Transformer, Status Report!

PROCESS LEVEL
SENSORS

With­out data, analy­sis is not pos­si­ble. The sen­sors on the trans­former mea­sure the para­me­ters that are impor­tant for mon­i­tor­ing and con­trol.

VOLTAGE REGULATION

When it comes to volt­age reg­u­la­tion, there are a num­ber of dif­fer­ent options avail­able. These include sim­ple volt­age reg­u­la­tion or sta­tus mon­i­tor­ing of the motor-dri­ve unit, as well as var­i­ous par­al­lel oper­a­tion meth­ods and com­plex reg­u­la­tion algo­rithms.

OLTC MONITORING

In order to mon­i­tor the con­di­tion of the on-load tap-chang­er, the soft­ware ana­lyzes a wide vari­ety of sig­nals. Its work includes sta­tus mon­i­tor­ing of not only the motor-dri­ve unit sig­nals, but also the oil tem­per­a­ture, switch­ing sta­tis­tics, and torques.

BUSHING MONITORING

The online mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem is used to con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tor the bush­ings. In order to assess their con­di­tion, an algo­rithm com­pares the capac­i­ty and dis­si­pa­tion fac­tor regard­less of net­work asym­me­tries or fluc­tu­a­tions in volt­age. If the sys­tem detects a fault, it sounds an alarm via a two-stage lim­it-val­ue process.

CONTROL AND MONITORING OF THE COOLING UNIT

The mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem takes into account cool­er starts and cool­ing effi­cien­cy. For intel­li­gent con­trol of the cool­ing sys­tem, cur­rent loads and ther­mal con­di­tions of the trans­former are ana­lyzed. This makes it pos­si­ble to reg­u­late the tem­per­a­ture for up to six cool­ing lev­els.

ONLINE DGA MONITORING

DGA stands for “dis­solved gas analy­sis”. The sen­sors mea­sure the amount of hydro­gen, car­bon monox­ide, and mois­ture in the insu­la­tion oil. These are impor­tant ini­tial indi­ca­tors for iden­ti­fy­ing poten­tial ther­mal and elec­tri­cal dam­age. This data is vital for mon­i­tor­ing the active part and, in par­tic­u­lar, for the wind­ings. As a result, oper­a­tors can intro­duce mea­sures in a time­ly man­ner and avoid break­downs.

TRANSFORMER MONITORING

This mod­ule cal­cu­lates the loss-of-life and aging rate of the trans­former. To achieve this, an algo­rithm devel­oped by MR spe­cial­ists ana­lyzes the sig­nals from var­i­ous sen­sors and pro­tec­tive devices. These include the oil tem­per­a­ture, sys­tem volt­age, load cur­rent, fre­quen­cy, load fac­tor, active pow­er, reac­tive pow­er, and appar­ent pow­er.

IT ALL STARTS AT THE SENSOR

The sen­sors and pro­tec­tive devices on the trans­former are con­stant­ly col­lect­ing data. Imple­ment­ing an automa­tion sys­tem involves tap­ping into these data sources and poten­tial­ly inte­grat­ing addi­tion­al sen­sors. Under the brand names MESSKO and MSENSE, Rein­hausen offers a wide range of mea­sure­ment tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions. These include con­ven­tion­al sen­sors for tem­per­a­ture or fill-lev­el mon­i­tor­ing, intel­li­gent sen­sors for pur­pos­es such as bush­ing mon­i­tor­ing, as well as pro­tec­tive devices like the Buch­holz relay. The sys­tem from MR is also open to the use of com­po­nents from oth­er man­u­fac­tur­ers.
More infor­ma­tion on sen­sor tech­nol­o­gy from MR: www.reinhausen.com/messko

FIELD LEVEL
MONITORING, CONTROL AND REGULATION

The hard­ware and soft­ware offered by MR ana­lyzes the data col­lect­ed at the trans­former. Oper­a­tors can choose from a range of dif­fer­ent mon­i­tor­ing M and con­trol C mod­ules.

INTEGRATED SMART MODULES (ISM) — THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE UNIT

All of the data flows through fiber-optic cables into the cen­tral con­trol unit, where it is ana­lyzed and eval­u­at­ed by algo­rithms (see page 30). The unit hous­es all the exper­tise on trans­form­ers that Rein­hausen has built up over the decades. Three dif­fer­ent designs are avail­able: Oper­a­tors can choose a fin­ished con­trol cab­i­net solu­tion from MR, an inte­grat­ed solu­tion in an exist­ing motor-dri­ve unit, or inte­gra­tion in a sep­a­rate con­trol cab­i­net. Up to six dif­fer­ent soft­ware mod­ules are avail­able for analy­sis to suit the needs of the appli­ca­tion.

CONTROL LEVEL
FLEET MONITORING

From the grid con­trol room, oper­a­tors can use all the analy­ses that have tak­en place at the trans­former to per­form glob­al mon­i­tor­ing of equip­ment.

ONE SYSTEM, MANY ADVANTAGES

• MAXIMUM OPERATIONAL RELIABILITYWith real-time mon­i­tor­ing of all equip­ment, oper­a­tors can respond quick­ly when a fault is iden­ti­fied.
• EASY INTEGRATIONOper­a­tors can use both exist­ing sen­sors and their own com­mu­ni­ca­tions struc­ture. This means that the data can be ana­lyzed using the TESSA fleet mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem from MR as well as oth­er sys­tems.
• LOWER COSTSThanks to con­stant mon­i­tor­ing, oper­a­tors can get a much more pre­cise pic­ture of the con­di­tion of their trans­form­ers with­out hav­ing to be on site. This enables them to not only reduce the num­ber of main­te­nance inter­vals and inspec­tions of the instal­la­tion, but also quick­ly rec­ti­fy any faults iden­ti­fied thanks to the advance warn­ing sys­tem, avoid­ing the need for major repairs.
• SAFE SYSTEMThe automa­tion solu­tion from MR meets the high stan­dards of safe­ty required in ener­gy tech­nol­o­gy.
• SIMPLE VISUALIZATIONThanks to the inte­grat­ed web serv­er in the cen­tral con­trol unit, the con­di­tion of the trans­former can in prin­ci­ple be mon­i­tored from any device, such as a smart­phone, a tablet, or the screen in the con­trol room.