HV Traing

[MarkWysepower]

Hi all

I am currently a 17th edition electrician working as a contracts manager. Im 25 and still feel I need to learn new skills and widen my oppertunitys in the future.

I have recently been working closely with a utilities company carrying out the isolation and diconnection of HV supplies and switchgear(11KV).

This field has always interested me and Im looking for some info on how I would go about gaining the relavent qualifications to work on such systems?

I wish to carry on working whilst I do this. I understand it will take longer but it would be my only option as I have a morguage and car to pay for and im sure there will be another mouth to feed in the near future.

Any advice you guys could give would be great. Thanks in adavance.

Mark

 

[DurhamSparky]

http://www.faradaycentre.co.uk/

[URL="http://www.nationalgridcareers.com/search-and-apply/Engineer-Training-Programme/"]http://www.nationalgridcareers.com/search-and-apply/Engineer-Training-Programme/


[/URL]

 

[Engineer54]

Hi all

I am currently a 17th edition electrician working as a contracts manager. Im 25 and still feel I need to learn new skills and widen my oppertunitys in the future.

I have recently been working closely with a utilities company carrying out the isolation and diconnection of HV supplies and switchgear(11KV).

This field has always interested me and Im looking for some info on how I would go about gaining the relavent qualifications to work on such systems?

I wish to carry on working whilst I do this. I understand it will take longer but it would be my only option as I have a morguage and car to pay for and im sure there will be another mouth to feed in the near future.

Any advice you guys could give would be great. Thanks in adavance.

Mark

Geezus!! a contracts manager at 25, Things have certainly changed since my time in the UK!!!

Apart from that, ...what do you mean, that You have been carrying out this isolation and disconnection of MV supplies and switchgear?? Don't you need to be a ''Certified Person'' anymore to lay hands on MV equipment??

 

[DurhamSparky]

think he been watching the field engineers carrying out the switching!! (can imagine for a second a AP would say here laddie!! pull this lever or press this button.)

 

[Knobhead]

I wouldn’t even allow him in the switch room never mind operate a switch. Unless you have a need to operate MV switches keep your money in your pocket. You would need to be on a site with it’s own network to make it worthwhile.

 

[MarkWysepower]

think he been watching the field engineers carrying out the switching!! (can imagine for a second a AP would say here laddie!! pull this lever or press this button.)

No you are right, thats the very one. All watching no touching, from a safe distance might I add!!

I have always been very interested in this and working with the guys (Watching) has done nothing but interest me further.

 

[mechelec]

you could do what i did and go and work for a DNO, loads of HV switching, planned outages and fault sectionalising, closing onto faults etc scary stuff when you sit andd think of the energy involved.

 

[Knobhead]

Not my favourite pass time. One reason I liked the old GEC OCB’s, you could tie a lanyard to the closing lever. Tie it on and bugger off out of the way and pull. Closing on to a fault had to be done at times when we hadn’t got a good fault path for detection in the hope of burning to give a “good” fault.

 

[DurhamSparky]

hmm i remember a night shift not long back when i got the sinking feeling that its all going wrong (mainly when the lights went out)
they came back on briefly then out then back on!! then out and the gennys kicked in!!

rang NEDL who informed me that they were attempting to "clear" the fault by switching on to it 2/3x but this failed so they had to isolate the line to get the picker up!!

my shift log that night read some thing along the lines of "NEDL = CLOWNS"

 

[mechelec]

I cant speak for YEDL as I work for another DNObut with network faults the power may be interupted several times for the following reasons :
On over head circuits there is usually an auto reclose protection system in operation whereby the protective device will open when a fault occurs, it will then wait 10 seconds and close the device to renergise the circuit, if the fault is still present the protective device will open and lock out, if the fault does not occur within the next six seconds the the system stays energised. After the six second delay period the cycle is reset. This is a common reason for short interuptions.
When fault switching and sectionalising it is inevitable that the circuit will trip once or twice more until the faulty section is found.
Im not sure about "clearing" a fault by switching on the HV system but banging fuses onto an LV fault often does clear them.

 

[Knobhead]

I wonder what the NEDL report read like?

Re-closing is common practice with OH lines especially at night. I’ve done it a few times, sometimes it worked other times it didn’t. Non of our systems had auto reclosers it had to be the AP’s decision. Going for a nature ramble at 3AM in the pouring rain looking for a fallen tree never appealed to me!

 

[mechelec]

A common occurance for us now is a call from the HV control engineer to say supplies have been lost/protection has tripped. We go out have a quick scout round to find how many spans of copper OH the pikeys have nicked this time.

 

[Knobhead]

Good fun isn’t it!

My mate was at a remote sub when I re-energised a OH line. “OK Jim I’ve closed here and it’s held”, “It’s still bloody dark here!” 300 yards of .2 in the middle missing!

We must have driven past them but didn’t see anything. I've never worked out the weight of that much copper, but one things for sure it didn't go in the back of a van!