Condition Monitoring of High Voltage Transformer using Dissolved Gas Analysis Methods

Abstract

Power transformer plays a significant role in the entire power transmission network; thus, transformer protection requires more attention for fault free electric supply. when the mineral oil and insulation inside the transformer is subjected to high thermal and electrical stresses, gases are created by the decay of mineral oil and cellulose. Different gases create different faults, Identification of faults inside the power transformer before they occur reduces its failure rate during its service period. For Knowing the fault condition of power transformer, Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA) is proven to be as accurate method based on combination of concentration of gases like CO, CO2, H2, C2H6, C2H4, C2H2 etc., Dissolved gas analysis is the most important test in determining the fault condition of a transformer and it is the first indicator of a problem and can identify deteriorating insulation and oil, overheating hot spots, partial discharge and arcing. For developing this DGA Techniques, the MATLAB GUIDE interface can be used for making easy interaction between the user and software developed. This software is designed using some conditional statements and logical functions to get the type of faults in transformers based on the concentration of gases in transformer oil. The faults in transformer using dissolved gases analysis are detected using methods such as key gas, Roger’s methods, IEC ratio, Doernenburg ratio, Duval triangle and the Combined DGA methods. In this paper, these four methods of dissolved gas analysis (DGA) are presented and explained briefly.