Evaluation of thermography inspections effects on costs and power losses reduction in Alborz Province Power Distribution Co.

Preventive maintenance and inspection using thermography operation in distribution networks of Alborz province has been studied in this paper. Conditions like high energy consumption, fast growth of energy demand because of several industrial towns , immigration of people to this region and converting this region to one of the largest industrial zone of Islamic Republic of Iran in addition to environmental conditions, all caused power losses and age reduction in distribution networks equipments. Considering above mentioned conditions and our experts' high load of work for operating and maintaining the old installations in addition with their efforts for avoiding the blackouts, objectives of the Alborz Electric Power Distribution Co. (APPDC) for reducing the faults , black-outs and power losses caused rescheduling old preventive maintenance plans. In this project, more than 4300 Km middle voltage feeders and 12500 power transformer were inspected and 177726 loose connections were discovered. Fixing these loose connections resulted reducing 0.5% power losses and reduce the costs of operation up to 133,000 USD during one year.