High Voltage Circuit Breaker Charging Motor's Condition Monitoring – Importance, Possibilities, and Challenges

The reliable operation of high voltage circuit breakers (HVCB), their unfailing control and monitoring from remote locations is becoming increasingly significant day by day as the world is moving towards Internet of Things (IoT) and other industry 4.0 standards. Among other parts of HVCB, the spring charging motor (SCM) plays a very crucial role by keeping the HVCB ready for operation without manual interference. The failing of SCM may start the cascading faults in the power network by ending the possibility of its control from remote locations. Hence the continuous health monitoring of SCM for control and predictive maintenance is of paramount importance. This paper provides a comprehensive overview on the possible faults of SCM, the importance of their detection at incipient stage, an insight into the future of the advanced fault detection techniques and their implementation challenges.