Maximize reliability, availability, and efficiency of the primary and backup power supply systems at mission critical facilities with the following substation commissioning best practices. Through these best practices, facility management will optimize facility systems, increase energy efficiency, and improve reliability and availability.
These practices are recommended by Comrent experts to ensure the finest commissioning test, load testing, and facility optimization.
Commissioning
Develop a plan before the project begins.
- Ensure that the plan comprehends utility substation commissioning requirements.
- Include a budget, roles and responsibilities, and develop a checklist for the project.
Verify equipment type test and approvals during project construction.
- Perform factory acceptance testing on critical subsystems.
- Avoid test duplications. Have a witness test to simplify plans.
- Perform a system test at the subsystem level during the commissioning process.
Conduct the commissioning test.
- Conduct the test after all equipment is installed and once the system goes live to verify correct operation.
- Ensure compliance with IEEE Standard Conformance Test Procedures and IEEE 1547.1 Revision 2018.
- Test communications systems.
- Disconnect systems may be required to validate performance for reactive power and V and F ride through.
- Testing for special circumstances can also be performed to calculate any effect on timing.
Load Testing
Plan as early as possible.
- Clearly define roles and responsibilities to refine a project.
- Involve key stakeholders in planning.
- Implement elements of commissioning throughout the project, especially contingency plans for special circumstances to take timing into consideration.
- Implement a commissioning test program as part of ongoing facility maintenance.
Accelerate substation commissioning with innovative technology.
- Reduce set-up time, improve safety, and increase operational efficiency at your facility by testing specialty load banks, cables, switchgears, and controls.
- Prevent oversizing the cooling system, optimize efficiency, and reduce maintenance costs by implementing a load bank test plan that simulates electrical and thermal load characteristics of the equipment used in a data center.
- Integrated power quality monitors complete tests in less time, collect more data, reduce report generation time, and replace separate devices that are commonly used.
- Control communications by integrating all load bank functions, controls, and operations, which will allow the load bank to be operated remotely from the Network Operations Center at Comrent.
Facility Optimization
Improving systems’ performances will help your facility:
- Meet the CFR.
- Reduce energy, operating and maintenance costs.
- Improve the indoor environmental quality.
Load Testing and ongoing maintenance commissioning tests performed and agreed upon by the facility owner will ensure subsystems in a complex facility are operating as intended. This will help:
- Reduce the capital cost of the project by lowering required labor and identifying corrective actions and investment.
- Increase component life cycle.
- Create energy savings.
- Reduce equipment, operational, or process failure.
- Reduce random failures commonly seen in complex systems across the system’s lifecycle.
- Enable the business using the facility to operate effectively and achieve the desired levels of facility reliability and availability.
- Decrease equipment or process downtime.
- Decrease costs for parts and labor.
To ensure that these best practices are carried out, contact Comrent today here.
