Presented by Albert Livshitz and Seth Kravetz, Qualus Power Services

Life extension of the existing distribution switchgear becomes a very important topic for utilities and industrials facilities nowadays. Overloaded production lines of the switchgear manufacturers, availability (lack) of spare parts, supply chain interruptions created many problems for the operation and maintenance personnel in power distribution networks. One of the solutions to modernize and extend the life of the existing switchgear is to retrofill it using vacuum circuit breakers together with digital protection relays and power meters. Switchgear retrofill allows to increase the withstand and short circuit interrupting ratings of the existing switchgear. It is reducing the operation and maintenance cost by providing a more reliable power supply for the users with less emergency power interruptions. It improves the safety for the operation and maintenance personnel by introducing remote operation of the medium voltage breakers. The new protection schemes allow for significant reductions of the arc flash incident energy which affects not only the retrofilled switchgear but also the downstream equipment. The design and implementation of the retrofill solution has to be done in strict compliance with the requirements of IEEE C37.59 Standard for Conversion of Power Switchgear equipment.