Protection Relay Testing

In Australia we have a myriad of varieties of protection and control systems and schemes ranging from the simplest of fuses to complex permissive and blocking schemes, impedance protection and IEC61850 implementations. No matter what the vintage or the manufacturer of the HV plant, they all require effective protection and control and it needs to operate as designed and with the correct coordination. Megavar is able to test commission and maintain these systems to ensure that they operate reliably and to specification when are needed.

Our engineers are skilled in the use of Doble F6000 and Omicron CMC secondary injection equipment in order to cater for the preferences of our different clients. Megavar owns several units from each manufacturer, ensuring rapid response for our customers service needs.

Commissioning
When any new HV installation has been designed and built, the most critical phase of the project is to prove that the entire system is fit for purpose and this can only be achieved through a rigorous quality assurance process of functional and relay protection testing. This ensure that the following items have been performed correctly:

• System Design
• Equipment specification
• Installation and wiring
• Setting calculations
• Device programming
• IEC61850 testing

There is little point spending a fortune on procurement, design and construction unless apparatus is properly tested and commissioned. Imagine the insurance claim when the first fault occurs and a piece of apparatus fails catastrophically when the circuit breaker does not operate due to incorrect settings, wiring or CT polarity!

Megavar can provide an end to end project solution including the following facets:

• Inspection and test QA plans
• Factory acceptance test staging
• Site acceptance testing/pre-commissioning
• Commissioning
• Commissioning Management

Megavar provides its services and specialist test apparatus for projects Australia-wide. We have a responsive and dynamic team that enables us to respond to last minute project changes, which has made us the service provider of choice for many of the largest players in the market.

Maintenance and Routine Testing
Many owners of HV plant assume that if they maintain their HV plant and test the oil for DGA then they are performing all the necessary maintenance to ensure a long and trouble life from their network. It is important to remember that protection relays and auxiliary devices can sometimes fail, their calibration may drift and wiring could loosen with vibration. It is imperative that owners implement routine testing and maintenance of the secondary systems, to ensure that under fault conditions, the protection can operate to its optimum and clear the fault in the required time to maintain system stability and minimise expensive outages and damage.

Megavar performs comprehensive maintenance and routine testing for all types and vintages of protection and control apparatus to ensure that trips, alarms and controls function they way there designed to. Our services include-

• secondary injection
• relay and transducer calibration
• maintenance of mechanical relays
• alarm checks
• trip checks
• burden measurements
• wire tightness checks

and of course we present the client with a comprehensive report of thetest results for the equipment tested, detailing any recommendation, faults found and corrective works undertaken.

Megavar assists its clients to develop a maintenance schedule that suits their requirements and can schedule the testing in accordance with the shutdown cycles of the clients site. Out testers have extensive experience in distribution and transmission networks as well as generation plants, mine sites, refineries and heavy industrial plants.