Convergence of Protection Relay and Monitoring System for Next Generation Asset Management

Large Industrial electromechanical assets such as motors, generators and transformers play a critical role in running an industrial process. Any unexpected failure in the asset causes loss of revenue due to production loss as well as repair or replacement of the faulty asset. A failure in electromechanical equipment can be electrical, thermal or mechanical. Proactively detecting and analyzing a failure at early stage can help to take preventive measures and better plan the maintenance strategy. Determining the early detection of the potential failures requires online/offline Monitoring and Diagnostic (M&D) equipment, additional sensors, wiring and installation. This paper discusses convergence of protection relay and asset monitoring and diagnostic system for next generation asset management easing asset maintenance strategy and time, cost, efforts in certain cases. Moreover, it provides insights into working of the M&D solution and how it can help to monitor and identify the factors and failures like electrical, mechanical and thermal failures of assets. To verify the proper working and performance of the proposed method, various tests were performed on the integrated Motor M&D features in relay using actual industrial motors with mechanical faults in a machine repair shop.