Flooding: our lab ready for action!
Following the bad weather in July, our lab was called upon to check the state of the oil in the transformers affected by the floods.
The Valais region was hit by exceptional flooding at the beginning of the summer, and some of our customers’ facilities – whether covered by framework contracts or not – were particularly hard hit. Some transformers were partially submerged, others completely.
The team at our analysis laboratory in Martigny was called in to intervene as a matter of urgency. Its mission: to check the oil in the transformers for water so as to avoid any risk of problems when the installations were restarted. If the amount of water in the oil exceeds the acceptable limit, there is a risk that the electric current will flow through the oil and the transformer will “blow”. Measuring dielectric strength is also very important and closely linked to water content.
Valuable support from the RMM workshop
Prior to the laboratory analyses, the team carried out almost 10 emergency interventions in the field. In the most difficult cases, it was able to count on the support of colleagues in the Mechanical Overhaul and Assembly (RMM) workshop.
Finally, thanks to everyone’s responsiveness, the transformers which had been flooded and for which the analyses were satisfactory were quickly put back into service.
