Applications
Synaptec’s passive optical sensors are used for the protection and monitoring applications below.
Each one uses Distributed Electrical Sensing (DES): passive sensors along the route, read over optical fibre by an Interrogator in the substation.
Reflex: mixed circuit protection
Auto-reclose blocking for mixed circuits
MCP tells the protection scheme whether a fault on a mixed circuit is in a cable section or on the overhead line, in time to block auto-reclose for a cable fault before the breaker opens. Overhead line faults reclose as normal.
Reflex: remote transformer protection
Protection of remote power assets
RTP gives unit protection to a transformer far from any substation, with your choice of 87T relay running its own settings. The transformer site needs only standard CTs, passive sensors, and a single fibre back to the substation.
Distributed Electrical Sensing
Differential protection for complex feeder networks
Passive sensors at each branch and tail end give the substation synchronised current measurements from every end of a feeder. Line differential protection can then cover circuits with cable sections, transformers, and several branches, with no data network or control power at the remote points.
Greenlight®
Screen current and temperature monitoring at cable joints
Greenlight measures phase and screen current and temperature at every joint and termination of an underground or subsea cable. It finds damage and degradation before they cause an outage, with nothing powered along the route.
ECG™ with Proserv
Offshore wind cable monitoring
For offshore wind, Synaptec’s HV cable health monitoring is delivered with Proserv as ECG. It combines our passive electrical and mechanical sensors with distributed fibre sensing and prognostics services.
Distributed Electrical Sensing
Distributed power quality
Passive sensors give permanent, synchronised power quality monitoring for every cable in a wind farm. Operators can see when and where harmonics and resonances arise, and which generator they come from.
Distributed Electrical Sensing
Wide-area synchronised waveform monitoring
DES brings time-synchronised waveform data for current, voltage, temperature, and vibration from many points on a network back to one substation. Engineers can examine switching events and faults that synchrophasor and SCADA data do not show.
Discuss your application
If your circuit or asset is not described here, our engineers can tell you whether passive optical sensing suits it.