According to AETI, more than 50% of arc faults injuries occur during electrical maintenance when an operator is standing in front of the equipment.

By designing remote circuit breaker racking, maintenance workers can rack in and rack the circuit breakers from a safe distance away. The wind power switchgear also incorporates a ground safety switch, interlocked with the circuit breaker, enabling the operator to ground incoming cables during maintenance, reducing exposure to accidental electrical back feed.

AETI says its wind farm switchgear provides protection for high impedance faults, where fault currents may not reach the required level to trip conventional breaker trip settings.

AETI’s wind farm switchgear provides 40 kV power distribution at 3000 A continuous duty, enabling more wind power to be delivered to the grid per collector line. The wind farm switchgear also has a 40 kA interrupting rating, enabling wind farm developers to connect to high-capacity power grids.

By offering 170 kV basic impulse level (BIL), the substation and wind farm are provided increased resilience lightening strikes, AETI says. The system also uses vacuum-based circuit breaker technology that eliminates use of toxic sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) gas and continual recharging maintenance services.