Fiji Electricity Authority has recently awarded NOJA Power a new contract for the supply of another 30 pole-mounted auto reclosers. They are to be installed across FEA's network to further sectionalize radial feeders. The plan will increase reliability of the network as well as add remote-controlled points. Remote control is provided using a combination of radio and GSM telephone networks and significantly reduces long-term operating costs.
This is the third contract of supply FEA has awarded to NOJA Power for the supply of the OSM recloser product over the last four years.
FEA chose NOJA Power OSM pole-mounted auto reclosers because it is possible to grade them in series on a feeder down to 100 ms. Therefore it is possible for to install up to eight reclosers in series on the feeder - and still grade with zone substation protection. This is considered a significant advantage over using a combination of reclosers and sectionalizers.
When sectionalizers are used, it can cause wider outage regions on the feeders, and FEA wants to eliminate that potential problem wherever possible. The NOJA Power solution offers the best option to achieve this.
By using all reclosers only the faulted section of the feeder is forced to have an outage instead of much larger sections of the feeder.
As part of the NOJA Power contract of supply, NOJA Power will also provide an engineer to conduct protection grading seminars and assist with the remote control configuration and integration to FEA's SCADA system.