OMICRON Magazine

Magazine | Issue 1 2022 to create a formal work method for installing new LCDs. We broke it down into three LCD procedures: Pre-commissioning, Commissioning, and Data Management. The Pre-commissioning of LRs require running all diagnostic and functional tests on the LR apparatus. More importantly, the LR controller receives a detailed test that validates the actual settings file being utilized in the field. As technicians, we feel it is essential to test the actual file instead of a generic template that validates just the controller. This way you prove the microprocessor relay and the engineered site-specific settings application. After all, we’re only human, and even technicians and engineers are not perfect. Human performance errors are no stranger to failed ARCO tests. After the line crew installs the LR in the field, in the bypassed position, the DLT can then validate all the SCADA DNP points during the Commissioning procedure. Once complete, the DLT places the LR in service. Data Management is the third and ongoing procedure in the LCD process. When the need arises, a DLT will visit an LR to program, inspect, and test when necessary. As outages and other events occur in the system, it’s important to retrieve event reports from the LR. In some cases, the controller is tested by reproducing event conditions to confirm expected behaviors in the relay. ARCO 400’s plug-and-play design allows DLTs the comfort and ease of performing shop type testing 30 ft (9.1m) in the air with bucket trucks. The product’s versatility allows users to quickly recreate events to ensure the controller is fit for service. What started as just a shop tool for Pre-commissioning years ago quickly evolved into our partner riding in the passenger seat on our trucks for field use as well. How can you increase the reliability of the distribution grid? First off, take it from me, the simple hometown family man who expects to have the lights on in the living room, food cooking in the kitchen, and the air conditioning blasting on those hot summer days. The same guy however who understands that as essential as those things may be, they’re not always guaranteed in our current environment. I say this as someone who has seen firsthand the destruction that wildfires brought to California communities. There is no light in a house, steak on a grill, or cool air passing through vents worth a single life that could have been saved by preventing just that one wildfire spark. Now take it from Justin the DLTSpecialist. At PG&E we have a zero-tolerance policy for wildfire sparks caused by downed electrical facilities. It’s something we take very seriously. However, what’s of equal importance to the safety we run our system with, is the reliability of a selfhealing grid. The more LRs and other sectionalizing devices we put in our system, the better we do at keeping our customer’s lights on. So when it becomes necessary to shut them off, it will be as safely, as quickly, and with as little restoration downtime as possible. Investing in intelligent technology, and having tools like the ARCO 400 to validate them, is how we’re going to make that happen! Thank you for talking to us. 25

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