<img alt="" src="https://secure.leadforensics.com/239113.png" style="display:none;">

What is thermal monitoring?

One of the major causes of fire in electrical equipment is faulty joints or connections, where an increase in temperature is the primary symptom and an indicator that a potential problem could occur. Thermal monitoring enables organizations to detect the symptoms in those joints or connections that without intervention could otherwise lead to electrical outages, or worse, a fire.

Without early identification, the deterioration of faulty electrical joints or connections will lead to increased resistance and higher temperature, which will eventually result in thermal runaway and ultimately, a complete failure. Arc flash and fire, or even an explosion might occur, causing unexpected plant downtime, or potentially leading to catastrophic consequences such as total equipment destruction or even personnel injury.

Continuous thermal monitoring is the next technology step from periodic infrared inspection:
  • Permanently installed sensors inside electrical equipment provide 24/7 protection
  • Delivers real-time, integrated temperature data for critical electrical assets

This enables electrical maintenance teams to predict failures, safeguard electrical equipment, and optimize performance. With the disruption to power supply posing an increasingly critical threat to organizations, the requirement for innovative thermal monitoring solutions for industry to maximize uptime through the prediction of faults before they occur. Additional benefits delivered by this technology include increased personnel safety and extended asset lifespan.
Thermal monitoring enables electrical engineering personnel to:
  • Predict electrical faults and optimize maintenance
  • Digitize and Integrate real-time data
  • Increase asset resilience and maximize uptime
  • Reduce OPEX costs and enhance operational efficiency
  • Reduce risk and improve personnel safety
Group 662

As awareness of the benefits of thermal condition monitoring technology grows, it is becoming more frequently used to monitor mission-critical electrical infrastructure. Thermal monitoring sensors can be installed in electrical assets such as LV/MV switchgear, Motor Control Centers (MCCs), Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPS), Power Distribution Units (PDU's), and dry transformers.

These essential electrical assets are used across a huge range of industries, including:
Group 228

Oil and gas

Group 229

Mining

Group 230

Data centers

Group 231

Water and waste water

Group 232

Food and beverage

Group 233

Retail logistics

Group 234

Critical infrastructure

Group 227

Manufacturing

Surprisingly, a high-quality, permanently installed, and cost-effective thermal monitoring system for a facility's electrical equipment is commonly overlooked. However, having increased thermal insight into key assets will enable the prevention of possible threats such as unplanned or unexpected facility downtime, expensive electrical asset repairs and replacements, and the risk of injury to personnel.

Condition assessment of electrical equipment

Besides these high-risk scenarios, power is the most essential utility for any organization. A fault or failure could result in a loss of power to critical systems, which in turn may result in expensive unplanned downtime; not only in terms of downtime and lost productivity, but potentially through repair or replacement costs too, depending on the nature and/or severity of the fault.

Electrical equipment is inherently dangerous; a missed fault could lead to serious injury, fire, damage to infrastructure, or even death.

Fortunately, regular assessments of electrical equipment are required by law in most industries due to standards created by various national electrical safety agencies, such as International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). In addition, there are numerous guides and recommendations both regionally and nationally regarding benchmarks for safe electrical design, installation, and inspection to protect people and property from electrical hazards e.g. National Electrical Code (NEC), National Fire Prevention Agency (NFPA) etc.

Want to get condition monitoring tips, news and information straight to your inbox? Sign up here.

Get Exertherm news
condition-monitoring-motor-control-centre
This article explores how thermal condition monitoring can be used to enhance awareness of critical electrical asset status and presents the case for how it can be used to great advantage such as:
  • Enable a more resilient power supply
  • Digitize electrical asset maintenance
  • Hit productivity Key Performance Indicators (KPI's)
  • Achieve increased asset reliability
  • Increase facility and personnel safety

Why change from inspection to thermal monitoring?

Thermal monitoring is an approach utilized by forward-thinking electrical engineering personnel to detect potentially costly and dangerous electrical faults in advance of failures. Sensors installed within important electrical assets will alert you to changes in status and detect potential faults that might have otherwise resulted in production downtime, asset damage, or injuries to personnel.

IIoT is irreversibly changing the way equipment is operated and maintained. It is therefore crucial that organizations are focusing their attention on the benefits of thermal condition monitoring as opposed to periodic inspection and accepting that this change to digitized maintenance is inevitable, bringing added value and extending the life of electrical infrastructure.

Benefits of thermal monitoring:
Group 221@2x

Increases reliability and resilience of electrical power systems

Group 222

Digitizes the way that electrical equipment is monitored and maintained

noun-thermal-imager-3377501

Delivers maintenance cost advantages over thermography

Group 226

Provides greater return on investment for the organization

Group 223

Significantly extends the life of aging infrastructure

Group 224

Future-proofs new builds with IIoT-ready sensors

Group 227

Reduces the need to place personnel in places of risk

Lifetime guarantee

Guaranteed 24/7 protection of critical assets

Most mission-critical facilities are already adopting a digitization strategy. As a result, there is a considerable risk for organizations that do not include the installation of condition monitoring sensors to automatically build in obsolescence to each piece of new equipment installed without thermal monitoring technology.

Capture1-1
Challenges of thermographic inspections:
  • Limited inspection frequency
  • Compromised view or line of sight issues
  • Data is not integrated or real-time
  • Dependence on the thermographer skillset
  • Window degradation needs repair or replacement
  • Difficult to detect faults at a low load
  • Expensive over asset lifetime
  • Safety issues place the operator at risk

Discover how condition monitoring improves asset reliability across different industries...

Find out more

Thermal monitoring sensors

The use of condition monitoring sensor technology reduces the need for unnecessary periodic inspections to be carried out, instead allowing 24/7 remote observation of assets to provide continuous indicators around the condition status of electrical equipment.

Sensor technology helps electrical engineers, asset managers, and project teams build a more accurate picture of the condition of critical electrical infrastructure.

Specifically, thermal condition monitoring utilizes permanently installed sensors to identify hotspots on key connections (such as busbars and cables) within electrical infrastructure. This enables the detection of unexpected, expensive, and potentially damaging electrical faults before they develop into a major failure.

Digitizing Electrical Infrastructure

Digitization is accelerating the requirement to connect critical equipment and machinery to the internet in order to remotely acquire condition data for subsequent analysis. This is a vital component of the concept referred to as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT).

Digitization is defined as the connection of electrical and mechanical infrastructure and machinery to the internet to facilitate the acquisition of condition data for subsequent analysis.

IIOT is not to be confused with the Internet of Things, or IOT, which refers to the billions of devices that are connected to the internet, each performing the task of gathering and sharing data. Whilst similar principles are applicable to both IOT and IIOT as each utilizes the function of digital connectivity and the cloud to share data, the IOT is largely focused on general, or even home use. The IIOT is more focused on connecting and digitizing industrial infrastructure and systems to create the data to boost productivity and deliver more efficient practices.

Connection to the IIOT provides significant commercial benefits. It can grant users a competitive edge in areas such as cost reduction, increased productivity and standardization of best-performing equipment, as well as a host of other advantages.

Digitizing Electrical Infrastructure

Digitization is accelerating the requirement to connect critical equipment and machinery to the internet in order to remotely acquire condition data for subsequent analysis. This is a vital component of the concept referred to as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT).

Digitization is defined as the connection of electrical and mechanical infrastructure and machinery to the internet to facilitate the acquisition of condition data for subsequent analysis.

IIOT is not to be confused with the Internet of Things, or IOT, which refers to the billions of devices that are connected to the internet, each performing the task of gathering and sharing data. Whilst similar principles are applicable to both IOT and IIOT as each utilizes the function of digital connectivity and the cloud to share data, the IOT is largely focused on general, or even home use. The IIOT is more focused on connecting and digitizing industrial infrastructure and systems to create the data to boost productivity and deliver more efficient practices.

Connection to the IIOT provides significant commercial benefits. It can grant users a competitive edge in areas such as cost reduction, increased productivity and standardization of best-performing equipment, as well as a host of other advantages.