Overhead Line Fault Indicator
Faults on the Overhead Electrical networks occur quite often, which results in power outages either for a short or long period of time, depending upon the type of fault. It takes a very long time to locate the fault on that section of the network from where fault passed through, with the help of only sectionalizers and auto-reclosers since they provide us a large area, which needs to be patrolled to find out the location of the fault. Fault passage Indicators (FPI) helps us in finding the fault fast, decreasing outage times and maintaining services provided by the utilities, by almost giving us an exact area where the fault is, so it is easier to locate fault in very short time.
EPSE represents a prestigious organization named Nortroll, exclusively in Saudi Arabia. Nortroll is the pioneer of electronic fault passage indicators and has been providing the FPI for Overhead and Underground Networks for more than 40 Years now, which covers various solutions for Transmission and Distribution Networks.
Pole-mounted Indicators
Nortroll offers 2 products for pole monted FPIs:
Conductor-mounted Indicators
Nortroll offers 2 products for conductor-mounted FPIs:
Line Troll®110Eμr
LineTroll 110Eμr Fault Passage Indicator detects phase-to-phase (PTP) and phase-to-earth (PTE) faults in 6-69kV distribution networks. The online indicator independently indicate both permanent and transient (temporary) faults with bright LEDs. All alarms, status messages and load current values are transferred (RF) to a communication unit (Collector) mounted on the pole underneath. The collector (LineTroll R110CQ) can address up to 9 LineTroll 110Eur indicators and communicates with the SCADA system thought GPRS mobile link.
The Collector ComTroll 118C have a Modbus output which can be connected to RTUs and modems using any media for communication.
Some features on LineTroll 110Eμr
- Remotely configurable
- Load current monitoring
- Integrated short-range radio.
- Ultra High visibility (40 lumens with strobe effect) 360º
- Usable on multi circuit systems
- Configurable response time
- Voltage or current as start criteria (configurable)
- Di/dt or Threshold Trip Setting values individually configurable
- Dual indications (permanent and transient faults)
- Loss of Voltage detection
- Battery capacity monitoring
LineTroll 110Eμr continuously monitors the line voltage and phase current to detect down-stream faults.
The unit is fully self-contained, no external transformers or connections is required.
After detected a fault, the type of alarm is transferred to SCADA together with the load cur-rent value prior to the fault.
SCADA Integration with LineTroll Indicators:
For the SCADA Integration, Nortroll offers data concentrators named “collectors”. The collector is a device which serves as a link between SCADA and FPIs.
The collectors are as follow:
- LineTroll 110CQ (uses GSM and GPRS to transfer data to SCADA)
- Comtroll 118C (uses MODBUS-RTU protocol to transfer data to SCADA)
- Comtroll 115C (uses relay contacts to transfer data to SCADA)
These indicators cannot directly communicate to the SCADA system. We must integrate the SCADA software provided by Nortroll (named NetTroll) with the existing SCADA system.
We can also use the android application to view the status of the FPIs.
