Professional Workshops

Professional Engineering Type Workshops

These courses focus on engineers, technicians and artisans who want to further their on-job type skills.

High and Medium Voltage Switching

The objective of the High and Medium Voltage Switching Workshops are to provide delegates with the knowledge and skills to perform HV/MV switching operations on assets in a manner that maintains the reliability of the network.

The power system also needs to be operated and managed in a safe manner to ensure service delivery.

Understanding the Assets and how to Manage and Operate them effectively will facilitate their proper functioning, therefore preventing outages, premature equipment failure and system shutdowns.

Vital objectives that strive to establish longevity and facilitate an uninterrupted supply of power can only be achieved by implementing the latest optimum testing and protection techniques which identify and prevent problems.

Who Should Attend

  • Electrical Engineers
  • Electrical Engineering Technicians
  • Electrical Engineering Managers
  • Electrical Engineering Foreman
  • Electricians

Benefits

  • Steps to Conduct Electrical Testing
  • Purpose of Safe Operating Procedures
  • Conduct the 3-Point Test
  • Rules for High Voltage Vicinity Permits
  • Reasons for Isolating and Earthing
  • Learning the importance of Current & Voltage Transformers
  • Understanding Breaker Failure Management
  • Understanding the importance of Winding Connection Designations
  • Understanding the Clock Notation 11 Vector Group

Course Schedule

Day 1

  • Legislation & Regulations
  • Purpose of Safe Operating Procedures
  • Definitions
  • Safe Practices
  • Maintenance and Safety
  • Electrical Safety
  • Safety Assurance
  • Quality Assurance
  • Personal Protective Equipment
  • Operating Processes
  • Medium and High Voltage Switching
  • Isolating
  • Steps to Conduct Electrical Testing
  • Test Instruments
  • Conduct the 3-Point Test
  • Earthing
  • Equipment specific switching
  • Lockout/Tagout
  • Removal of Lockout Devices

Day 2

  • Access to Prohibited Areas and Live Chamber
  • Rules for High Voltage Vicinity Permits
  • Reasons for Isolating and Earthing
  • Abnormal Conditions
  • Working on or near Overhead Power Lines
  • Electrical Installation Requirements
  • Current & Voltage Transformers
  • Protection
  • Breaker Failure Management
  • Transformer Commissioning
  • Winding Connection Designations
  • Transformer Vector Groupings
  • Clock Notation 11 Vector Group
  • Switchgear Commissioning
  • Cable Commissioning

Day 3

  • Examination

Basic Power System Protection

Reliable protection systems are integral to electricity networks whether they are within industrial, distribution or transmission networks. The requirements of safety, minimisation of damage to faulted plant, minimisation of consequential damage to healthy plant and maintenance of a stable and secure supply of electricity are paramount to all protection designs. A reliable protection scheme needs to be both dependable and secure. A dependable scheme thus has a very high level of certainty of operating correctly for all faults within its zone of coverage. Conversely, a secure scheme has a very high level of certainty of not operating incorrectly under any circumstances, especially in the presence of faults and disturbances external to its zone of coverage. These two requirements of dependability and security are thus conflicting.

To meet both requirements, the protection systems need, simultaneously, to be coordinated, fast operating, secure and dependable. The provision of these conflicting requirements is fundamental to the performance of protection systems and ensures a stable network. Thus, the task, not only of the protection engineer, but of all engineers and technicians associated with power systems, are to ensure that planning, design, coordination, implementation, commissioning, operation, and maintenance of protection systems optimizes both the dependability and security of these schemes.

Who Should Attend

Technical personnel, especially those from the Electrical and Distribution and Transmission organizations, who are new to the areas of protection design (or presently have minimal or limited knowledge of power system protection design and principles), and are involved in the design, installation, operation, and maintenance of protection systems for electricity networks, such as:

  • Power System Planners
  • Power System Protection Engineers
  • Field Technicians
  • Circuitry and Automation Engineers
  • Power System Managers and Technical Officers
  • Communication Engineers
  • Construction and Project Managers
  • Power System O&M Engineers

Benefits

This is an “Entry Level” seminar specifically designed to provide a basic, but nevertheless comprehensive, understanding of power system protection design. It is ideally suited to meet the learning requirements of those who are new to the areas of protection design, or presently have minimal or limited knowledge of power system protection design and principles.

It will assist those whose day-to-day work directly involves them in the applications of protection design, scheme coordination and relay settings. In addition, it will also provide a valuable and necessary insight into these principles for those in the many associated areas of electricity power system design.

The seminar focuses particularly on the basic level principles of protection design. The more complex and mathematical aspects of protection design have thus been purposely excluded. The technical discussions and principles are reinforced with many real-life examples and experiences from the seminar leader’s professional experience, covering 3 decades.

This seminar has been specifically prepared to meet the requirements of:

  • Project Managers, to ensure the project execution process optimizes coordination between the protection design and the overall project implementation.
  • Planning Engineers, to identify the difficulties in providing protection for various power system configurations under review.
  • Maintenance Engineers, to ensure that system protection is not compromised as plant is removed from service during maintenance.
  • Circuitry Design Engineers, to ensure that protective schemes are implemented in a manner to provide optimum performance.
  • Commissioning Engineers, to ensure the actual field installation of the protection scheme and associated relay settings meets the design requirements.
  • Field Technicians, to understand the importance of their role in installing, testing and maintaining effective, reliable, dependable and secure protection systems.
  • Protection Design Engineers, to identify protection implications and to ensure design, coordination and relay setting principles provide the necessary levels of speed, security, dependability and safety.

Course Contents

  1. Fundamental Concepts of Power System Protection
    1. Reliability, Dependability and Security
    2. Redundancy & Duplication
    3. Zones of Protection
    4. Unit and Non-Unit Schemes
    5. Local & Remote Back up
    6. CB Fail and Blind Spot Protection
    7. Trip Circuit Monitoring
  2. Fuses, Over Current & Earth Fault Protection
    1. Fuses
    2. IDMT Over Current Relays
    3. Time & Current Discrimination
    4. Coordination Procedure
    5. Parallel Elements and OC Protection Grading
    6. Earth Fault Protection
  3. Voltage and Current Transformers
    1. Specification of VTs
    2. Capacitor VTs
    3. Transient Performance of VTs & CVTs
    4. Class P & PX CTs
    5. Transient Performance of CTs
  4. Introduction to Distance Protection
    1. Relay Zones of Operation
    2. Phase Angle Comparators
  5. Introduction to Protection Signalling
    1. Distance Relay Permissive Schemes
    2. Distance Relay Blocking Schemes
    3. Direct and Series Intertripping
  6. Introduction to High Impedance Differential Protection
    1. Stability for external faults
    2. Operation during in-zone faults
  7. Introduction to Transformer Protection
    1. Buchholz and Pressure Relief Devices
    2. Biased Differential Protection
      1. Inrush and Magnetising Currents
      2. CT Connections for Phase Correction
      3. CT Connections for Neutral Current Compensation
      4. Microprocessor Based Relay Applications
  8. Introduction to Low Impedance Busbar Differential Protection
    1. Multiple Bus Zones
    2. Dynamically Switched Bus Zones
    3. Bus Zone CB Fail Schemes
  9. Introduction to Feeder Differential Protection
    1. Pilot Wire Protection
      1. Summation Transformer Techniques
    2. Current Differential Protection
      1. Digital Signalling
      2. Data Synchronisation
      3. Alpha Plane Philosophy
  10. Auto Reclosing Concepts
    1. Dead Time and Reclaim Time
    2. Single and Three Pole Schemes
    3. Sectionalisers
  11. Protection of Capacitor Banks
    1. Over Current Protection and In-rush Current Considerations
    2. Capacitor Can and Bank Components and Design Considerations
    3. Balance Protection Schemes
    4. Over Voltage Protection

Overhead Power Lines – Planning, Design & Construction

Course Content

  1. Overall Planning
    1. Development Stages of A Transmission Project
      1. Reactive Compensation Needs
      2. Load flows and Stability
      3. Transposition Needs
      4. Switching Surge Overvoltages
      5. Reliability Evaluation
    2. Planning Methods
      1. Data Acquisition and Preparation
      2. Electrical Studies
        1. Power Flow Requirements
        2. System Stability and Dynamic Performance
        3. Selection of Voltage and Optimization Studies
        4. Conductor Selection
        5. Losses
        6. Corona Performance (audible, radio and television noise)
        7. Electromagnetic Field Effects
        8. Insulation and Overvoltage Design
        9. Circuit Breaker Duties
        10. Short Circuit and Protective Relaying
      3. Economic Studies and Final Evaluation
        1. Investment
        2. Maintenance
        3. Losses and Reliability Benefits
    3. Evolution and Selection of Voltage Levels
    4. Conductor Selection
    5. Selection of Line Configuration
  2. Electrical requirements and Design
    1. Stability
    2. Current-Related Phenomena
    3. Voltage and Current-Related Phenomena
    4. Line Performance and Insulation Requirements
    5. Clearances
    6. Environmental Impacts of HVDC Transmission Systems
      1. The effects of electric fields
      2. The effects of magnetic fields
      3. Radio interference
      4. Audible noise
      5. Ground currents and corrosion effects
      6. The use of land for transmission line and substation facilities
      7. Visual impacts
    7. Overhead Earth Wires & Telecommunications Cables
      1. Optical Pilot Ground Wire (OPGW)
      2. Overhead Earthwires (OHEW)
      3. Buried Earth Electrodes
    8. Poles
      1. Pole Types
      2. Inspection of Timber Poles Prior to Delivery
      3. Inspection of Concrete Poles Prior to Delivery
    9. Line Insulators
    10. Surge Diverters
  3. Installation
    1. Slack stringing
    2. Semi-tension stringing
    3. Full-tension stringing
    4. Helicopter stringing
    5. Commissioning Tests
      1. Line of Earth Impedance
      2. Step and Touch Potentials
      3. Earth Potential Rise
  4. Maintenance
    1. Replacing Spacers
    2. Insulator Washing