Circuit Breakers and Switchgear

SF6 monitoring and early leak detection

SF6 gas protects your circuit breakers and switchgear – but a leak is rarely caught in time through manual inspections. With continuous monitoring, you see the condition of your equipment in real time, long before it becomes a problem.

Circuit breakers and switchgear are critical components in every substation. They protect the grid, enable safe switching – and many of them rely on SF6 gas for insulation and arc quenching. At higher voltage levels, the gas is often found in standalone high-voltage circuit breakers. In medium-voltage networks, it is usually sealed inside compact gas-insulated switchgear. Wherever it sits, the condition of the gas is a direct indicator of the equipment’s health: a drop in pressure or a change in density is an early warning sign that something isn’t right.

The problem is that traditional inspections happen too infrequently. By the time a leak is discovered, it has often been going on for a long time – with both environmental impact and a risk of equipment failure as a result.

The EU ban on new SF6 equipment in medium-voltage networks – where the gas is typically found in switchgear – came into force in January 2026, and from 2035 the restrictions also apply to the servicing and maintenance of existing installations. Throughout this transition, older circuit breakers and switchgear will remain in operation and need careful oversight. Having full visibility of them – what condition they’re in and how they change over time – is what makes the transition manageable.

Gomero Connect connects to pressure or density sensors on your circuit breakers and switchgear and collects data continuously, around the clock. Via Gomero Hub, the data is sent to Gomero Insights, where you see real-time status and trends over time, and receive automatic alerts – long before a leak reaches critical levels.

It’s the same solution whether the gas sits in a breaker or in switchgear. All the data is gathered in one place, alongside the rest of the substation’s assets – giving you the full picture rather than a separate system for each component.

Your field technicians have all the information they need in Gomero Field when they’re out at the substation. No manual logging, no paper trails, no uncertainty about what applies.

The solution is sensor-agnostic and works with all types of pressure and density sensors – making it future-proof even as the industry transitions to alternative insulating gases.

SF6 monitoring for circuit breakers and switchgear is part of Gomero Predict — our complete system for predictive maintenance of substations. You keep your existing systems; we add the intelligence layer. Start with one sensor, scale to your entire grid at your own pace.