Review of Modern Diagnostic Techniques for Assessing Insulation Condition in Aged Transformers

Cellulosic paper and oil insulation in a transformer degrade at higher operating temperatures. Degradation is accelerated in the presence of oxygen and moisture. Power transformers being expensive items need to be carefully monitored throughout its operation. Well established time-based maintenance and conservative replacement planning is not feasible in a current market driven electricity industry. Condition based maintenance and online monitoring are now gaining importance. Currently there are varieties of chemical and electrical diagnostic techniques available for insulation condition monitoring of power transformers. This paper presents a description of commonly used chemical diagnostics techniques along with their interpretation schemes. A number of new chemical techniques are also described in this paper. In recent times a number of electrical diagnostic techniques have gained exceptional importance to the utility professionals. Among these techniques polarisationrdepolarisation current measurement, return voltage measurement and frequency domain dielectric spectroscopy at low frequencies are the most widely used. This paper describes analyses and interpretation of these techniques for transformer insulation condition assessment. Index Terms — Insulation condition, transformer diagnostics, transformer ageing, dissolved gas analysis, furan analysis, degree of polymerization, oil insulation, cellulose paper, return voltage, polarisation current, depolarisation current, online monitoring, condition based monitoring.