Benefits of Live Line Maintenance

Need of Live Line Maintenance Technique

 Increase on System's Reliability

A system will be more reliable when it is shut down for a minimum period.
 Increase on the Power Availability
The fewer times a transmission line needs to be shut down, the higher will be the
availability of transported power.
 Increase on the Timing for Maintenance
Whenever there's no need to shut the line down, respecting limitations specified
by the technique, the tasks can be performed at any time.
 Increase on Safety of the Personnel involved on the Maintenance
With no interruption and consequently without the grounding equipment, the
possibility of mistakes during the task performance is reduced, therefore
personnel and operational risks tend to be reduced too.
 Live Line Maintenance Techniques

 Hot Stick Method- up to 220 kV Transmission Lines and Switchyards

 Bare Hand Method- 220 kV onwards for Transmission Lines and

132 to 765 kV Switchyards

 Condition Monitoring of insulators and joints for all Voltage levels for both
Transmission Lines and Switchyards

 Insulator Cleaning for all types of insulators and Voltage class.

 Major Live Line Work Activities

 Replacement of all types of suspension and tension insulator strings for

Transmission Lines and Switchyards

 Attending of hot-spots across connectors, jumpers, terminals and isolator

contacts

 Repair of damaged conductors in Substations using scaffolds and on

Transmission Lines using conductor trolley or insulated crane boom

 Replacement of all types of conductor hardware such as arcing horns,

dampers and spacers

 Replacement of full load isolator switch contacts in Switchyards

 Puncture Insulator Detection (PID) of porcelain, glass or polymer insulators

 Insulator cleaning by manual or automatic tele-boom washing systems

 Formation of Live Line Working Teams
 It is very important to develop separate live line working teams for
transmission lines and substations well equipped with specific tools and
equipments for every Voltage class.
 It will highly beneficial to use these live line teams efficiently and a good
quantum of work activities completed without switching off the circuits.
As per the general complexity and requirement of the live line work following
types of live line teams may be formed;
 110 kV to 220 kV Transmission Lines
 400 kV Transmission Lines
 33 kV / 132 kV / 220 kV Switchyards
 400 kV Switchyards
 Condition Monitoring , i.e. PID testing of insulators [132 kV / 220 kV / 400 kV]
 Insulator Washing [All types of Switchyards]
 Insulator Washing [All types of Transmission Lines]
 Option of specific customized on-site training shall be explored to optimize
the period and to obtain maximum gain to launch the teams directly on the
utility’s lines / substations to avoid any further doubt or practical difficulty to
perform live line work after the training.
 Important Benefits to the Utility
 Through PID testing of insulators, the faulty insulators can be replaced prior
to transforming into faults which will substantially increase reliability, safety
and stability of system .
 As there is no practical requirements to switch off circuits, the work activities
will be almost every day subject to atmospheric conditions, which will increase
the utilization of maximum workman days ratio within the utility.
 Now a days there are severe restrictions and mandatory guidelines laid down
by regulatory bodies to maintain the availability of transmission lines.
 Moreover the wheeling charges or rate of transmission of electricity is
proportional to the % of availability of the system.
 Therefore, successful implementation of live line maintenance techniques will
be a double benefit to the transmission utility by decreasing failures and at the
same time earning from the increasing revenue.
 Transmission loss will be reduced by adopting live line work in case of parallel
transmission lines as compared off line work.
 There will be less complexity to the system managers if live line work is
adopted in compared to de-energized maintenance.
 Important Benefits to the Utility - Contd…..
 Forced shut downs of generating units may be avoided due to hot-spots in the
power station switchyards.
 There may be huge losses due to forced generator shut down such as longer
starting of thermal generators, losing wheeling charges to the transmission
company, emergency load shedding and even costly purchase of electricity from
the grid.
 If systematic live line working model is implemented with a good
coordination and proper planning, the investment in terms of the tools and
training shall be paid back within a span of one to two year in terms of average
established rates for hiring live line services in the country.
 The average estimated life of the live line tools with moderate use and
defined appropriate safety procedures is more than 15 years as reported by
many companies with extremely low cost towards care, monitoring and
replacement of dew spares.
Live Line Insulator Replacement on 400 kV Lines
Live Line Working in Switchyards
Live Line Working in Switchyards
Live Line Working on Lines Using Insulated Boom
Live Line Washing of Insulators