October 9, 2013 | By
Barbara Vergetis Lundin
As part of a plant to reduce outages and improve its power
supply reliability, Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU) has
completed a high-speed fault-clearing system, using advanced
relays that detect and isolate underground distribution faults
within a fraction of a second.
|
Golden Library at
Eastern New Mexico University. Credit: Cathy from
USA/Wikimedia Commons |
The university replaced more than 3,750 feet of 5 kV
underground electrical cable with new 15 kV cable and utilized
smart grid technology to improve its power system, ensuring
better reliability throughout the campus' education, dormitory,
and recreational facilities in the event of a fault. Prior to
the project, ENMU's 30-year-old, 4160-volt distribution system
experienced continuous and prolonged outages, resulting in
campus closures.
"We wanted to make a forward-thinking investment in ENMU's
infrastructure, and decided not only to replace the underground
cables, but to implement a distribution system for the 21st
century," Ted Fares, physical plant director, ENMU, said in a
statement. "Instead of hours or days without power, our
facilities now experience, at most, a few seconds of an outage
before the system heals itself and brings power on again."
With the self-healing system, the outages caused by a fault on the main
feeder will be so short they should go virtually unnoticed.
For more:
- see this
report
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