K R Suri
Sudden appearance of COVID -19 has forced electric power transmission companies in our country to redefine philosophy of Routine and Breakdown of transmission lines. In other word it has appeared or redefined the definition of Disaster Management of Transmissions System Corona epidemic has now restricted society in following ways
* Social distancing
* Sanitize after each activity
* Wash after each activity
* Avoid mass or travel in crowd
* Store material in filtered atmosphere.
* Sanitize material even material stored in filtered atmosphere
* Do sanitize towers before climbing or touching.
* The possibility of virus alive on live conductor/tower/accessories due to charged condition can not be ruled out, hence sanitize or wash with spray guns before touching or climbing
* Checking of virus level on material before touching – Like it is being done on human beings by way of thermal scanning.
Post Epidemic India- After this disease is won by the world level community. In the beginning Indian economy may face some problems or slow rate of growth rate of 2 to 3 % GDP. But will recover in 1 to 2 years and run at the same speed as it was. Looking at 2008, world level reception, Indian economy recovered fast as compared to other continents of the world. With the present leadership and slogan Make in India will come into action full to its zeal. Import would be slowed down and manufacturing at large scale would take up. This would create oppournity in a different way ie automation.
Work from home has proved/proving to be successful at large scale. This has following impacts
* Family socializing
* Care for children and elders
* Less space required for offices
* Less regular expenses like watch & ward for offices
* Less Electricity and water consumption ie Charges
* Less crowd/traffic
* Less pollution
Electrical Transmission System
Existing mostly followed are in transmission line — Manual patrolling & Manual Repairs
Manual Repairs
* It requires first physical check/inspection, then planning and then finally repairs by deployment of gangs, which varies from 10 to 50 number of trained personnel and around 15 to 50 support labor along with commanding cadres, depending upon extent of repairs required.
Existing/Present way of checking/patrolling –In our country is a combination of followings;
* Manual and Use of machines for support
* Very rare by machines in totality.
Manual way of repairs requires —
* Long journeys as required
* Transportation of material required
* Fabrication of temporary camps for onsite stay
* Cooking of food in mass and that too in open
Machine way of working require
* Minimum manpower required
* Very less patrol or routine walk patrol
* Do not require to travel to spot
* Handling of machines by remote controlled.
With the present worldwide scenario grooming now –
* There may be a lot of restrictions to import material from unfriendly countries.
* Handling of Long travelled material which might have got infected due to Bacteria developed
* Increase of cost on account of impact
* Earlier there had been thought of bacteria being implanted in eatable products like Mangoes/apples/ guavas/Cherries.
* Now wide spread virus is transferrable by way of touch only
So, time has come to redefine way of working to minimize manpower and maximize use of machinery like
* Artificial intelligence in place of manual patrolling
* Use of robots for attending break downs or repairs Minimizing human inter phase
Transmission can be done in following ways and used by advanced countries
* Deployment of Helicopters for patrolling
* Deployment of Drones
* Using remote operated cameras for routine checks like
* Insulators or hardware
* Missing members
* Foundation sinking
* Tower tilting etc
* Conductor cut/damage
* OPGW/Earth wire checking
* Falling or close by falling objects.
All data can be captured by drones or cameras and action plan can be defined.
Such solutions and utilities are available in advanced countries and they are deploying or using them according to their convenience or limitations. Now the time has come to organize and redefine such features on a common platform to meet the new challenge.
Use of Drones or remote operated cameras can be done in following ways :
* Deploy camera on each tower and catch data weekly through microwave and check
* Deploy remote operated thermo camera to travel on conductor, capture videos and check
* In the event of breakdown maximize use of helicopters to drop manpower and to climb on conductor
This would improve availability, less manpower and effort require, social distancing and savings in sanitizing and requirement of water.
(The author is Gen. Mgr. (Retd), PowerGrid Corporation of India Ltd.)
feedbackexcelsior@gmail.com
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