A day of HCMC electrical repairmen

(VEN) - Ho Chi Minh City is experiencing a dry, hot spell. We are given an opportunity to follow electrical repairmen working in Tan Binh Districts Hoang Viet Street.

At the site of a substation installation, eight people are hard at work. Luan Quoc Hung, head of the Ho Chi Minh City Power Corporations Technical Department, explains that the team is installing a new substation for a French supermarket.

When the hotline repairing technology was not applied, the team had to cut power for four to five hours to install and repair substations. Each small substation usually supply to about 1,000 households. Therefore, power cuts had caused effects on their lives.

Nguyen Thanh Tung, one of the team members, says installing a substation requires six to eight people working continuously from five to seven hours. The hotline repair technology can be applied at any time if the weather is dry. His team is currently in charge of the Tan Binh, Gia Dinh and Cho Lon areas. Every year, Tungs team has to make 500-600 repairs. At peak times, such as the weeklong Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday, his team has to be on duty.

The most difficult aspects of applying the hotline repair technology are narrow terrain, complex grid structure, crowded working area, asynchronous materials and untested equipment. Therefore, the preparation and coordination must be careful and well balanced. To reduce pressure, Tung hopes the corporation will arrange more teams.

Ho Chi Minh City Power Corporation Deputy General Director Nguyen Van Thanh says the hotline repairing technology has contributed to reducing power losses, improving reliability of power supplies and a decline of breakdowns. The corporation plans to hold training courses to increase the number of repair teams.

Thanks to the application of the hotline repair technology, the systems average interruption frequency index (SAIFI) dropped from 25.04 times in 2011 to 5.11 times in 2016, while the system average interruption duration index (SAIDI) declined from 3,433 minutes in 2011 to 514 minutes in 2016.

The corporation says it strives to reduce SAIFI to under five times a year and SAIDI to less than 410 minutes a year in 2017. By 2020, SAIDI will not last longer than 100 minutes a year and SAIFI no more than once a year, Thanh said.

The Ho Chi Minh City Power Corporation is not only the first unit to successfully apply hotline repair technology, but also has a lot of experience in training its workers.