Online Condition Monitoring to Enhance the Reliability and Optimize the Asset Utilization of Transformer

Abstract

The most important component of electricity generation and transmission system is Transformer. There is overall increase in demand in energy sector which will re- quire more transformers with increased rating and higher reliability as a function of transformer asset management. The important aspect of Power transformer is its reliability. There are two tools for maintenance of transformers such as CBM (Condition Based Maintenance) and TBM (Time Based Maintenance) by which the reliability of the transformer can be enhanced. In TBM, the transformer needs to be monitored periodically by which the reliability will be affected. Whereas CBM indicates clearly when maintenance is needed and periodical maintenance is not needed. Hence the reliability of transformer may not be affected. Condition monitoring gives valuable warnings against slowly developing faults and can be used as an alternative to manual surveillance testing for those faults which takes weeks or months to develop. Condition monitoring of transformer is the procedure of collecting and data processing which are akin to different criterion of transformer so as to anticipate and prevent the damage of a transformer. Condition based monitoring system is used to avoid catastrophic failure which further improves reliability. Online condition monitoring is a widely accepted supporting measure. It provides an undisturbed operation of power transformer as a key of energy transmission and distribution. Flow chart is presented which have cases including various methods where faults are being diagnosed.