FLIR details yet another use for a thermal camera in a new application report – checking the efficiency of electrical substations.
As substations are of the utmost importance for providing power to countless amounts of homes across the world, something being wrong inside a substation can have an extreme effect on homeowners. Both brownouts (where voltages drop and lights dim) and full blackouts are a constant problem for electrical engineers, who then have to locate the problem within a substation and carry out the necessary repairs as quickly as possible.
Thermal imaging cameras are currently used quite commonly by electricians conducting surveys to determine whether there are internal faults in circuitry and other electrical items. The abilities of a thermal camera allow it to determine exactly whether a particular component is outputting too much or too less heat, allowing an electrician to quickly get an idea of what’s causing problems.
The cameras are used in this way within electrical substations by engineers, but now many electrical firms are turning to fixed thermal imaging cameras so that they can constantly monitor the output of the station and respond in a timely manner if any complications should arise.
FLIR has been hard at work developing these cameras to be an essential monitoring tool. In their own words:
“These systems employ advanced sensing and measurement technology, control methods, and digital communications. They are able to anticipate, detect, and respond rapidly to problems, thereby reducing maintenance costs, the chance of failure, a blackout, and lost productivity.”
Thermal cameras are so useful in these kinds of installations because they see the world very differently to human eyes. Instead of seeing visible light like both our eyes and conventional cameras do, thermal imaging devices see infrared light, which is completely invisible to us. Infrared radiation is given off by almost everything, which is why if you see a thermal image, things appear differently depending on the amount of IR radiation they’re currently giving off.
In electrical substations, a thermal image would show clearly how the various different components that make up the substation are currently performing and anything that suddenly changes will be clearly flagged up by both the thermal image and sensing technology built into the thermal cameras.
It’s an immensely important investment for substations, as countless homes and businesses rely on electricity to go about their lives comfortably. If a substation goes down that supplies electricity directly to a factory, that means that that factory is unlikely to be able to produce whatever it is they make, meaning they lose productivity and money. By implementing thermal readings, engineers can prevent these kinds of incidents from occurring before they actually happen, taking the necessary steps to repair any faults as soon as they’re flagged up.
It certainly beats the old style of repair where an engineer would be dispatched after something goes down!
You can read more into this process by heading on over to FLIR's website.
