LINOSSIER:<\/strong> From the per\u00adspec\u00adtive of the grid oper\u00ada\u00adtor, I can only con\u00adfirm that. We oper\u00adate over 100 trans\u00adform\u00aders, so for our strate\u00adgic plan\u00adning it is very impor\u00adtant to know when and whether we have to take one off the grid, or if oth\u00ader mea\u00adsures might also make sense. Per\u00adhaps just replac\u00ading the motor-dri\u00adve unit will be enough to extend the ser\u00advice life.<\/p>\n LINOSSIER:<\/strong> Large parts of our fleet are from the 1950s and 60s, and though they are still very reli\u00adable to this day, we are start\u00ading to think about their aging behav\u00adior. Now, in light of the ener\u00adgy rev\u00ado\u00adlu\u00adtion, the ques\u00adtion of how long they will keep going has become con\u00adsid\u00ader\u00adably more impor\u00adtant. We dis\u00adtri\u00adb\u00adu\u00adtion sys\u00adtem oper\u00ada\u00adtors in par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar are faced with enor\u00admous chal\u00adlenges. Many of the decen\u00adtral pow\u00ader sup\u00adplies enter into our net\u00adworks. The top\u00adic of e\u2011mobility also comes into play here. Which brings along entire\u00adly dif\u00adfer\u00adent loads for our trans\u00adform\u00aders. And we also have to rethink the net\u00adwork struc\u00adtures. But we can only do that sen\u00adsi\u00adbly if we know the con\u00addi\u00adtion of our equip\u00adment well.<\/p>\n ZDRALLEK:<\/strong> RNG\u2019s expe\u00adri\u00adences are shared by grid oper\u00ada\u00adtors through\u00adout the world: Trans\u00adformer fleets are get\u00adting old\u00ader and old\u00ader. The cost pres\u00adsure today is sim\u00adply high\u00ader, which is also due to the many invest\u00adments required by the ener\u00adgy rev\u00ado\u00adlu\u00adtion. So oper\u00ada\u00adtors want to use the equip\u00adment for as long as pos\u00adsi\u00adble. That is why con\u00addi\u00adtion assess\u00adment, togeth\u00ader with grid expan\u00adsion and con\u00adver\u00adsion for the ener\u00adgy rev\u00ado\u00adlu\u00adtion. has become quite a cen\u00adtral top\u00adic at inter\u00adna\u00adtion\u00adal con\u00adfer\u00adences. The indus\u00adtry as a whole is faced with enor\u00admous chal\u00adlenges. More has hap\u00adpened in the last ten years in the world of pow\u00ader sup\u00adply than in the pre\u00advi\u00adous hun\u00addred years, and in the next ten years just as much will hap\u00adpen.<\/p>\n ZDRALLEK:<\/strong> For a long time it was of low\u00ader-lev\u00adel impor\u00adtance. In the past, many oper\u00ada\u00adtors fol\u00adlowed the strat\u00ade\u00adgy of per\u00adform\u00ading main\u00adte\u00adnance on the trans\u00adform\u00aders every five years and then sim\u00adply replac\u00ading them sequen\u00adtial\u00adly after 40 or 50 years. This is also reflect\u00aded in research, which in recent years has been very focused on opti\u00admiz\u00ading main\u00adte\u00adnance strate\u00adgies. And when con\u00addi\u00adtion assess\u00adments were per\u00adformed, they were often lim\u00adit\u00aded to visu\u00adal inspec\u00adtions. And these are open to a high degree of sub\u00adjec\u00adtiv\u00adi\u00adty.<\/p>\n ZDRALLEK:<\/strong> We once set up a test for oth\u00ader equip\u00adment in a medi\u00adum-volt\u00adage grid and sent out ten tech\u00adni\u00adcians to eval\u00adu\u00adate the same sta\u00adtion. The results var\u00adied wide\u00adly from one anoth\u00ader: Some eval\u00adu\u00adat\u00aded the sys\u00adtem as very good, while oth\u00aders main\u00adtained the exact oppo\u00adsite. Every\u00adone is influ\u00adenced by his own store of expe\u00adri\u00adence, and per\u00adson\u00adal\u00adi\u00adty also plays a role. Some are just pick\u00adi\u00ader than oth\u00aders. Togeth\u00ader with MR we have tried to bring more objec\u00adtiv\u00adi\u00adty into the assess\u00adment.<\/p>\n ZDRALLEK:<\/strong> Our sys\u00adtem includes a visu\u00adal inspec\u00adtion, too, but we have worked out a uni\u00adform check\u00adlist that tech\u00adni\u00adcians use to eval\u00adu\u00adate the trans\u00adformer and, for exam\u00adple, check whether oil is leak\u00ading from par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar spots. In addi\u00adtion, we use a small trick that we have learned from soci\u00adol\u00ado\u00adgists: We give the tech\u00adni\u00adcian doing the eval\u00adu\u00ada\u00adtion an even num\u00adber of grades, in our case from one (for very good) to four (for very bad). If there is an odd num\u00adber of eval\u00adu\u00ada\u00adtion options, peo\u00adple tend to take the val\u00adue in the mid\u00addle. But an even num\u00adber forces them to make a deci\u00adsion. And then, of course, there are also a num\u00adber of mea\u00adsure\u00adments which we per\u00adform, such as oil analy\u00adses and dynam\u00adic resis\u00adtance mea\u00adsure\u00adments. The mea\u00adsure\u00adments add sig\u00adnif\u00adi\u00adcant\u00adly to objec\u00adtiv\u00adi\u00adty.<\/p>\n ZDRALLEK:<\/strong> One new fea\u00adture is that we eval\u00adu\u00adate the con\u00addi\u00adtion of the trans\u00adformer from two per\u00adspec\u00adtives. One allows us to make state\u00adments about the risk of fail\u00adure, which is pri\u00admar\u00adi\u00adly impor\u00adtant in the short and medi\u00adum term. The oth\u00ader eval\u00adu\u00adates the trans\u00adformer for the longer term and is aimed at its ser\u00advice life. For both per\u00adspec\u00adtives, we weigh the inves\u00adti\u00adgat\u00aded para\u00adme\u00adters dif\u00adfer\u00adent\u00adly using an algo\u00adrithm.<\/p>\n LINOSSIER:<\/strong> Both approach\u00ades cor\u00adre\u00adspond exact\u00adly to the view that we have of our trans\u00adformer fleet in Strate\u00adgic Asset Man\u00adage\u00adment. Like almost all grid oper\u00ada\u00adtors, we have one bud\u00adget for main\u00adte\u00adnance tasks and one for invest\u00adments. The short-term and long-term com\u00adpo\u00adnents there\u00adfore give us an ide\u00adal instru\u00adment for align\u00ading our main\u00adte\u00adnance and replace\u00adment strat\u00ade\u00adgy. Exist\u00ading process\u00ades of con\u00addi\u00adtion assess\u00adment were always one-dimen\u00adsion\u00adal and there\u00adfore too impre\u00adcise. Anoth\u00ader advan\u00adtage of the sys\u00adtem is that it cre\u00adates trans\u00adparen\u00adcy. For exam\u00adple, if a trans\u00adformer receives a bad grade, we can trace exact\u00adly which com\u00adpo\u00adnent or which mea\u00adsured val\u00adue led to this result. That makes it eas\u00adi\u00ader for us to derive mea\u00adsures to be tak\u00aden, because now we know whether main\u00adte\u00adnance mea\u00adsures will suf\u00adfice or whether we will have to make a replace\u00adment instead.<\/p>\n LINOSSIER:<\/strong> All of our trans\u00adform\u00aders have on-load tap-chang\u00aders from MR in them. Many dif\u00adfer\u00adent mod\u00adels have been installed over the years, and of course MR knows these pre\u00adcise\u00adly. The expe\u00adri\u00adence of MR experts on the sub\u00adject of trans\u00adform\u00aders, their mon\u00adi\u00adtor\u00ading exper\u00adtise and the avail\u00adabil\u00adi\u00adty of a mod\u00adern infra\u00adstruc\u00adture are excel\u00adlent pre\u00adreq\u00adui\u00adsites for offer\u00ading a com\u00adpre\u00adhen\u00adsive solu\u00adtion. MR has a lab for oil analy\u00adses, the right IT solu\u00adtions for these meth\u00adods and the cor\u00adre\u00adspond\u00ading sen\u00adsors in its port\u00adfo\u00adlio.<\/p>\n ZDRALLEK:<\/strong> We researchers have well-found\u00aded knowl\u00adedge about how an eval\u00adu\u00ada\u00adtion sys\u00adtem is cre\u00adat\u00aded, but we were able to learn a lot from MR in the area of pow\u00ader trans\u00adform\u00aders. There were some mea\u00adsure\u00adment meth\u00adods that we were not yet famil\u00adiar with. On top of that, it\u2019s also pos\u00adsi\u00adble to mea\u00adsure a lot of garbage. Not every\u00adone is able to car\u00adry out a ther\u00admo\u00adgraph\u00adic analy\u00adsis or take an oil sam\u00adple cor\u00adrect\u00adly.<\/p>\n LINOSSIER:<\/strong> So far, we have only ana\u00adlyzed nine trans\u00adform\u00aders in the pilot study. Now we want to apply the method to the entire fleet. So that we can assess the con\u00addi\u00adtion even bet\u00adter in the future, we would like to boost our invest\u00adment in dig\u00adi\u00adtal\u00adiza\u00adtion and acquire mon\u00adi\u00adtor\u00ading sys\u00adtems. We don\u2019t have much his\u00adtoric data to eval\u00adu\u00adate, because it was not doc\u00adu\u00adment\u00aded like this in the past. But if we now start to mea\u00adsure con\u00adtin\u00adu\u00adous\u00adly, in the future we will have even more data mate\u00adr\u00adi\u00adal for the con\u00addi\u00adtion assess\u00adment.<\/p>\n ZDRALLEK:<\/strong> I am also real\u00adly excit\u00aded about this. We real\u00adly know very lit\u00adtle about the aging behav\u00adior of trans\u00adform\u00aders. The more data we get, the bet\u00adter the con\u00adclu\u00adsions we will be able to draw in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Markus Zdrallek, pro\u00adfes\u00adsor at the Uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adty of Wup\u00adper\u00adtal, and Jan Patrick Linossier, Head of Strate\u00adgic Asset Man\u00adage\u00adment at Rheinis\u00adche NET\u00adZGe\u00adsellschaft (RNG), have worked togeth\u00ader with MR to devel\u00adop a new method for assess\u00ading the con\u00addi\u00adtion of pow\u00ader trans\u00adform\u00aders. In an inter\u00adview, they revealed what the new sys\u00adtem is capa\u00adble of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":2560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-11-2017"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onload.reinhausen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onload.reinhausen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onload.reinhausen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onload.reinhausen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onload.reinhausen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onload.reinhausen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8367,"href":"https:\/\/onload.reinhausen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions\/8367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onload.reinhausen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onload.reinhausen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onload.reinhausen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onload.reinhausen.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Why has condition assessment become so important in recent years?<\/h3>\n\n
![](\"https:\/\/onload.reinhausen.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2017\/11\/Linossier-200x300.jpg\")
What role did condition assessment play in the past?<\/h3>\n
To what extent is a visual inspection subjective?<\/h3>\n
How did you achieve that?<\/h3>\n
What is special about the method you have developed with MR?<\/h3>\n
![](\"https:\/\/onload.reinhausen.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2017\/11\/Zdrallek-Universitaet-Wuppertal-200x300.jpg\")
To what extent were you able to benefit from the expertise of MR?<\/h3>\n
What do these results mean for your transformer fleet? What are your plans for the future?<\/h3>\n