The Bonneville Power Administration, for the last year, has been in partnership with WIKA on a research and development project to remotely monitor SF6 gas density. With the ever-increasing EPA standards and greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, this could be a tool utilities use to help comply with EPA regulations.

Shawn Syhlman, a craft specialist with BPA's Substation Maintenance Technical Services Group, along with WIKA's Nicolas Bauer, will present “Online SF6 Density Monitoring” at this year’s Finepoint Circuit Breaker Test and Maintenance Training Conference on Oct. 7 in Atlanta, Georgia.

“SF6 leaks are critical, and this instrumentation would allow us to predict preventative maintenance on power circuit breakers before the SF6 gas density enters the alarm state,” Syhlman said. “This could also be a reliability concern for responding to alarms at remote sites where response times can be an issue.”

Syhlman will share BPA’s findings with participants. ”Finepoint is perhaps the best place for us to be able to share with colleagues who would be the actual users of the technology,” he said. “No other conference has such a broad mix of management and substation personnel where we can have this type of exchange.”

Visit WIKA at the Hospitality Expo at Booth #46.