Because of his first-hand experiences in the detection of these special kinds of faults, we have been gladly cooperating with Prof. Suttichai Premrudeepreechacharn from Chiang Mai University who is also an expert in HIF simulations and field tests.

In the first stage of our development process, we have deeply studied the phenomenon of HIFs and the theoretical background of the possible solutions. We recognized the common characteristics in HIFs regardless of the type of fault surface (concrete, soil or grass etc.), then we implemented our unique detection solution based on the deep analysis of the fault currents.

In the next stage, we sent our first HIF protection relay prototype to ECTI, our partner in Thailand. Our device was under intensive real-time simulation testing which included different kinds of HIFs, even with broken conductors and it was also tested for non-faulty cases like load switching, nonlinear loads, or capacitor switching. We have performed all these simulation tests with a very high (>99%) success rate.

The next step in our development process is to try out our new HIF protection under real-life conditions at a substation in Thailand with the help of our partner ECTI.

At Protecta, we always try to be at the edge of new technologies and be a reliable partner to our customers. We strongly believe that this kind of competent R&D cooperation can contribute to our continued professional success.