Tollgrade Launches Smart Grid Sensor For Voltage Monitoring

Tollgrade Communications Inc. announced the availability of their LightHouse Medium Voltage Power Sensor, an all-in-one line sensor for monitoring voltage and current that requires no calibration, batteries or additional pole mounted equipment.

This hot stick deployable, inductively powered voltage sensor measures voltage with a 0.5 percent accuracy. This new disruptive smart grid sensor technology is positioned to help utilities meet 21st century grid modernization demands, while reducing installation, operations and maintenance costs.

Today’s utilities need to much more actively monitor and manage their voltage levels from the substation throughout the entire distribution network. As more sources of distributed generation are introduced from alternative energy sources such as solar and wind, they change the profile of how power is flowing through the grid, making intermediate voltage measurements on a feeder a requirement. In addition, by monitoring voltage, utilities can increase grid efficiency.

Other voltage measurement solutions such as line post sensors take several hours to be installed and often require more than one crew. Some sensors require batteries or solar panels, which add to high maintenance costs, and others have delicate optical cables that run down the utility pole to an additional box, requiring calibration, and are more likely to get damaged in installation or by environmental wear and tear.

High accuracy voltage, current and fault impedance measurements provide valuable real-time inputs to key planning models and control applications including supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, distribution management systems (DMS) and volt/VAR applications.