Condition-based maintenance: a proactive approach to protecting grid infrastructure

A fixed maintenance schedule provides reassurance, but it rarely reflects what is actually happening inside the equipment. The result is that faults develop between intervals, resources are spent on assets that do not need attention, and critical anomalies sometimes escalate into failures before they are detected. That is precisely what condition-based maintenance is designed to change.

Rather than maintaining according to a fixed schedule, the approach is built on continuous data: measurements and sensors that provide an ongoing picture of each asset's actual status. Maintenance is planned when the data indicates it is warranted, making it possible to act at the right time, before a fault has the chance to escalate.

The figures within transformer maintenance are worth pausing on. Approximately one in 200 transformers fails each year¹, and 80 percent of the costs associated with scrapped transformers can be linked to faults in active parts². Perhaps most striking is that offline oil analysis, one of the most common inspection methods, only detects around 25 percent of transformer faults³. Three out of four faults therefore risk going undetected until they become acute problems.

That is a strong argument for supplementing with continuous condition monitoring. Transformers also have long lead times when failures occur, meaning a fault identified early can make the difference between planned maintenance and costly unplanned outages.

It is possible to start small and scale gradually. In practice, it comes down to four steps.

1. Collect relevant data from your assets. In some cases the necessary measurement equipment is already in place but not fully utilised; in others it needs to be supplemented with sensors.
2. Store and structure the data so that it is accessible for analysis.
3. Interpret what the measurements actually indicate and translate them into decisions. Data does not create value in itself; understanding it does.
4. Bring everything together in a platform that connects the full chain, from data collection to analysis and decision. That is what gives the entire maintenance organisation the right conditions to actually act on what the data shows.

These are precisely the steps our platform is built to handle, so that your maintenance team can work with confidence and full control.

It does not have to be a big step. Most start with a specific problem and build from there. With grids becoming increasingly complex and demands continuing to grow, one thing is clear: the organisations that start building this capability now will have an advantage that is difficult to recover later.

Building condition-based maintenance does not have to be a journey you take on your own. At Gomero we work closely with our customers, from mapping your specific needs and conditions to supporting you as you scale over time. Our solution takes you from sensor all the way through to insight and concrete action, and we stay with you as a partner throughout.

Would you like to see what this could look like for your organisation? Get in touch and we can explore it together.

¹CIGRE TB 642, 2015 ²Transformer Reliability Survey, CIGRÉ WG A2.37, IET, 4, 474–485 ³IEEE C57.143