A study on palm oil-based oil moisture absorption level and voltage breakdown

Abstract

Oil in transformer is well known as a coolant and also as an insulator. Nowadays, petroleum based oil is widely used in the transformer as it meets the requirements to be the best insulator. The usage of petroleum oil gives negative impact especially to the environment as when explosion, tank rupture or leakage occur, the oil may contaminate soil surrounding and water stream badly. Furthermore, it is a fact that petroleum based oil will not be available for future generation used. Hence, further studies discovered that biodegradable oil has greatly potential to replace petroleum oil as liquid insulation in transformer. To maintain great performance of insulation in the transformer, free moving water molecules in the oil must be specifically in low level. This free water content that exist will affect the entire performance of insulation, thus degrading the life time of a transformer. If the oil can absorb water and reduce amount of free water, it will help reducing changes of complete insulation breakdown when the oil is at high moisture condition. Currently Malaysian researchers try to use palm oil as insulation liquid for transformers. This project investigates about various palm oil moisture absorption levels and its effect towards voltage breakdown for transformer insulation system application. Palm oil such as RBDPO oil and red palm oil (Carotina oil) are compared with commercialized transformer oils, mineral oil as well as palm fatty acid ester (PFAE) in terms of their moisture absorption level and voltage breakdown.