Current Status of Power Environment Monitoring System and Its Role in Power Supply Maintenance

With the widespread application of new services and technologies in the communications industry, the scale and capacity of operators' network construction are getting larger and larger, and the risk of network security operation is also increasing. This puts higher requirements on the stability and security of communication power supply, and the role of communication power supply in ensuring the stable operation of the entire network is becoming more and more important. In this context, it is imperative to further improve the maintenance and management level of communication power supply and better ensure the security of the network.

In recent years, major operators have successively introduced power and environmental monitoring systems to achieve "centralization, standardization, informatization, and intelligence" in the management of power maintenance work, and improve production efficiency through centralization, reduce maintenance costs through standardization, and provide data support and sharing through informatization and intelligence, so as to achieve the purpose of improving efficiency, reducing costs, and enhancing corporate competitiveness. However, due to the relatively short history of the development of power and environmental monitoring systems, it is necessary to fully understand the advantages and disadvantages of power and environmental monitoring systems in order to give full play to their role.

1 Current status of power and environmental monitoring systems

Although the power and environment monitoring system versions used by various operators are different, their overall structure and functions are basically similar. From the perspective of actual application, there is still a certain gap between these monitoring systems and the work requirements of Beijing Mobile. The main manifestations are as follows:

(1) Monitoring functions are becoming increasingly sophisticated, but data management and analysis capabilities are still weak

The power and environment monitoring system is mainly based on the developer's ideas in terms of functions and operation methods, and is not closely integrated with the daily maintenance needs of power supply and air conditioning equipment. With the continuous improvement of the degree of electronic maintenance work, the maintenance mode of power supply and air conditioning equipment has also changed, and the demand for data analysis and data statistics in daily maintenance work has continued to increase. However, the current monitoring system focuses mainly on traditional remote control, telemetry, teleadjustment and telesignaling functions, and there are obvious deficiencies in data statistics, data analysis and reporting.

(2) Monitoring system alarm information needs to be optimized based on local conditions

Since the monitoring system monitors a wide variety of devices, the intelligence levels of the devices are different, the signal definitions between different devices are very different, and the alarm information is also different. How to sort out the most critical and accurate alarm information from the huge and complex signals, so as to achieve timely and accurate alarms and efficient and rapid remote processing is the key to the monitoring system.

Since the equipment conditions of each company are different, in order to improve the accuracy and intuitiveness of the alarm, the signal volume of the monitoring system must be optimized and sorted out in combination with the actual equipment conditions. Take the Emerson power and environmental monitoring system used by our company as an example. The system has been under large-scale construction since 2003. In 2006, the system's signal volume reached more than 40,000. With the continuous increase of access equipment, the current system's signal volume has exceeded more than 200,000. How to extract the most important and accurate information points from such a huge amount of signals is the key to achieving accurate and efficient alarms. In response to this situation, Beijing Mobile organized monitoring personnel to carry out several large-scale signal sorting and optimization work, merged related alarms, and standardized and standardized the relevant alarm information in combination with actual maintenance experience.

The optimization of power and environmental monitoring systems is a huge and complicated project. The maintenance personnel engaged in monitoring system optimization must not only have considerable computer knowledge, but also have an in-depth understanding of power supply, air conditioning and environmental equipment and combine actual maintenance work experience to achieve efficient and accurate goals. In order to reduce maintenance costs, many companies currently use the model of socialized maintenance for their monitoring systems. In this context, system optimization has become more important. Only a power and environmental monitoring system that takes reality as its starting point, meets work needs, and can greatly improve work efficiency is a truly good system.

2. Use power and environmental monitoring systems to improve power maintenance

2.1 Using power and environmental monitoring systems to detect potential faults

In the old maintenance mode, a lot of maintenance work needs to be done on site, and it is difficult to find hidden troubles of equipment failure in advance on site. The operation of power and environment monitoring system provides a solution to this problem.

Before a device fails, there are often certain warning alarms, which will be reported through the monitoring system. By counting and analyzing the number and frequency of alarm information and combining it with maintenance work experience, it is possible to estimate the potential fault hazards of the equipment. For example, frequent low-voltage alarms of air conditioners, rectifier module fault alarms, frequent communication anomalies of air conditioners or power supply equipment, and frequent humidifier fault alarms of air conditioners are often precursors to equipment failures. During their daily duty, the monitoring staff will promptly count and analyze the operation of the equipment and notify the maintenance staff in the relevant areas of the results. Facts have proved that this method has achieved good results in discovering safety hazards many times.

In addition, discovering safety hazards through real-time data from the monitoring system is also an aspect that needs to be emphasized. Discovering problematic batteries through the monitoring system during battery discharge tests is also a typical application. Figure 1 is a screenshot of the author using the monitoring system to discover problematic batteries during routine battery discharge tests while on duty. Due to the timely feedback of the alarm to the on-site discharge personnel, on-site measurements found that the battery function had completely lost, and the discharge test was decisively terminated, and the problematic battery was replaced in time, avoiding a larger safety accident. Figure 2 shows that a single cell voltage of a Lennox UPS at a certain station appeared high during an automatic discharge process. The monitoring duty personnel promptly informed the local maintenance personnel of the alarm situation and took corresponding measures to eliminate the safety hazard.

Figure 1: The interface of the monitoring system discharging test to find the problem battery

Figure 2 The interface of the battery with a problem found during UPS automatic discharge

Use the power and environmental monitoring system to discover potential faults, so that faults can be discovered and handled early, eliminating potential faults in the initial stage and reducing operational risks.

2.2 Improving the monitoring system processing capability by implementing monitoring system alarm information standardization

The alarm information contained in the power and environment monitoring system is very large. The communication protocols of power supply and air conditioning equipment of different models and manufacturers are different. Even the definition of the same signal is different for equipment from different manufacturers and different batches of products. If the alarm information is not standardized and the equipment is directly connected to the monitoring system, it will inevitably lead to a variety of alarm information, which will greatly affect the specific judgment of the alarm information by the on-duty personnel and is likely to cause safety accidents such as delays in fault handling. Especially in the situation where social maintenance is widely adopted in monitoring systems, it is more important to standardize the alarm information.

The standardization of alarm information is a complex system engineering project, which requires the standardization of alarm information based on actual maintenance experience.

The same signal quantity definitions and alarm levels of different devices are made the same, and repetitive and related alarms are merged and simplified to improve the accuracy of monitoring system alarms and minimize the interference of false alarms, erroneous alarms and repeated alarms, thereby achieving accurate and concise alarms, greatly improving the timeliness of alarm discovery and minimizing the time limit for fault handling.

2.3 Monitoring system promotes the electronicization of maintenance work and improves work efficiency

Due to historical reasons, the degree of electronicization and automation of power and environmental support work is relatively low, and the work is highly repetitive and the workload is large. However, with the development of electronic computer technology, the electronicization and automation of maintenance work has continued to deepen, especially the operation of power and environmental monitoring systems has not only greatly improved the timeliness and accuracy of alarm discovery, but also realized the unmanned operation of most bureau rooms and the remote processing of some maintenance work, freeing maintenance personnel from the traditional complicated maintenance work.

Beijing Mobile Company has developed battery discharge test reports, battery routine maintenance reports, alarm information automatic statistics, power statistics, etc. based on the business management functions of Emerson's power and environmental monitoring system in accordance with its own work needs. These functions have greatly improved work efficiency. Taking the battery discharge test as an example, the previous discharge test required multiple maintenance personnel to repeatedly measure and record the voltage value of each battery on site to find the problem battery. For those large number of UPS battery packs, this is undoubtedly a complicated task, especially when there are problem batteries in the discharged battery pack, the traditional manual measurement method of each battery will cause major safety hazards of over-discharge. However, the power and environmental monitoring system only needs to click the mouse to accurately and timely record the entire discharge test process during the battery discharge test. Once a problem occurs, the monitoring system will promptly issue an alarm to eliminate the hidden danger.

The electronicization of maintenance work will continue to improve with the intensification of business competition and the advancement of technology, and the role of power and environmental monitoring systems in improving the level of power supply maintenance work will gradually become apparent.

3 Conclusion

Combining the characteristics of power and environmental monitoring systems with the needs of actual maintenance and management work, further in-depth exploration of the monitoring system has important practical significance in order to maximize the efficiency of maintenance work, reduce maintenance costs, and enhance the overall competitiveness of enterprises.