Sistema automatizado de mantenimiento centrado en confiabilidad (MCC) para proyectos de electrificación rural con sistemas individuales fotovoltaicos en la amazonía ecuatoriana

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to develop an automated system of Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM) to enable the Regional Electricity Company CENTROSUR CA monitoring the operational reliability of the project "YantsaIi Etsari" (“Light from our sun”), contributing to its sustainability. The project is developed in the isolated communities located in the Amazon region, within the concession area of Centrosur (province of Morona Santiago). To achieve this objective an RCM methodology is proposed for the stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) systems that are part of the project, using the technique Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), which is based on calculating Risk Priority Index (RPI) in order to prioritize the potential cause of failure for possible corrective actions. Data collection was approached in two phases.The first phase consisted of collecting historical failure data in equipment of stand-alone photovoltaic systems of the Yantsa Ii Etsari project, information available in the Centrosur CA database. In the second phase, the authors conducted field visits to twenty five Amazonian communities benefiting from the project in order to collect data through surveys as well as visually checking the status of PV systems. With the raised information, an analysis was performed to prioritize critical equipment using the technique Criticality Analysis (CA), and once the equipmentwas hierarchized, possible causes of the failures were identified through the technique Root Cause Analysis (RCA). Finally theRCM methodologywas implemented in Microsoft Access software, indicating the steps to follow for optimal use of this automated system and demonstrating, through an example,how effective might be RCMin regard to maintenance of stand-alone photovoltaic systems of the Yantsa Ii Etsari project.