Identification of Visible Isolation for Substations Maintenance Using Graph Theory
Samuel Marín López, Juan Sebastian Salazar Luna, Alejandro Garcés · 2023
Maintenance in a high-voltage substation is a risky task. One of the crucial steps is to identify visible isolation in order to guarantee safe operation. This paper presents a mathematical model that seeks to automate the identification of visible isolation in maintenance power transmission substations through a graphical user interphase and an algorithm based on graph theory. This toolbox, developed in Python, reduces maintenance time and provides safe isolation by de-energizing parts of an electrical network, transmission line, and power transformer. The paper is practical-oriented and based on the experience of the transmission system operator in Colombia. However, it uses the formalism of graph theory to analyze visible isolation. Theoretical questions, such as the uniqueness of the cut and the existence of loops, directly affect the safety of the people who make the maintenances.