In its 30-plus year lifespan, a protective relay may only need to operate for a fraction of a second. But when it's needed, it has to perform. Servicing protective relays per manufacturer and NETA recommendations ensures they work properly to prevent injury or extensive damage to your plant during an electrical distribution abnormality.
Protection systems play a key role in ensuring the safe and reliable operation of today’s entire electrical grid including generation, transmission, and distribution for utility and industrial applications. The protective relay is your most powerful defense against long, costly outages and extensive equipment damage. Vertiv’s NETA-certified electrical infrastructure experts are abreast of regulatory requirements and use leading-edge technology to provide independent testing of any manufacturer’s relay devices or systems.
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Technical Summary
Relay Startup and Commissioning
New relay installations require startup and commissioning to ensure proper protection for your system. Our experience in advanced utility and industrial relay applications includes:
- General inspection of equipment
- Wiring diagram check with functional and point-to-point wiring checks
- Insulation resistance measurements
- Relay device testing
- Current and voltage transformer testing
- Verification of relay alarm and trip settings
- Primary and secondary injection testing
- End-to-end testing of protection scheme logic
Relay Maintenance and Testing
Periodic maintenance and testing is necessary to ensure your protection scheme continues to provide satisfactory performance for many years after installation. With microprocessor relays, the built-in, self-testing features can be expected to reveal most faults, but this alone does not meet regulatory requirements or cover the other components involved in the protection scheme. Regular inspection and testing of a protection scheme is therefore recommended.
The experienced relay technicians of Vertiv™ understand the critical nature of working with an active protection scheme and the impact testing and maintenance has on critical system operation. Our technicians perform testing based on the maintenance recommendations from NETA, NERC and NFPA, as well as specific customer requirements. Tests vary based on the relay technology, but may include:
- Visual and mechanical inspection
- Insulation resistance measurements
- Secondary injection tests
- Verification of relay settings
- Functional testing on wire connections, current and voltage transformers, and all auxiliary devices
- Control verification
Leading-Edge Technology
Vertiv's Electrical Reliability Services utilizes advanced technology for relay testing services, allowing us to provide you with the the most efficient solution. The equipment and software used by our test technicians includes Doble, Manta, Omicron, PowerDB, Enoserv RTS, and Doble ProTest, just to name a few.
Compliance Support for NFPA and NERC
Whether working in a substation or power plant, regulations from NFPA and NERC require an ongoing and systematic program to test, maintain, and document the performance of your protection scheme devices and systems that impact the Bulk Electric System. Complying with these requirements can exceed the capacity of your in-house resources. We have extensive experience helping customers adhere to industry standards and can assist with asset management, testing, and reporting to ensure your compliance with NFPA and NERC requirements.
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