CAM-346

The flash nobody was there to see

Seven minutes past two in the afternoon. A white flash bursts out of the transformer bushings, throwing sparks, and in the same second a column of black smoke starts to climb. There is nobody in the yard. An electrical arc lasts less than a blink: by the time anyone arrives, all that is left is the smoke and a dead machine. The camera has it, with the exact second and the piece of equipment it came from.

CAM-346 · HV SWITCHYARD · ARC FLASH

What IRIS understands

What it recognises in this scene

flash at the bushings
column of smoke
transformer tank
switching cabinet
yard switchgear

What this camera measures

An alert says something is happening. The reading says how much.

14:07:32Time of the flash, to the second
< 1 sHow long the flash lasts on camera
30 sVideo kept from before the flash
2 minSmoke in frame for
0People in the compound at that instant

The figures on this screen are an example from the illustration, not any client's measurement.

The rule

You decide once. IRIS applies it always.

an intense flash or an arc appears in the yard along with smoke in the same view

Then

alert the control room right away with the camera and the exact second of the flash
keep the video from half a minute before the flash
mark on the picture the equipment the arc came from

The instruction that set it up«If a flash or an arc goes off in the yard, I want the video with the exact second and the equipment it came from, even if nobody is there.»

What changes

What changes for whoever answers for the plant

After an event like this, the question is not what happened: it is when, and on which piece of equipment. The investigation, the incident report and the spare-part order all hang on that answer. Without pictures, it all gets rebuilt from logs and from what can be seen the next day. With the camera there is a video holding the instant, the equipment involved and the seconds before it, which are usually the ones that explain the arc. The difference between guessing and knowing is a handful of frames.

What people usually ask

Can IRIS prevent an electrical arc?

No. IRIS does not switch anything, does not trip anything and does not replace the site's electrical protection, which acts on its own and long before anyone looks at a screen. What the camera adds is what the protection does not store: the picture of the instant, the equipment the arc came from and the seconds before it. That is what is needed afterwards, to understand why it happened.

What if the arc lasts less than a single frame?

An arc leaves traces beyond the flash itself: the smoke, the spray of sparks and the visible change on the equipment. IRIS marks the frame of the flash and keeps the video from before it, so the later analysis has both the moment and the context. We do not promise to see everything that happens in a blink. We promise that whatever the camera did record is found right away, instead of being hunted for by hand through hours of video.

Do you need a thermal camera for this?

Not for the flash: an ordinary camera sees it, at night as well. Thermal is for what comes before, for reading heat build-up on a bushing or a connection while there is still no smoke or flame. If the substation already has thermal cameras fitted, IRIS works with them just like with the rest. In neither case does it replace the machine's own protection.

Other cameras