Preventive maintenance: longer life for your electrical distribution equipment at optimal costs

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Electrical distribution equipment lies at the heart of every modern business, powering the machines and systems responsible for key processes. Vital equipment, such as circuit breakers, protection relays, or transformers, is also responsible for the safety and protection of people and equipment. When they fail unexpectedly, the risk of unsafe situations arises.

Implementing an effective maintenance strategy for your electrical distribution installation is therefore crucial. But there are choices to be made.

Prevention is better than cure

Attitudes toward equipment maintenance have evolved alongside industry. The simplest approach, called reactive maintenance, involves repairing equipment only when it breaks down. Such interventions often result in prolonged downtime and high costs.

As industry has matured, the idea of “prevention is better than cure” has seen the introduction of preventive maintenance, supporting regular equipment checks to reduce the probability of failure. This approach, combined with regular on-site diagnostics, called on-site condition maintenance, optimises your plant’s performance and keeps equipment reliable, productive, and safe at an optimal cost.

Reduced faults, increased efficiency

Preventive maintenance of electrical distribution equipment brings universal benefits to your business. On-site condition maintenance of each installation minimises the risk of unwanted events, increasing the safety of employees and protection of equipment. It also helps ensure the reliable performance of safety-connected devices, such as circuit breakers.

Regularly maintained equipment wastes less energy while running. Preventive maintenance of hardware allows it to function more efficiently by reducing wear and tear of the components. Also, the cost of the spare parts is reduced as the number of complex faults in crucial areas is limited.

By scheduling equipment downtime and mitigating the risk of emergency shutdown, preventive maintenance secures service continuity and helps optimise costs. As a result, the annual total cost of ownership (TCO) is lower, as the costs of both equipment acquisition (CapEx) and shutdown (OpEx) are significantly reduced.

Advanced tools for optimising performance

To provide maximum care to your electrical distribution equipment, preventive maintenance should be supported by on-site condition maintenance. Regular diagnostics make it possible to identify symptoms of an undetected malfunction or degradation in an installation before a fault happens. This lets you keep your equipment performance level as close to its optimum as possible.

Implementing diagnostic solutions provided by equipment manufacturers also lets you collect and manage reliable data across your ED installation thanks to:

• Customised test kits and software for conducting inspection, testing, and analysis.
• A technical database of historical equipment available for comparing original and current performance levels.
• Expert field service representatives providing the best recommendations and instructions to prolong equipment life.
• Experience in maintaining equipment in diverse extreme conditions.
  • Comprehensive information on equipment obsolescence and original spare parts availability to enable extensions, upgrades, and retrofit (i.e. ECOFIT™ by Schneider Electric).

With an advanced maintenance strategy, you get a complete picture of your electrical distribution equipment’s condition, diagnostic tools to accurately assess risk, and peace of mind that critical areas of your plant are constantly supervised.

Visit our  web page dedicated to electrical distribution maintenance to learn more.