Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The reliability of our electric power infrastructure is of critical importance to our modern society. The economic impact of power outages and power quality issues is estimated to cost North American businesses over $100 billion per year. Recent weather events, such as heat waves and ice storms, have demonstrated the need for emergency resilience. Modernizing efforts are underway to enable increased reliability and reduced cost, and include sensors for intelligent monitoring of transmission line current, voltage, phase, temperature, high voltage infrastructure condition and atmospheric conditions.This CRD project will develop DC electric field micro-sensors for the monitoring of utility infrastructure and atmospheric condition. Currently, electric field mills are often implemented for the measurement of DC fields, however, they suffer from reliability issues and battery life limitations. In contrast, the proposed micro-electromechanical based sensors would offer compact size and low power operation, and the potential ability to measure 60 Hz AC electric fields. These reliable and low cost sensors would be highly valued, as they could provide real-time monitoring of high voltage infrastructure, often located in remote locations far from urban areas. Benefits can include monitoring of atmospheric conditions, ionic charge build-up, prediction of dangerous flashover conditions, identification of faulty insulators, and safety sensors for live-line maintenance. DC field micro-sensors would also be valued in other industries to predict hazardous static discharge conditions such as in explosives storage, mining, aerospace, and chemical processing.This project is in collaboration with Manitoba Hydro and the Manitoba HVDC Research Centre. Research will focus on force deflected and vibratory micro-mechanical sensors. Packaging of sensors in electric field permeable enclosures will be developed, as well as housings for use in ionic and outdoor environments.