circuits — and monitors the partial-discharge signals produced at weak spots in cables and accessories. Those signals are sent over a secure internet connection for analysis of the problem’s type, severity and location.
Continuous digital monitoring gives Öresundskraft visibility into the health of its grid, which is vital when planning maintenance and reinvestment. Early detection of weaknesses in power cables allows the operator to act proactively and avoid outages.
The benefits
Öresundskraft receives warning emails indicating a threat level between one and three. On that basis it can prevent an outage by repairing the weak spot or rerouting connections to isolate the cable.
In the case of a blackout, power is restored faster because the location of the fault is already known. Getting the information early and in real time is a step forward both in being a reliable grid supplier and in the ambition to help drive the development of the future smart grid.
“Efficient monitoring of infrastructure such as cables and accessories is vital to ensure power grids are better prepared to deal with the dynamic impact of our changing energy landscape. Getting the information early and in real time is a big step forward in our proactive work both to be a reliable electricity grid supplier and in our ambition to be involved in and drive the development of the future's smart grid.”
Originally published as a DNV case study.
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