OMICRON Magazine

100 YEARS OF CIRCUIT BREAKER TESTING EXPERIENCE Qirion Netherlands – a CIBANO 500 power user In 2021, OMICRON sold its 1,000th CIBANO 500 device worldwide. To figure out why customers appreciate this new generation of circuit breaker test sets, we talked to a service provider with a century of circuit breaker testing experience. Mick Huisert, a Component Engineer at Qirion and Rick Tiemessen, a Component and Maintenance Engineer at Qirion answered our questions. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me. Can you please briefly introduce yourselves? Mick Huisert: I’m a component engineer in the Qirion Circuit Breaker division, and my focus lies in air-insulated switchgear. My work includes complete overhauls of 50 kV and 150 kV breakers in our workshop in Duiven. Rick Tiemessen: I’m also in the Qirion Circuit Breaker division, where I work as a component and maintenance engineer. I specialize in medium voltage switchgear from 6 kV to 27.5 kV and handle general maintenance questions for Qirion’s customers. How did Qirion become the circuit breaker experts in the Netherlands? Mick: Qirion and our legal predecessors have been maintaining the electrical grid for about 100 years. Our team of experts absorbed a vast array of knowledge about all kinds of breakers. Our main clients are two large grid operators, Liander and TenneT, but we also perform commissioning and maintenance for other power plants, railway operators, and offshore plants. This puts us in the unique position of maintaining all kinds of breakers from different manufacturers, different types, and ages. How important do you think circuit breaker testing is for a reliable energy grid? Rick: Circuit breakers are one of the most important devices in the grid because they can switch off short circuits. They are designed and used

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