Three key benefits:
- Öresundskraft is the first company to bring Smart Cable monitoring to the Swedish power grid
- Öresundskraft prevents outages by repairing the weak spot or rerouting the power connections before the fault occurs
- Smart Cable Guard helps Öresundskraft system operators to digitalize their operations
About Öresundskraft
Öresundskraft is an energy and communications company in northwest Skåne, owned by the Helsingborg municipality in Sweden. Öresundskraft delivers electricity, district heating and cooling, and gas to 125,000 private and business customers. For Öresundskraft, Smart Cable Guard continuously monitors a large part of the electricity grid that originates from the distribution station at Stattena in Helsingborg, Sweden.
The challenge
In the next 10 years we’ll need more than USD 1.5 trillion of annual investment to expand and reinforce power grids so that they can deal with the growing share of renewable energy. Grid operators, like Öresundskraft need to invest in new technology to help them mitigate outages and improve both the societal and financial outcomes from their operations.
Öresundskraft needed to decrease downtime that results from faults in medium voltage cables and in secondary substations. By installing partial discharge monitoring at selected cable circuits in the network, Öresundskraft’s goal was to minimize both the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) and the System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) of downtime in the medium voltage grid.
DNV's contribution
Following successful trials of DNV’s Smart Cable Guard (SCG) system Öresundskraft expanded its roll-out from 12 to a total of 28 installations. The technology consists of sensors, one at each end of a circuit, capable of monitoring up to five kilometres of power cable including intermediate power stations.
The system measures faults (short circuits) and partial discharges (PD) are small signals occurring in weak spots in the cable and cable accessories. The measured activity from the sensors is sent via a secured internet connection to the DNV SCG server where the measured data is analysed and interpreted in order to evaluate the type, severity and location of the problem.
The digitalized monitoring capability means that Öresundskraft gains knowledge about the health in its grid, which is vital when planning maintenance and reinvestments. The information provides early detection of weaknesses in power cables allowing Öresundskraft to proactively act to avoid power outages.
Benefits for Öresundskraft
Öresundskraft receives warning emails indicating a threat level between 1-3. Based on these warnings, Öresundskraft can prevent an outage by repairing the weak spot or rerouting the power connections in the grid to isolate the cable. In the case of a blackout, they can restore power faster to their customers as the location of the fault is known. Öresundskraft gets information early and in real time which is a big step forward in its proactive work both to be a reliable electricity grid supplier and in its ambition to be involved in and drive the development of the future's smart grid.