Life Extension of the Transformer Insulation with an Innovative Online Drying and Filtering system

H. Borsi, E. Gockenbach, V. Wasserberg

University of Hannover, Germany Institute of Electric Power Systems, Division of High Voltage Engineering Schering-Institute Callinstrasse 25A D-30167 Hannover, Germany

Keywords: Life Extension, Transformer Insulation, Transformer Drying

Abstract
Water and Oxygen are the most important enemies of the insulation of oil filed transformers leading to an accelerated ageing of the insulation. Thus drying procedures and reducing the influence of oxygen are required to extend lifetime and operation reliability. In this contribution an innovative procedure for the dehydration of mineral insulating oils and insulating paper in transformers is presented, working online during transformer operation. This procedure not only performs a complete desiccation, it also purifies the liquid without influencing the dissolved gas analysis (DGA) or any other physical property. Furthermore a Zeolite filled air filtering is introduced which not only prevents water molecules from penetrating the transformer but also oxygen. Herewith presented investigations on the operation parameters like temperature and flow rate have shown, that the procedure is beneficial for insulating liquids as well as for solid insulation immersed therein.

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Introduction
Transformers are one of the key components of electric power distribution and transmission systems. This statement is especially valid for power transformers, where an outage possibly endangers the reliability of electrical energy supply and always affords unpredictable expenses. In consequence every transformer operator must intend to increase the dependability of his devices. The trustiness of a power transformer is especially limited by the reliability of the winding insulation system which additionally has to operate as a heat transfer medium moving the losses out of the core and the windings. Even today the most frequently used insulation systems in these devices are therefore the liquid immersed paper and pressboard insulations. Due to cost aspects a combination of cellulosic paper and mineral oil has shown to be the favorite choice, although the lifetime of this insulation depends on the operating conditions, the presence of catalysts, oxygen and especially water. To reduce the insulation aging it is therefore essential to avoid or to remove the mentioned influences.

Parameters affecting the aging

Water may diffuse slowly inside the transformer during service (for breathing transformers) or may be generated inside the device due to the depolymerization of the cellulose (Figure 1). Even small contents of water in the mineral oil reduce the electrical strength of the insulation. Moreover the cellulosic paper and pressboard insulation collects the water out of the liquid which leads to a severely accelerated aging [1]. The aging of the cellulose can be accelerated by water, oxygen and heat. The degree of polymerization (DP) decreases until the material becomes brittle and a safe transformer operation is jeopardized.
H 2O
H2COOH C H CH OH C H H C OH CH O O OH C H C CH

H CH H COOH OH 2 C H O

Figure 1: Water generation by the scission of cellulose molecules.

Conventional Drying of the insulating system

Due to the costs of repair a destroyed paper insulation represents in most cases an unrecoverable failure which leads to the retirement of the transformer. An effective drying of the cellulosic insulation before it has already been completely destroyed therefore enlarges the transformer operation lifetime and reliability. With most of the actually available systems only a drying of the liquid insulation is performed

within short times. If only the liquid insulation is dried or replaced most of the collected water is still inside the paper [2]. An additional drying of the paper insulation affords normally, that the transformer has to be drawn out of service. By heating the cellulosic material with Low Frequency Heating (LFH) or Vapor Phase technologies like they are very often applied for new, non impregnated transformers it is tried to remove the water. But there is a difference between new and aged transformers: the solid insulation is already impregnated, thus the cellulose fibers are covered with insulating liquid which impedes the extraction of the water from the cellulose. Due to the heating of the insulation above the normal operating temperature such a treatment also causes an extended "lifetime consumption". An alternative thereto is the continuous extraction of the water covered by the insulating liquid. When the water saturation level of the fluid decreases due to the drying thereof water is extracted from the solid insulation. The insulating liquid acts as a water transfer medium. The advantages of such a cure are, that it needs no transformer outage and, what is even more important, that it does not endanger the solid insulation during drying. Regarded over the time of its application such a procedure is also more effective than a short time treatment with heat and vacuum. Actual systems, working according to this principle, extract the water either by vacuum or with the application of a hygroscopic material. The vital disadvantage of these systems is, that they affect the Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA) because they extract or affect, beside the water, also the indicating gases, that are used for DGA. DGA is actually the most important tool for the surveillance of the insulation condition, thus any measure, that affects this tool, also has impact on the monitoring of the transformer insulation condition. With the novel system presented in this contribution the mentioned disadvantages are avoided while the transformer operation management is not affected at all.

The new drying and filtering system

Water and impurities in the liquid significantly reduce the electrical capabilities of the liquid. For a safe transformer operation optimal properties of the liquid are required, thus it should be clean and dry. The life expectancy of the paper insulation is influenced by water, oxygen and heat. All these parameters can cause depolymerization of the paper insulation, thus influencing the mechanical and electrical properties of the paper and resulting in a reduction of the life expectancy of the insulation. For an optimal lifetime therefore the paper should be kept dry during operation. The influence of oxygen should be prevented or reduced and overheating of the cellulose should be avoided. It has been shown by many investigations, that water in the liquid and cellulose insulation is the main cause for the reduction of electrical properties and acceleration of the aging. Therefore one of the main tasks of the new system is to keep the insulating system dry. The basis of the conceived procedure for the drying system is the water solubility in the insulating liquid and the equilibrium between the water content in the insulating liquid and the solid insulation immersed therein. As the combination of a cellulosic paper and

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pressboard immersed in a mineral based insulating oil is the most common combination of materials the operating principle is illustrated for these materials. The water solubility of an insulating liquid can be expressed by the following formula [3]
H T

WS = K * e

Where K and H are constants specific for each insulating liquid and T the temperature. For a very common mineral oil these constants are e.g. K = 1.918 * 107 and H = 3.807 * 103. The water solubility therefore increases exponentially with the temperature. The insulating oil of any transformer in operation, which always has a higher temperature than its environment due to the different losses inside the vessel, therefore intends to collect water. For a sealed transformer the only source for water is the paper and pressboard insulation. For breathing transformers additionally water can penetrate from outside the transformer into the vessel. The equilibrium between the water content in the mineral oil and the cellulosic paper is diverse for different temperatures. This effect, which has been reported by several authors like [4], can be used to dry the insulation of liquid and paper insulated HV apparatuses. The equilibrium between the moisture contained in the paper and the moisture content in the surrounding mineral oil is depicted in figure 2. This diagram shows, that for high temperatures the water content of the mineral oil is relatively high while the water content of the paper insulation is low. For low temperatures this relation is reverse, the water content in the paper is high while the water in the oil is low.
11

%
Water Content in the Paper
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 10

20 C

30 C

40 C 50 C

60 C

80 C 100C

20

30

40

50

60

70

ppm

90

Water Content in the Oil

Figure 2:

Dependency between the water content in mineral oil and cellulosic paper [5].

This behavior can be used for a continuous drying of the paper insulation in a liquid immersed insulation system. The warm and "wet" oil inside the transformer vessel is slowly drained from the transformer and pressed through a cooled cellulosic filter in a circular flow.

In this filter a very porous cartridge offers a large surface for the oil to transfer its water to the cellulose fibers. The mineral oil has previously been cooled down to a temperature of about 3 C when it enters the cartridge, thus it is in almost any cases supersaturated with water and therefore dispenses it easily. Additionally to the drying the filter purifies the oil and removes particles of dirt and impurities out of the liquid. As such particles are possible sources for partial discharges or even breakdowns of the liquid insulation the operation reliability is additionally enhanced. The described procedure is actually protected by German and international patents. For sealed transformers oxygen usually is not in contact with the transformer insulation and therefore the influence of oxygen by the aging is negligible. For breathing transformers the influence of the oxygen is reduced by the installation of a vessel filled with special Zeolite (a synthetic mineral), which can be installed preceding the silicagel container for breathing air desiccation. With this not only the amount of oxygen, coming in contact with the transformer insulation from the environment, is reduced but also the amount of water to be adsorbed by the silicagel as Zeolite is an effective desiccant, too.

Technical realization
Basic investigations on mineral oil as well as on ester liquid have shown, that the innovative procedure is applicable for drying transformer insulating liquids and therewith impregnated solid insulations [6]. The basic characteristic of online treatments is their profitableness over long time periods. Although power transformers contain several tons of liquid and solid insulating materials the drying of small volumes of insulating liquid is therefore sufficient. To estimate the water inside a transformer the following example is given: Inside a 10 MVA transformer for voltages up to 123 kV 8600 kg of insulating oil are contained [7]. About between 1/8 and 1/7 of this weight is the mass of the solid insulation. For the appraisal presented here a weight of 1200 kg is therefore rated. With an oil humidity of 15 ppm and an operation temperature of 60 C the oil dissolves 130 g of water while the solid insulation envelopes 2 % of its weight, thus being 24 kg (values gathered from figure 2). Therewith the vital problem of any short time treatment becomes obvious. The water covered by the solid insulation is captured all over the material. If the insulating liquid is removed and vacuum is applied the water originating from the inner parts of the insulation has to pass the surrounding cellulose material, thus still being impregnated with the insulating liquid. The speed of the water transfer out of the core of the solid insulation is thus limited by the transfer speed through the impregnated material. As this speed is quite low short term procedures can only be effective for the outer insulation layers close to the surface as long as the material is still impregnated. The new system is directly applied to the transformer in operation as depicted in figure 3.

-6Cellulose filter cartridge

Transformer vessel

Cooler Pump Hot, wet oil

Cooling circuit Upgraded insulating liquid

Figure 3:

Schematic of the application of the presented system on a transformer in operation.

The insulating liquid removed from the transformer via the oil sample extraction tubes passes at first the pump that transports the fluid through the system. Afterwards the oil is injected into the cycle stream through the filter vessel and the cooling unit where it is cooled down to 3 C before it enters the filter cartridge. As the filter cartridge is a flow resistance this part of the system is continuously under a pressure of about 1 bar plus the hydrostatic pressure originating from oil level of the transformer. After passing the filter cartridge the dried and purified mineral oil is refilled into the transformer vessel via another oil sample extraction tube or directly into the conservator.

Primary tests
For the tests performed with this facility a transformer model has been used. It consists of a heatable oil barrel containing 200 liters of mineral oil plus 30 kg of therewith impregnated paper and pressboard samples. The samples had previously been aerated with water, thus the oil humidity at the start of the experiment was about 60 ppm at 60 C. A direct measurement of the paper samples water content is possible, but as the transformer model is sealed it is time consuming and implies the risk of leakage. The water content of insulating liquid samples extracted via a cannula into the barrel and from the outlet of the filter has been measured using a Karl-FischerCoulometer 684KF manufactured by Metrohm. The temperature of the transformer model and of the filter cartridge has been controlled using a Pt 100 thermometer. As the most interesting parameter the maximum attainable drying has been tested at first. Therefore the filter cartridge has been cooled down to -4 C and the oil flow has been reduced to 4 liters per hour. The water content of the mineral oil leaving this setup has continuously been around and below 1 ppm. In comparison to the conventional method where the oil is spread over large surfaces under vacuum and high temperatures this is a significant improvement. Additionally the oil is not thermally stressed during the desiccation process. For a practical application on power transformers there is no need for such an extreme dryness but it may be interesting for laboratory use. During the test time of 12 days the water content of the transformer model liquid has been reduced from 56.7 to 22.6 ppm and the water content of the solid insulation from about 4.5 % to 2.8 % respectively.

For transformers the flux of dried insulating liquid is more important than the maximum attainable dryness as the volume of insulating liquid to be dried is very large and with a higher throughput of the filter unit the drying is accelerated. The system flow-rate for a power transformer is actually rated to 240 liters per day but the basic limit for this value is the capacity of the cooling system as transformer insulating liquids are, by destination, good thermal transfer media carrying a lot of thermal energy that has to be removed. For an application on power transformers it is essential to detect the saturation state of the filter as in the case of a saturated purifier the drying stops and the cartridge has to be replaced. For this purpose the resistance of the impregnated filter material is measured as schematically depicted in figure 4. The filter cartridge consists of several layers of filter material that are glued together. The liquid flows in radial direction through this cartridge, thus a measurement of the resistance between the two electrodes covering one of the filter slices is representative for the whole filter condition.

Flow direction

Water content measurement

Electrodes

Filter cartridge

Figure 4 Schematic view of the filter cartridge saturation detector.

Alternatively a drying of the filter cartridge inside the filter vessel is possible but comprises several disadvantages. The particles, removed from the insulating liquid, remain on the surface of the filter and hamper the subsequent drying by vacuum. The drying of the impregnated cellulose of the filter cartridge is a time consuming process during which the continuous drying has to stop. Each drying cycle worsens the condition of the filter due to the material burden. And finally the transformer gas balance and therewith also the DGA may be influenced by the application of vacuum. For these reasons the filter cartridge used in the presented system has been specified for single use. To nevertheless assimilate large amounts of water until a replacement is necessary the filter dimensions have been enlarged. The actually implanted cellulose filter cartridge is capable for covering up to 15 liters of water.

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Application on site
The system has been applied to a 30 MVA transformer as it is depicted by Figure 5. During the application for 3 months the results of the DGA have not been changed as

Drying setup in water-proof housing

Figure 5: Drying setup applied to a transformer on site.

analyses of the oil before and after the application of the setup have shown. The water content of the transformer has been reduced by 300 g although the efficiency of the drying has been limited by the relatively low temperature of the transformer. The transformer is used as a backup, which is connected to the high voltage net but transmits energy only if the consumer needs extra power. Therefore only the losses during idle operation led to a warming of the transformer The ordinary operation temperature has been around 30 C while usual power transformers operate at temperatures above 60 C. Due to the lower temperature the equilibrium between the water in the cellulosic insulation and the water dissolved in the oil moves to the cellulose side (see Figure 2) and the insulating oil contains relatively small amounts of water. Even if this water is almost completely removed from the liquid during desiccation the poor supply with water by the transformer insulating liquid limits the drying speed. Actually a similar setup is applied to a transformer operating at temperatures around 80 C. As the drying has just started no values concerning the amount of removed water are available yet. Another possibility for increasing the drying performance would be the addition of a hygroscopic insulating liquid like ester liquids. Even the addition of 20 % ester increases the water solubility of the liquid by a factor of 10. Further information about this method can be found in [6].

Conclusions
The innovative method for the lifetime extension of oil filled transformers is based on drying the solid and liquid insulation, filtering of the oil and reducing the influence of oxygen . The main tasks of the system are as follows:

- allows a continuous, gentle and efficient drying of the insulating system and thereby increases the operation reliability and residual lifetime. - purifies the insulating liquid by filtering out solid contaminants and therewith increases the breakdown and partial discharge inception voltage of the liquid. - does not influence the gas balance of the transformer, thus the Dissolved Gas Analysis (DGA) is not affected. - is efficient over long time periods and can be applied on new and aged apparatus without the need for long time outages. - allows an almost complete desiccation of mineral insulating oils. The dryness attainable with this method is below 1 ppm. The insulating liquid is not stressed during this procedure. - Reduces the influence of oxygen Actually the system is in the beginning of a serial production and is already applied on sample transformers throughout Germany. The experiences gained during these final tests will lead to a fine tuning of the setup and finish the development.

Acknowlegements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Minna and James Heinemann foundation for their grant to Mr. Wasserberg in supporting his Ph.D. thesis. Also special thanks to the Karberg & Hennemann CJC Feinfilter corporation, Hamburg, Germany (info@kh.filter.de) for their interest in the performed work and the support of a technical realization.

References
[1] C. Krause, H.P. Gasser, J. Hochspannungstechnik Theoretische und praktische Grundlagen fr die Anwendung", Springer-Verlag 1986, pp. 145 - 148 [4] Y. Du, M. Zahn, B.C. Lesieutre, A.V. Mamishev and S.R. Lindgren: "Moisture Equilibrium in Transformer Paper-Oil Systems", IEEE Electrical Insulation Magazine Vol. 15, No. 1 January/February 1999 [5] J. Fabre and A. Pichon: "Deteriorating Processes and Products of Paper in Oil. Application to Transformers", 1960 International Conference on Large High Voltage Electric Systems (CIGRE), Paris, France, paper 137Huser and A. Sidler: "Effects of Moisture in Transformerboard Insulation and the Mechanism of Oil Impregnation of Voids", transform98 Forum der Technik, Munich, Germany, 20.-21.04.1998 [2] F. Flottmeyer, U. Sundermann and A. Mllmann: Alterungsverhalten von Transformatorisolierlen, Elektrizittswirtschaft Jahrgang 95 (1996), No. 8 , pp. 496 - 502 [3] M. Beyer, W. Boeck, K. Mller and W. Zaengl: "

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[6] V. Wasserberg, H. Borsi, E. Gockenbach: A New Method for Drying the Paper Insulation of Power Transformers during Service, 13th Intern. Symposium on Electrical Insulation (ISEI 2000), Anaheim, USA, paper 9-2 [7] N.N.: Power Engineering Guide Transmission and Distribution, Publication of the Siemens AG, p. 4/19