Reinhausen has been involved in two projects on two different sides of the world.
USA: GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND
In a retrofit project for US energy giant Dominion, MESSKO demonstrated that flexibility is just as important to accessories as it is elsewhere.
Oil level gauges are rarely the center of attention. There’s no disputing their indispensable role in ensuring that transformers run flawlessly—but, as Petra Wiethoff from MESSKO’s customer support team points out, they shouldn’t stand out: “They’re like car windshield wipers in that they need to work discreetly in the background.” Despite their low profile, Wiethoff learned just how much delight these components can bring to customers during a project for Dominion Energy, one of the USA’s biggest energy suppliers and an MR customer for more than two decades. Based in Richmond, Virginia, the power flowing through the company’s grid feeds into areas including the Washington, D.C. administrative district—which means outages are something that Dominion simply cannot afford.
Wiethoff and her US colleague Carlos Bittner were well aware of this when Dominion approached them for a quote for a retrofit project. The company wanted to fit 45 older transformers from a Japanese manufacturer with MESSKO® MTOs — nothing unusual there. There was one catch, however: the weight of the rubber bag could cause the straight float to bend, damaging both it and the bag itself. The standard approach would be to modify the conservators on site, which would extend the timeline considerably, add complexity as well as cost to the effort.
Wiethoff quickly recognized that flexibility was the key to finding a solution: “We needed curved floats.” As MESSKO had nothing of this kind in its range at that point, the team quickly got to work on developing the perfect float for this uniquely shaped conservator tank in order to fulfill Dominion’s needs. Messko worked with lead technician Matthew Beale and James Delong to develop the curvature and shape of the float bends. In late summer 2020, the first MTOs for Dominion were then successfully installed—without any interruptions in function.
“It was a complete success,” says Carlos Bittner, summing up the project, “and the customer is very keen for MESSKO to develop unique solutions for other outdated and unnecessarily complex devices in its fleet.” Jonathan Deverick, Dominion’s Operational Engineering Reliability Group, agrees: “The conservator tank oil level gauge is a critical component in our resiliency program. It is imperative we have a reliable and accurate oil level gauge for our overall protection scheme. This solution ultimately provides a reliable network to our customers in a cost effective manner. Working through this engineering challenge has improved our relationship with Messko and has shown us Messko’s capabilities.”
NEW ZEALAND: THE IDEAL ISLAND SOLUTION
Transpower in New Zealand was looking for a durable oil analysis sensor. MR came up with the solution — in the form of the MSENSE ® DGA 5.
The sea spray, salt-laden air, and wind that are features of New Zealand’s climate might be exactly what attracts tourists who are fans of the great outdoors—but they are a toxic source of corrosion for transformers. That’s why New Zealand energy company Transpower values exceptional durability and a long service life so highly. This in turn relies on a precise oil analysis—but in order for this to happen, the DGA sensors themselves need to be extremely durable too.
In 2020, Transpower decided that it needed to make a change on its HVDC Pole 2 Converter Transformers located at Haywards and Benmore substations. The Transpower HVDC link maintains a DC connection which ‘runs’ from Benmore located in the South Island of New Zealand to Haywards located in the North Island of New Zealand. “The costs of operating the previous equipment had become a problem because we needed to use consumable materials like helium as the calibration gas,” explains Lee Harrop, Senior Engineer at Transpower.
MR has been operating a subsidiary in Sydney, Australia since 1987 and supplies locations including New Zealand from there. As a long-standing customer of MR’s on-load tap-changers, Transpower was aware of the company’s new product, the MSENSE® DGA 5. It was this online oil analysis device that resulted in MR winning out against other established suppliers in the tender for Transpower’s project, thanks to a number of its features: The device requires no carrier or calibration gases whatsoever and is also extremely durable. “MR not only met all of Transpower’s technical requirements, but actually exceeded them as the device is able to monitor more gases than required,” explains Lee.
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