Keeping the Fleet in View

1. Collect Data

A suf­fi­cient data­base is essen­tial to car­ry out the con­di­tion assess­ment. To keep dis­rup­tion times and assess­ment work to a min­i­mum, FLEETSCAN 2D offers three assess­ment stages. Depend­ing on how detailed the assess­ment needs to be, not all three stages have to be car­ried out. Trans­former data is already avail­able in many cas­es, so the work involved in record­ing the data is min­i­mal.

1st stage: existing data

The oper­a­tor pro­vides the data which is already avail­able. This includes, for exam­ple, the mas­ter data of the trans­form­ers, mea­sure­ments that have already been car­ried out, and main­te­nance his­to­ry infor­ma­tion.

2nd stage: on-site appraisal

The sec­ond stage involves an on-site appraisal which is car­ried out dur­ing oper­a­tion. In a visu­al inspec­tion, an MR expert uses a check­list to exam­ine the trans­former for signs of cor­ro­sion, leaks, and vis­i­ble dam­age to the bush­ings and fans. The expert then car­ries out infrared ther­mog­ra­phy and a com­plete oil analy­sis.

3rd stage: complete testing

If, after the first two stages, there are any indi­ca­tions of more sig­nif­i­cant dam­age, MR per­forms tar­get­ed test­ing involv­ing exten­sive mea­sure­ments. These include dynam­ic resis­tance and par­tial dis­charge mea­sure­ments which require the trans­former to be tak­en off the grid.

2. Everything at a Glance

FLEETSCAN 2D makes it pos­si­ble to clear­ly save all col­lect­ed data using brows­er-based soft­ware. This enables grid oper­a­tors to retrieve
all rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion for any trans­former in the fleet at any time.

3. Evaluation

Fol­low­ing data record­ing, it is time to move on to the core ele­ment of FLEETSCAN 2D: the eval­u­a­tion. Using an algo­rithm devel­oped by MR and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wup­per­tal, the con­di­tion analy­sis is car­ried out in two indices:

• The fail­ure risk index mea­sures the like­li­hood of func­tions fail­ing. These val­ues pro­vide impor­tant ref­er­ence points for the main­te­nance strat­e­gy, which is cru­cial for the OPEX bud­get.
• The loss-of-life index is a key vari­able when mak­ing long-term invest­ment deci­sions, and is there­fore rel­e­vant for the CAPEX bud­get.

For the assess­ment, the results of the two indices are trans­ferred into an XY dia­gram. The con­di­tion of the fleet can thus be visu­al­ized sim­ply: The more trans­form­ers that are locat­ed in the quad­rants near the ori­gin, the bet­ter the con­di­tion of the fleet and vice ver­sa.

4. Recommendations

Once the assess­ment is com­plete, an MR expert will take a detailed look at the results, check the plau­si­bil­i­ty of the data, and offer rec­om­men­da­tions. The grid oper­a­tor will then receive a com­pre­hen­sive report from which the mea­sures that need to be tak­en, such as main­te­nance tasks and invest­ment deci­sions, can be derived. Depend­ing on the con­di­tion of the fleet, MR rec­om­mends that the FLEETSCAN 2D assess­ment be repeat­ed every three to five years.