ABB to help Finnish power company enhance process monitoring capabilities

Summary

June 7, 2018 - ABB will upgrade one of Helsinki’s substations with its ABB Ability technology, to help meet increased demand for power, improve power reliability and assist Transmission System Operator, Fingrid, with its plan to digitalize its assets.

Housed in a glass-clad building, the 400-kilovolt (kV) Länsisalmi substation plays a key role in Finland’s transmission grid. As part of the project, ABB replaced an outdoor air-insulated switchgear (AIS) installation with its gas insulated switchgear (GIS) technology, freeing up 70 percent of the space occupied by the old facility.

In addition to the supply, ABB will install modular switchgear monitoring (MSM) devices onto the GIS to enable online condition monitoring of the circuit breakers. To reduce additional cabling, signals will be locally collected via WLAN using the IEC61850 protocol and then uploaded to ABB Ability Ellipse APM (Asset Performance Management). Sensor technology will help Fingrid digitize its assets and make Länsisalmi a modern GIS substation.

Fingrid will also pilot the use of the ABB Ability Ellipse APM to perform predictive analytics to help prevent critical failures across the transmission asset fleet, including transformers, circuit breakers and transmission network equipment.

ABB Ability is the company’s unified, cross-industry digital offering that extends from device to cloud and connecting customers to the Industrial Internet of Things.

About ABB

ABB is a specialist in electrification products, robotics and motion, industrial automation and power grids, serving customers in utilities, industry and transport & infrastructure globally. Continuing a history of innovation spanning more than 130 years, ABB operates in more than 100 countries with about 135,000 employees.