Driven by network development and disaster recovery installations, NOJA Power Switchgear’s Australia Pacific team has conducted a training and commissioning support trip to Fiji. The Fiji Electricity Authority (FEA) has had a challenging 12 months, with the most violent and severe tropical cyclone to ever make landfall in the South Pacific decimating the archipelago. As the island nation rebuilds, FEA has transitioned to the new advanced NOJA Power RC10 control system to provide greater protection, automation and control capabilities. With the NOJA Power OSM Recloser system being deployed to improve power system reliability to the developing villages and towns of Fiji, the Australian manufacturer were all too keen to lend a hand in the commissioning of the equipment.
FEA have been a long-term user of NOJA Power’s OSM Recloser system. As a nation with a high proportion of overhead lines and exceptional vegetation growth rates – maintaining power system reliability is a substantial challenge. Through the deployment of system reclosers, FEA has managed to greatly improve the reliability of their power supply, particularly for the more remote villages and regional centers.
Driven by new features and capabilities in the RC10 Controller for the OSM Series Reclosers, NOJA Power has focused its training to cover the applications that solve challenges for overhead operating environments in the tropics. The foremost development is the advent of the power quality monitoring functionality in its OSM ACRs. Until now, power quality information granularity of this level has been a pipe dream for distribution engineers and switchgear manufacturers. The NOJA Power RC10 can track interruptions, network performance indices, harmonic spectrum analysis and even harmonic power flow evaluation. By providing utilities with extensive information regarding their network performance analytics, OSM distribution reclosers are providing the utility business the ability to make far more informed decisions regarding network reliability and investment planning.
In addition to the power quality capability, NOJA Power’s high-resolution SEF protection provides utilities with greater sensitivity to high impedance earth faults.
NOJA Power commenced its tour in the nation's capital of Suva, delivering training to engineers and technicians across the protection, planning, operations and communications departments. After conducting preliminary training covering protection and communications fundamentals through to equipment operation, NOJA Power’s team traveled with the FEA utility team to sites around Fiji for a practical demonstration. On key connection sites where high levels of power quality data was expected, NOJA Power assisted FEA in the deployment of additional USB Flash Storage in its RC10 controllers to allow for even greater duration of power quality data acquisition. While the usual onboard storage covers the majority of field uses, key customer connections may require greater data granularity. This is easily supported by the RC10 Recloser Controller through both onboard and expandable storage.
“Practical experience truly solidifies the concepts we learn in the classroom,” reports Martin van der Linde, Sales Engineer for the Australia Pacific Region at NOJA Power. “Our training sessions were well received at the utility depots, but the true demonstration of learning was in our field visits. These visits to installations were a great opportunity for the FEA engineers to practice their new skills and ask questions of the NOJA Power team.”
