By Randy Cox
"While much of the chemistry behind DGA is complex and important for industry chemists to understand,
the day-to-day review of DGA by the utility need not be complex."
Operating an electric grid has its challenges, not the least of which is finding additional time locating potential problems before they turn into the evening news. Whether you are a District Manager, Engineering Support, Operations Supervisor or Substation Technician, transformer Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA) is simply one aspect of a busy day for which you are likely responsible. For this reason, anything that can be made easier, should be, and under normal circumstances is most welcomed.
While much of the chemistry behind DGA is complex and important for our industry chemists to understand, the day to day review of DGA by the utility need not be complex. In cases where we may struggle to make sense of the information, there’s a wealth of industry chemists and experts willing to assist, with regards to further, or a deeper interpretation.
In this article we will identify some simple guidelines that may be applied to assist in identifying what is involved in the fault. What we need to know initially is the amount of paper involved in a given fault, if any. These steps of interpretation will most certainly help to simplify the analytics regarding, what many consider to be, a very complicated subject; categorizing (or distinguishing) developing faults within oil filled power transformers. If these answers can be rapidly obtained, it can mean the difference between a less costly onsite repair versus a total replacement of the transformer.
To read the full article, log in to your account and click the Download button or subscribe.