Practical Work report

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Student:

Dylan Crighton

Date:

13th February 20, 2015

Work Period:

17th November, 2014 to 20th February, 2015

Company:
Address:

Electra
PO Box 244
Levin
New Zealand

Summery
The company whom I completed the second half my work experience with was
Electra. Electra is owned by the consumers with the Electra shares being held by
the Electra trust on behalf of the consumers. Electras main role is the operation
of the distribution of power to the Kapiti and Horawhenua regions. During my
time at Electra I had the pleasure of working for Network team in Electras head
office in Levin. During my time I help out with a wide range of tasks both of sub
professional nature and general nature. I learnt a wide range of skills during my
time at Electra such as the maintenance of indoor circuit breakers, the thought
process in investment into the network, what various parts of a distribution
network looks like (dropouts, ABS, links ect.), knowledge of smart networks in
New Zealand and overseas, analysis of data in splunk, load flow analysis, how to
use crystal reports to retrieve data and many other skills that will be outlined in
this report. I could not have been happier with the wide range of skills and
exposure that I gained from my time at Electra and have now only solidified my
understanding of the Electrical industry in New Zealand.

Table of Contents
Summery............................................................................................................... 2
Acknowledgements................................................................................................ 4
Introduction........................................................................................................... 5
Description of Company........................................................................................ 6
Description of Work............................................................................................... 7
General Work...................................................................................................... 7
Sub-professional................................................................................................. 8
Reflection............................................................................................................. 12
Conclusion........................................................................................................... 13

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Mike Hearn who gave me with the opportunity to work at
Electra, and taught me many of the new things I learned over the summer.
Nathan Berry for taking me out on the field and giving me my first look at the
network and for shouting me lunch a couple of times. Phil Cameron and Ian
Bernard for letting me tag along with them to get my general work hours up. All
of the employees working at the Electra office in Levin, for making me seem
welcome and part of the team as well as helping me out willingly when I might
have needed it.

Introduction
Electra limited is a distribution company operating in Kapiti and Horowhenua
based in Levin. Electra is owned by the Electra trust who represents the
households and businesses in the Kapiti and Horowhenua regions who are
connected to the power lines operated by Electra limited. The trust holds all the
shares on behalf of all consumers on the Electra network. Electra limited also
owns the subsidiary companies DataCol NZ Limited, a national meter reading
and data collection company; and Sky Communications Limited, a
telecommunications contracting business and have recently purchased
Wanganui Security. Electra limiteds main operation is the continued operation
and upkeep of its power lines and assets. During my time at Electra I had the
pleasure of working with the network management team and a couple of the
network technicians.

Description of Company
As already described in my brief introduction Electra limited is wholly owned by
its customers with all of the company shares being held by the Electra trust.
Electra limited its self is lead by CEO Neil Simmonds. The head office is based in
Levin and within the head office are the Network team, Finance team and
Corporate. Electra has two depots one in Levin and the other in Paraparaumu,
the Paraparaumu depot houses the distributions operations office which is in
charge of managing the work that takes place on the network and the staff that
work on the network such as the fault man and live line technicians.
The head office building that I worked at in Levin was an open plane office space.
Working within the head office were approximately 25 staff. The head office were
I worked also consisted of the control centre and a server room, but besides this
it was purely an office working space with no technical faculties. The building had
a kitchen, break area, bathrooms, shower Board Room and two smaller meeting
rooms. Access to the building was provided via swipe tags or by ringing a bell for
someone to come and let you in.
During my time at Electra I worked with the Network team which was comprised
of about 10 staff including the GM of network Ross Leggett. Working under him
was Mike Hearn who is the Network Planning and Development Manager and
Baden Berry who is the Operations Manager. During my time at Electra I worked
predominantly for Mike Hearn who set all my tasks that I completed at Electra. I
also had the pleasure of working alongside Andrew Berry who was another
Electrical Engineering student working for Electra over his summer. Electra is
very supportive of students undertaking there studies resulting in a total of four
students being hired over the summer break, one for Finance, one for corporate
and of course myself and Andrew for Network.

Description of Work
Throughout my time at Electra I was fortunate enough to participate in a wide
variation of work, ranging from general to sub-professional. Some of my general
work activates included cable locates, Assisting and observing the maintenance
of 33kV and 11kV circuit breakers, graffiti removal, checking field installations to
see what work was completed, inspecting a bridge carrying 33kV and 11kV
cable, observing 33kVcable testing, visiting sub-stations were transformers were,
field work finding inconsistencies between NIMS and schematics, checking the
heights of lines over roads and riding with the fault man at an observation
capacity while he tended to faults on the network. Some of my sub-professional
activities included writing and editing standards, fault probability analysis, load
study, Analysing smart meter data received from transformers in excel, analysing
data from consumer smart meters in splunk, Updating Electras AMP (asset
management plan), Design a locking system for a substation gate, updating
disclosure information and updating NIMS. During my time at Electra I also learnt
many other generic things from work colleagues such as the meaning of SAFI
and SADI, what components make up a network, the general structure of the
electricity industry in New Zealand and many other things. I was also exposed to
professional meetings both internal and external and learnt a great deal about
the structure of a network company as a whole and organisation that goes into
running it.

General Work
Cable locating involved using a device that was able to detect the cables in the
ground and marking out there position with orange spray paint on the surface so
that contractors new the general area where the cables were located . This was a
relatively strait forward but interesting task as it demonstrated to me from a
practical perspective how cables are located without and digging. I also learned
the standard code of practice for marking the position of electrical cables, water
pipes, gas pipes and phone lines.
It was important for Electra to know what stocks of transformers it had. So one of
my more basic tasks involved me going to the sub-stations were transformers
were know to be stored and counting them noting rating, serial number and if it
was present it old plant number. Before moving into the substation we needed to
note some of the hazards on our hazard sheet which included Electricity which
was managed through the use of PPE and tripping hazards which were mitigated
by watching our steps carefully. Also before moving onto the site an
acknowledgement number was obtained from the control centre to let them
know what our intentions were, once of the site we then again contacted the
control centre to let them know we were done
Perhaps one of the most interesting tasks I took part in during my time at Electra
was the indoor 33kV and 11kV circuit breaker maintenance. This maintenance
involved ensuring the circuit breakers were first of tripped, and then winded
down and completely disconnected from the system. The circuit breakers are

then cleaned and checked for any surface damage. Following this general
electrical and tripping tests are conducted on the circuit breaker to ensure its
proper workings. Other smaller maintenance tasks are completed and the circuit
breaker is then reinstated and tested for operation. The circuit breaker
maintenance gave me a good look inside a sub-station as well as a good look
into how a circuit breaker works. The maintenance also taught me some of the
safety concerns involved in being inside a substation and working with circuit
breakers. During the complete duration of this task I was required to wear PPE,
which included steel capped boots, hard hat, safety glasses and fire retardant
overalls.
During my time with Electra I had the pleasure of travelling round with one of the
fault man. This involved tending to any faults that were reported in the Northern
part of the network and completing some general duties to fill in time such as
clearing graffiti of transformers. I was able to see how the network
communicates with some of its consumers and learn a little about the thought
process behind repairing some basic faults which were often just an old blown
pole fuse.
A significant part of my job at Electra was driving round checking the location of
assets and ensuring that they matched Electras records. This exposed me to
most of Electras network and gave me a very good insight into what was on it
and what it was for. Before my time with Electra I had no idea what such things
as a dropout or link were, this job gave me insight into not only what they were
but also what their function on the network was. I learnt what and ABS was and
its function on the network of isolating faults and rerouting power. I also saw how
there has been a general move towards more automated forms of fault isolation
such as pole tops that are designed to trip when they see a fault and then
attempt to re-close again in case the fault was just line clashing or something
else with a temporary affect on the line. I also saw ABSs that were designed with
the capability to be switched remotely paving the way for the possible future
implementation of a smart grid.
On the network there was a number of load break ABSs (Air Break Switchs) that
had been incorrectly labelled as standard ABSs. I had the task of driving to
various different sites on the network and indentifying whether an ABS was load
break or not. Previous to this task I had little knowledge of what the difference
between the two switches was absolutely no knowledge of how to identify the
difference between the two of them. I am now able to easily identify them and
Part of my work was predominantly at an observation capacity as I did not have
the skills or qualifications to conduct the work myself. Some of this was the
observation of cable testing of a 33kV cable coming into a sub-station. This substation was over head with some very low bus bars. Given the low bus-bars at
the substation I learnt that in general never to lift your arms above your
shoulders. I was also exposed for the first time to the hazard sheet, which is a
key component in managing hazards and tracking different hazards that you may

be exposed to while working. Of course I was also required to where PPE inside
the sub-station to further mitigate risk.
Another part of my work that was predominantly observational was the
inspection of bridge holding the 33kV and 11kV cable in it. The inspection
involved use of a bucket truck to look at some of the corrosion and damage that
had taken place on the structure. I was exposed to a discussion between the civil
engineers and Electras electrical engineers as to what was the best course of
action for replacing the bridge, From which it was determined that the bridge
should be replaced within the 2 years.

Sub-professional
Standards are crucial as ensure that anything installed on the network is fit for
purpose and that any work being conducted on the network in conducted in the
safest manner possible. During with my time at Electra I worked on writing and
editing three different standards, Electricity Network Connection Standard,
Distribution Air Break Switch maintenance standard and the Minimum Spares
standard. This work involved writing and editing the standards to ensure that
they aligned the assets and practices on the Electra network. Through this work I
learnt many different things such as the ownership of service lines when
connecting power to a house, basic things to look for when conducting ABS
maintenance and the methodology behind the critical spares that Electra needs
to hold in order to ensure the safe and reliable operation of the network. Writing
these standards also involved consulting with the rest of the network team to
discuss any changes they think needed to be made to the document prior to it
being issued.
In order for my bosses to keep up with what is happening around the world in
terms of smart grids I was tasked with conducting some research. The purpose
of this research was to try and identify what is being done by other distribution
companies to make their networks smarter. This proved to be a relatively difficult
task because as I learned from my research the meaning of the term smart grid
was one that varied from place to place. One place would give it one definition
while some ware else would give it a slightly different one. However I did learn
some stand out features that seemed to characterise a smart grid, most notably
smart meters and network self healing. To date it appeared that most of the
significant investment into smart grids appeared to be investment into smart
meters. I learnt that self healing is the process of opening and closing switches
automatically to divert power and isolate faults to ensure that minimal
customers are affected by a fault hence having minimum effect on a networks
SADI numbers. There were of course other functions of a smart grid that I learnt
about such as obtaining dynamic ratings for transformers but these functions
were far rarer.
Fault probability analysis was a task that I significantly enjoyed while at Electra.
In the interest of continually improving the networks SAFI and SADI numbers, self
healing is being looked at. For the fault probability analysis I had to find out how
many customers were on any section of the feeder and following that how many

customers would be affected if a fault occurred on any part of the network. To

calculate the risk I used Electras numbers for faults per KM of lines and cables
and then multiplied this number by the length of the section and by the number
of customers in that section giving me a risk value. The analysis was done under
3 different operating conditions. The first being a vanilla case, being that if there
is a fault on any part of that feeder everyone on that feeder is affected. The
second being a current case, meaning that if a fault on the feeder occurred only
the customers downstream of the upstream pole top 11kV circuit breaker would
be affected. This case only considered pole tops currently working on the
network. And the third case being a smart case, meaning that if there is a fault
the switches open and close automatically in order to isolate and reroute power
around that fault. In conducting the smart analysis I assumed that all the
switches were able to instantly open and close simultaneously. Following these 3
basic cases I then did a fourth and fifth case both being variations of the smart
case. The fourth case done assuming only the automation of the switches that
already had remote capabilities installed and the fifth using the same switches
plus some extras that I identified would be able to have a significant impact on
reducing the risk of the system. This analysis is then used to determine the
possible benefits of implementing self heeling on the feeder.
Electra as any good company should be is always looking to improve the
operation of its network and one of the ways it has been looking at doing this is
possibly utilizing the data available from smart meters. Although not all the ICPs
currently have smart meters a large amount does and this is only going to
increase. In the interest of finding ways of making the data available from the
smart meters useful myself and a colleague were asked to look the information
from the smart meters and determine what could be done with it. The first part in
this process was attending a meeting with AMS who by far owns the most meters
on the network. During this I was able to see what a meeting looks like at a
professional level. During this meeting some ICPs were identified that may have
useful data for us to analyse and the usefulness of using Splunk was shown to us.
Splunk is a piece of software that is used analyzing large amounts of data. We
learnt how to search through the data and also plot it, this along with a premade
dash board given to us by AMS allowed us to look through the data to determine
some of its possible uses for the network team. One of these uses was using it
for when there is a voltage complaint, rather than putting a logger on the mains
at the ICP the smart meter may be able to show you weather there is an issue
there or not. We also identified that a current reading would also be very useful
when trying to find out what the issue is.
As mentioned in my previous paragraph Electra is always looking to improve
their operation and another way this is being done is through smart meters in
the transformers. The smart meters are all produced by Harvest Electronics who I
had the privilege of working for in my previous summer before this one. The data
from the smart meters retrieved via cellular communication and made available
via Harvests website. There are currently 9 smart meters installed in ground
mount transformers on the network ranging from 300kVA to 750kVA. My task
was to look at the data available from the transformers and find out what use it

could be to Electra. The idea is that by being able to monitor and analyse the
data from the transformers their nameplate rating might possibly be exceeded
and the life cycle of the asset may be able to be managed better. The smart
meters provided power factor, voltage and current for each phase as well as
temperature and power for the transformer. I looked at the temperature and then
looked at how it related to the increase in apparent power of the transformer. I
first needed to find the apparent power which I did by using the average power
factor across all 3 phases and multiplying it by the power. I ended up finding it
very difficult to find a consistent relationship between the two and even when I
was able to find one it off course varied with each transformer. The temperature
was off course going to be affected by the ambient temperature and the nature
of the loads on each respective transformer. After I had graphed data from each
transformer and attempted to find any relationships the next step is to look at
each transformer in terms of age ect and see if there is any correlations to be
found.
Security and safety is of the upmost concern for Electra and this is why I was
tasked with designing a new gate lock for one of Electras substations. The
previous gate lock involved a large heavy steel bar that when lifted up rested
unsafely on a piece of wood. If this large bar was to fall down for any reason it
was solid enough to break a mans arm or if there were people inside the
substation it could lock them is as theres no way to lift the bar from the outside.
I came up about 3 different ideas on what could replace the bar and presented
them to the team. The most basic of my 3 proposed solutions was chosen, which
involved removing the bar cutting some new holes in the wooden gate and using
a chain to lock the gate shut.
An AMP (Asset Management Plan) includes information on almost everything to
do with the network including its performance, any forecasted projects, what is
being done to mitigate risks and of course the budget. By reading the AMP right
though I learnt many different things about the network, such as the age of the
assets on the network and also were funds are allocated. The AMP is published
every year and of course every year its numbers had to be updated. One of my
tasks with the AMP was updating the graphs and charts. Part of this included
using crystal reports to fetch asset age data from NIMS (Network Information
Management System) and graphing it in excel to be imported into the AMP. I was
also tasked with updating the report on asset management maturity. Updating
this involved reading through a report written by an external consultant and
updating the AMP in line with the recommendations of the report. Some other
small tasks I completed on the AMP were updating the finical graphs and proof
reading the document for old dates.
An interesting thing I participated in with the help of a colleague was the
Mangahoa load study which was basically a study of how much the Mangahoa
power station would have to generate under varying loads, if the GXP at
Mangahoa did not exist. To do this we use a program called SINCAL which shows
how power would flow around the network and what parts of the network would
be constrained under the set conditions. Using this program was a valuable

insight as I would expect that I will be using programs similar to this one in the
future.

Reflection
As it can be seen from my description of work I undertook while at Electra there
was a wide range of skills to be learned and knowledge to be gained. The work I
completed that was of general nature taught me mostly about what made up a
reliable distribution network. I learnt not only what many of the various
components on the network looked like but also their function within the
network. Dropouts, Links, Air Break Switches, Pole tops, Fuse Savers, Indoor and
outdoor Circuit Breakers and Surge Arrestors are some on the components I was
able to gain a deeper knowledge about. Before my time with Electra I either had
no Idea what each of these components were or I had little knowledge of what
they looked like and how they operated. During my time at Electra I learnt a lot
about the general functions of components and their role within the network,
however I did not learn a lot about the technical aspects of these components.
Another one of the key things I learnt from my general work was the great
importance of safety on the network. Whenever we planned to enter a substation
or work site either we needed to have our own hazard sheet or we needed to
sign into one. If we were starting a new hazard sheet then we needed to contact
the control centre and notify them of our intensions on the network. Whenever I
entered a work site or substation I was required to were full PPE, which included
a hard hat, safety glasses, steel cap boots and fire retardant overalls. Of course
from being inside substations where there are low bus bars and live circuits
within close proximity I learnt other general safety practices of importance, such
as not lifting your arms above your shoulders and bad locking indoor circuit
breakers when someone is working with them. From my perspective from what I
saw both in the field and what I saw and heard being discussed in the office,
Electra as a company is performing very well in the area of safety and dose a lot
to ensure people working on the network are safe.
The knowledge that I gained from my sub-professional work is in many ways the
kind of knowledge that you would expect any young student working within a
professional environment to gain. I learnt what it was really like to work in a
professional environment and gained a glimpse of how some decisions are made.
I learnt what it was like to be part of professional meetings both internally and
externally. I was able to develop my organising and communication skills when I
had to organise a meeting to discuss part of a standard that I had been working
on. I was able to learn how people interact with each other in a professional
environment and off course I myself learnt a lot about interacting professionally.
Electra seemed to communicate well within the company and weekly meetings
were held within the Electra office to discuss what was happening throughout the
company. The Network team also had weekly meetings to discuss network
issues; I had the privilege of attending these meetings were I learnt a lot about
communication within the network.
Throughout my time at Electra I had the chance to use various programs to
perform different tasks. I had never even heard of programs such as splunk,

crystal reports and SINCAL before working at Electra. splunk is used for analysing
large amounts of data, crystal reports is used for extraction of data and
reporting on it and SINCAL is a power flow analysis program. I have not only
learnt what these programs are I have also learnt the basics of how to use them.
I believe this knowledge will help me in the future as it is more as I am now
exposed to a number of software packages that are often used. Although I did
learn about the prim functionalities of the programs due to my limited time at
Electra and the number of tasks I took part in, there is still much for me to learn
regarding the use of these programs.

Conclusion
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Electra and it gave me a great insight into the
power industry, not only within distribution but also an insight into retail,
generation and transmission. I have learn many things while working at Electra
that I believe will be of a great advantage to me as I progress through the rest of
my time at University and my career. I learnt that theres a lot of jargon that
needs to be learned in the Electrical industry and my time at Electra taught me a
decent amount of it, which I expect will better equip me for my future career. The
programs that I learnt to use will now make my learning barrier a lot smaller if I
ever have to use them again. I attend meetings weekly and learnt a great deal
about how employees interact together which taught me a lot about working in a
professional environment. All in all Electra was a great organisation to work at,
the people were friendly and always willing to help me out when I might ask for
it. The employees I worked with in most cases generally loved working for Electra
and many of them hade be working at Electra for a lengthy period of time. From
the work that I was able to complete and from the work I saw others completing
working at Electra genuinely motivated me to pursue a career in power
engineering. I look forward (if time presents its self) to working at Electra again
during holidays this year.