Energy Talks

In this episode of Energy Talks, we dive into the world of high-voltage testing under the unique and varied field conditions found throughout Latin America. Joining us to share his first-hand testing experience in this region is Yefersson Cañon, an OMICRON power system testing expert who has many years of field experience in Latin America. Throughout his career, Yefersson has served as an Applications Engineer, a Sales Manager for South America, and Manager of OMICRON’s Mexico City office. He now heads OMICRON’s Partial Discharge Testing and Monitoring division in Berlin, Germany, and continues to work with power system testing customers in Latin America.

Yefersson focuses on regional circuit breaker testing practices, characterizing the common types of equipment in use, and he explores the specific maintenance and power system testing requirements of local testing engineers.

Drawing from his experience in working closely with power utilities and industrial plants across Latin America, Yefersson also highlights the specific technical standards, safety practices, and real-world problem-solving strategies he encountered in the field. Lastly, he describes the critical role of grid diagnostics during disaster recovery and looks ahead at the future trends shaping the power sector in Latin America.

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In this episode of Energy Talks, OMICRON Cybersecurity Expert Simon Rommer launches an essential new mini-series focused on operational technology (OT) cybersecurity countermeasures in the power industry. Instead of just chasing the latest tech trends or treating security like a generic checklist, this series takes a step back to ask a fundamental question: Countermeasures—what for, and against what?

Through a mix of solo deep-dives and expert guest interviews, the series explores how to bridge the gap between theoretical security and the messy reality of utility operations.

To help utilities navigate their own security journeys, Simon introduces a structured, six-question framework that will guide every upcoming episode. This framework shifts the conversation away from superficial bullet points and toward measurable, sustainable risk reduction. It also introduces a three-tiered maturity model designed to help teams identify exactly when a countermeasure makes sense to implement, preventing organizations from building on a weak foundation.

Whether you are an OT architect, a protection engineer, or a utility manager, this kick-off episode sets the stage for a practical, field-tested roadmap to true operational resilience. Tune in to discover how to maximize your security impact, evaluate your current maturity level, and learn how you can submit your own real-world challenges to be featured in upcoming episodes.

Get more information about OT Cybersecurity for the Power Grid.

This Energy Talks episode explains how dynamic resistance measurements (DRM) can be used to perform timing tests safely and accurately on circuit breakers grounded on both sides.

OMICRON product manager and testing expert Andreas Nenning shares his hands-on experience with this field-proven method, turning a long-standing “maybe” into a practical, trustworthy procedure.

Andreas explains why resistance-based timing is the only workable option in grounded field conditions, how grounding resistance affects the measurement, and why a simple threshold mistake can throw off your results.

Andreas and his co-authors Simon Böcking and Hugo Brummelhuis presented a paper on this subject at CIGRE 2026 that draws on their practical field experience to help test engineers work faster and safer without sacrificing accuracy.

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In this episode, OMICRON OT cybersecurity expert Simon Rommer speaks with Andreas Happe, who is a security researcher and PhD student at the Vienna University of Technology, and Siegfried Hollerer, who is a security architect and analyst as well as a NIS auditor at the Austrian Ministry of the Interior and lecturer at the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences in Austria.

Simon and his guests discuss their work and experience with the OWASP Operation Technology (OT) Top 10 Project, which is an open-source awareness initiative and practical framework created to identify and rank the most critical cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities affecting OT environments.

They also describe how critical cybersecurity risks are mapped directly to major international frameworks, like IEC 62443 and NIST, providing infrastructure operators with immediate, actionable countermeasures and a shared vocabulary for improved industrial resilience.

Get more information about OT Cybersecurity for the Power Grid.

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This episode is the first in a new miniseries exploring how software supports compliance readiness in power system testing and substation operations.

Every protection test leaves behind more than a test report. It becomes part of an asset’s history, including protection settings, firmware versions, maintenance activities, configuration changes, and the documentation that explains what happened and why. As substations become more digital, preserving this history is becoming increasingly important for compliance, cybersecurity, and grid resilience.

In Part 1, OMICRON Regional Training Manager Will Scheibe explains why utilities need reliable access to asset history long after the original work is completed.

Will explains how connected records help engineers, asset managers, cybersecurity teams, and auditors understand not only what changed, but why. He also describes how OMICRON’s ADMO software with its InSight visualization platform supports structured asset, test, maintenance, and configuration data across the asset lifecycle.

Discover OMICRON’s ADMO and InSight here.

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Bushings may look like simple, low-cost power transformer components, but they are among the most critical assets in the high-voltage network. Statistically, around 40 percent of all power transformer failures involve bushings, often leading to catastrophic consequences like fires, explosions, and widespread grid outages.

In this episode of Energy Talks, OMICRON product managers and bushing testing experts Hannes Rothleitner and Jakob Hämmerle highlight the importance of bushing diagnostics to catch early signs of degradation caused, for example, by moisture ingress and insulation aging, whose warning signs are often difficult to detect easily with individual 50 or 60 Hz tests.

To meet this diagnostic challenge, Hannes and Jakob describe how the industry is shifting toward multi-faceted diagnostics, using a combination of various testing methods, including Tan Delta, Dielectric Frequency Response (DFR), and voltage sweeps, to expose these hidden flaws early.

Hannes and Jakob share practical tips for troubleshooting testing challenges and offer a glimpse into the next ten years of bushing diagnostics with the emergence of newer resin insulation technologies and the use of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, for data interpretation. More specifically, they explain why the future is not about gathering more data – but about high-quality interpretation to support better decision making.

Discover DIRANA – our specialized solution for broadband DFR testing on bushings:

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In many countries, reclosers have been a cornerstone of distribution network protection for decades, helping utilities quickly isolate faults and restore power to customers. Today, however, their role extends far beyond traditional fault clearing.

As distribution grids become more automated and the integration of distributed energy resources (DER) continues to accelerate, reclosers are evolving more into intelligent system components that combine protection, communication, automation, and control. They play a vital role in enabling self-healing grid concepts, improving reliability, and supporting the transition toward more resilient and flexible power systems.

In this episode, OMICRON application engineer Alex Auman, who specializes in reclosure and protection testing, explains how reclosers help utilities integrate distributed energy resources (DER), improve reliability, and enable self-healing grid concepts. He describes various automation schemes, such as FLISR and other advanced coordination approaches, that help utilities keep more customers energized during faults and disturbances.

Alex also describes how distribution networks are becoming more complex and explains that as traditional protection methods reach their limits, utilities are moving toward system-level protection and automation strategies that rely on communication and coordination between multiple devices.

Finally, Alex highlights the modern testing approaches and solutions, such as OMICRON’s ARCO 400 and RelaySimTest, that help engineers validate both individual devices and complete automation schemes.

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In this episode of Energy Talks, we dive into the heart of power generation at utilities and industrial plants where the reliable operation of motors and generators plays a critical role. More specifically, we will discuss the Basics of Rotating Machine Testing to help keep these machines up and running.

**Alexander Herrer**a, an OMICRON application engineer who specializes in rotating machine testing, describes the recommended diagnostic tests on stator cores, stator windings, and rotors, and how the data helps you not only detect developing defects early but also prioritize condition-based maintenance at a time when budgets and technical teams are shrinking.

In addition, Alex emphasizes essential safety procedures during testing. He also highlights the importance of comparative measurements and offers useful tips for testing rotating machines.

Watch Alex perform these recommended measurements and interpret the data in OMICRON’s video series “Basics of Rotating Machine Testing”.

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In this episode of Energy Talks, host Simon Rommer, OT Cybersecurity Consultant at OMICRON, is joined by Benjamin Floriani and Patrick Pongratz, founders of SecCore GmbH, an Austria-based company specializing in penetration testing, red teaming, and offensive cybersecurity. Together, they explore how security researchers and penetration testers identify cybersecurity vulnerabilities, assess their real-world impact, and develop exploits.

The discussion highlights why context is often more important than vulnerability scores when evaluating cybersecurity risks and how attack surfaces, system architecture, and business requirements influence risk assessments. Benjamin and Patrick also share insights into modern exploit development, including the growing role of AI-assisted tools in vulnerability research and offensive security.

The conversation also covers practical measures for improving cyber resilience, including network segmentation, least-privilege principles, asset inventories, and regular penetration testing to identify weaknesses before attackers do.

Get more information about OT Cybersecurity for the Power Grid.

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In Part 2 of our mini-series on Partial Discharge (PD) monitoring, OMICRON experts Daniel Gebhardt and Hendrik Schleifer discuss the technical execution and operational benefits of continuous online PD monitoring. While Part 1 focused on "why" PD monitoring benefits asset managers, Part 2 explores "how" these systems automatically track insulation issues 24/7 in electrical power assets.

Daniel and Hendrik explain how modern PD monitoring systems use PRPD and 3PARD technology to filter out external noise and focus on PD signals to identify insulation defects. They detail how data integrates directly into existing SCADA networks via IEC 61850 or Modbus TCP and how PD monitoring systems ensure a gap-free online history of developing defects and alert operators about rapid changes.

Finally, they highlight how continuous defect tracking delivers the trend analysis needed to optimize asset planning, ease workloads, and empower confident maintenance decisions without requiring diagnostic expertise—ultimately ensuring greater peace of mind.

Be sure to listen to Part 1 to get the complete picture of continuous online PD monitoring.

We would really like to know what you think about Energy Talks and which topics you would like to hear more about. To do this, simply send us an email to [email protected] and be sure to give us a star review on Spotify or Apple Podcast. Thanks for your feedback! Please join us to listen to the next episode of Energy Talks.🎙️