On 8^th January 2013 in Toulouse the annual meeting between the highest ranks of EDF and Sea Marconi took place. The meeting had the purpose of apprising the year just expired relative to the activities included in the framework agreement* existing between EDF and Sea Marconi, which since four years ago is charged with the analysis and the diagnosis of strategic transformers (in the thousands) of nuclear, thermal and hydroelectric power plants.

The appraisal provided by EDF has been extremely positive with an increment with respect to 2011 in terms of volumes, quality of the performances, diversification of the services with new analytical methods. Sea Marconi was able to respond positively to the requests by the Customer adjusting, for example, the diagnostic reports or implementing features of the data base systems to enhance communications and the management of the flow of information. The seventeen managers present in Toulouse really appreciated our capability in responding to extreme complex problems and dealing with them as challenges by founding pioneering solutions that under different circumstances have even anticipated what was prescribed by the norms of the sector.

The 2013 activities plan for a consolidation of the results both in quantitative and qualitative terms, investigating new areas of interest with the development of new products already in a research phase.

For Sea Marconi participated to the meeting the founder and main partner Vander Tumiatti, the sales manager Luc Van Den Bogaert and the laboratory manager Riccardo Maina.

Link to the EDF letter of reference relative to the framework agreement in effect since 2009

*Through the years Sea Marconi obtained and achieved the confidence of EDF which renewed several times the multi-year contract for the assistance contract for the management of environmental crises, the contract for the analysis and diagnosis of transformers and equipment with insulating fluids, the contract for the dehalogenation of transformers with PCBs (concluded last December).

During the last week in November, Sea Marconi received a delegation coming from the Philippines.

The Sea Marconi’s experts have visited the Republic of the Philippines several times (we have already reported in April 2011 the official invitation to Vander Tumiatti as expert in the management and decontamination of electrical equipment with insulating fluids) and thanks to the competency provided, the project moved to a further step. Sea Marconi prepared for the Philippines a technical-scientific dossier that in the last two years has been subject to an accurate and severe analysis. The visit last November had the objective of accrediting the Sea Marconi technology, verifying and evaluating the company and its operational procedures. The delegation was composed by Reynaldo L. Esguerra (Supervising Science Research Specialist), Prima Joy F. Margarito (Science Research Specialist I) and Lorna M. Egay (Senior Science Research Specialist), belonging to the environment and bio-technology division of the “The Industrial Technology Development Institute” (ITDI), the national government agency for the validation and accrediting of methods and new technologies in the Republic of the Philippines.

The audit by the Filipino representatives continued in the days thereafter in France at an important 240 MVA tidal steam power plant, where the Filipino experts had the chance to see first handed how an integrated treatment for the dehalogenation, depolarisation and decontamination process with the ON-LOAD H24 method(transformer energised and under load) carried out on a power transformer GSU 80 MVA, 35,000 kg of oil and a 225 kV voltage.

Sea Marconi, thanks to the leadership developed at international level, is configuring as an ideal partner by offering BAT-BEP (Best Environmental Technique – Best Environmental Practice) solutions finalised toward a Smart LCM (Life Cycle Management). In this specific instance, “PCBs Free” Program responds to the decontamination requirements from PCBs, fully complying with the Convention of Stockholm relative to POPs and the norm CENELEC (CLC/TR 50503)..

Sea Marconi aims at conserving resources through the complete decontamination of the oils contained by electrical equipment that can, in this way, to be kept in operation. This means preventing the production of wastes, disposal, incineration, management costs for contaminated materials.Sea Marconi provides the interventions with Decontamination Mobile Units (DMUs) which dehalogenate and detoxify the PCBs present in the transformer and the oil that recovers the optimised dielectric properties, in compliance with norm IEC 60422. The CDP Process® against PCBs is carried out on-site (also with the transformer in operation), in continuous mode, closed-loop without even a partial draining of the transformer. With a population of about 97 mil. inhabitants, the Philippines is the twelfth most populated Country worldwide. The economy is supported mostly by livestock, fishing and tourism, but, considering its strategically favourable position, there are enormous economic potentials that could come from commerce. In fact, the Philippines are implementing a very attentive environmental policy. For this reason, the Sea Marconi’s technology is surely one of the best to be implemented.

After the accreditation of the test of PCBs in February 2009, Sea Marconi has obtained last November 2010 from ACCREDIA a brilliant confirmation, by extending the accreditation to the tests of dissolved gases (DGA*, dissolved water and furanic compounds)* (see here below the detail of the accredited tests).

Created form the combination of SINAL and SINCERT, ACCREDIA is the only organism authorised by the Italian State to perform accreditation activities.

Once more the work of the Accredia inspectors in Sea Marconi, was not limited exclusively to a scrupulous evaluation of the technical and organisational procedures of the laboratory, but also to a keen check of the qualification of human and instrumental resources in all the areas of the company involved in the testing and calibration activities.

With this additional accreditation, the Sea Marconi laboratory becomes one among very few laboratories worldwide (the only one in Italy) able to offer a package of accredited tests fundamental in the diagnosis of electrical equipment with insulating fluids.

Thus, the accreditation brand on the Sea Marconi’s test report “operates as a passport on international markets, where the holder is not required to have its product, service or its professionalism subject to additional tests, inspections or verifications” [web site Accredia, page International Agreements pag. Accordi internazionali].

The accreditation of the single tests ensures that Sea Marconi’s laboratory on one side is fully complying with the analysis procedures and methods on the single matrices and in particular with the requisites of standard ISO IEC 17025 relative to the uncertainty of measurement, on the other side that it implements a constant monitoring of the performances also with the participation to international inter-laboratories circuits (RRT – Round Robin Test or Proficiency Test) achieving scores (Z score) of absolute excellency.

Thus, the Sea Marconi test report gets a specific relevance in legal terms, when required, and a full compliance with the Directives, implementation Laws or Technical standards of the sector (IEC, CENELEC, CEI, etc.) ensuring an independent and expert evaluation of the domain (since 1968, with 42 years of activity in over 30 Countries). The Sea Marconi test report, together with the other evaluation parameters, is dynamically interpreted (with the diagnostic algorithms and the Sea Marconi data bank on over 60,000 equipment) to ensure the best diagnostic coverage for the management of the life cycle (Life Cycle Management – LCM) of fleets of equipment with insulating fluids, strategic units in the generation, transportation, distribution and use of energy.Sea Marconi operates for the prevention of damages through the classification of the type and priorities of the functional and environmental criticalities as well as the correlated countermeasures to prevent and/or mitigate risks.

Sea Marconi opera per la prevenzione dei danni attraverso la classificazione del tipo e priorità delle criticità funzionali e/o ambientali nonché delle correlate contromisure per prevenire e/o mitigare i rischi.

*Complete list of the tests (6) in revision 2 of 23-11-2010

An asterisk in the first column indicates that, for the corresponding test, the Laboratory has discontinued the issue of reports with the SINAL brand.

Read more:

• Search of the laboratories accredited ACCREDIA
• EA (European Accreditation)
• IAF (International Accreditation Forum)