Lifetime management of power transformers

Abstract

Power transformers belong to the most important and most cost-intensive equipment of electrical power transmission and distribution. If an error in a transformer occurs, this causes not only an interruption of the electrical power supply of far areas but also large economic losses beyond that. Thus, the operation of transformers must guarantee a continuous and error free power supply over decades. Occurring errors and thus self-announcing possible failures of transformers should be detected in time, in order to initiate suitable measures for error correction. A continuous entry of the isolation status can prevent large errors, extend service life of the system and optimize maintenance. Thus, apart from higher system availability an avoidance of unplanned disconnections and expensive repairs are achieved. The emphasis of this contribution is to present methods which permit a substantially more exact and more reliable predicate about the current status of the isolation system of liquid-isolated power transformers.