SecuriHeat ADW

FAST HEAT DETECTION FOR

TRANSFORMERS
Case Study

July 2021
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................ 3

Risk, Consequence and Fire Prevention ................................................................. 3

Challenges ................................................................................................................. 4

Code Compliance and Optimal Design .................................................................... 5

Application Scenarios ............................................................................................... 5

Designing the reliable, ultrafast detection system .............................................................................5
Securiton 360° Fire Protection Solution .............................................................................................8
Testing the PBD solution ...................................................................................................................8
Maintaining the reliable, ultrafast detection system ...........................................................................8

Expect the Best from SecuriHeat ADW.................................................................... 9

Benefits of SecuriHeat ADW ..............................................................................................................9
Support with Peace of Mind ...............................................................................................................9

Successful implementations .................................................................................. 10

List of References ................................................................................................... 11

Introduction
Electrical transmission and distribution systems are the heart of every economy. Transformers are an es-
Demand for electricity rapidly increases as a country becomes more developed sential part of the power
and industrialised. Transformers are an essential part of the power grid that sup- grid
plies electricity to homes, offices and factories. However, they are a potentially
weak link in the grid. If one fails, the network is rendered vulnerable. If a power
surge occurs across the network, knocking out several transformers, the electri-
cal grid could be crippled for months, even years.
Transformer units are big, expensive to build and largely custom made, meaning Replacing a transformer
that it can take a long time to replace a transformer if no spare transformer is can be time consuming
available.
Power transformers contain large quantities of mineral oil for insulation and cool- Transformer fires are
ing purposes. Consequently, transformer fires are predominantly mineral oil fires. predominantly mineral
Although transformers are equipped with both protective relays and monitors to oil fires
prevent faults and to minimise the damage in case of a fault, roughly half of the
fire incidents are related to the bushings, which are not covered by any protective
devices.
If a transformer fire is detected too late or encountered with inadequate response Business continuity is at
measures, the resulting damage may be substantial. In addition to the damage risk
as such, a fire is likely to jeopardise business continuity for such a mission critical
infrastructure.
A well-designed and reliable Early Warning Fire Detection system provides risk Early detection is key to
mitigation to potentially prevent a fire from happening or developing out of control. damage mitigation
Alarming early and with an alert before the alarm can facilitate timely investigation
by an onsite response team. A suitable fire detection system can also be used to
actuate suppression systems.

Risk, Consequence and Fire Prevention

When a transformer does fail, the result is often catastrophic. A power substation Oxygen, heat and fuel:
by its nature contains all of the ingredients to generate the perfect firestorm: A It’s all there for a perfect
typical transformer bank comprises of three or more transformer tanks, each con- fire storm
taining thousands of litres of highly flammable mineral oil. The ignition of the oil
can come from a variety of sources during a failure or short circuit or electrical
arcing inside the tank, any of which can generate heat and pressure sufficient to
cause the tank to rupture. Once a rupture has occurred, air rushes into the tank
and the tank explodes, resulting in a blast of intense radiation scattering oil, steel
shrapnel, gaseous decomposition products and molten conductor material onto
the surrounding area. The duration of a transformer fire can range from 4 to 28
hours, which is the time it takes for the fire to burn out by itself [1].
The probability of a transformer failure varies considerably among utilities and Up to 4% of transformers
types of transformers. The probability rate of a serious failure is in average are affected by a fire inci-
0.9-1.0% per year of service. dent
The average probability of a serious transformer fire is in the order of one fire per
1’000 to 1’500 transformer service years. In practice, this means 2.4-4% of all
transformers can be expected to cause a fire during a service life of 40 years.
In addition, statistics suggest geographical location, temperature and lightning
levels may be attributed to transformer fires [2].
Transformer fires are largely mineral oil fires and not – as often assumed – tank Root cause for fires is
ruptures. For voltage levels below 300 kV in particular, failure of oil impregnated failure of oil impregnated
paper bushings and air/oil insulated cable boxes account for 70-80% of trans- paper bushings
former fires. On-load tap changers account for further 10-15% of transformer
fires. In fact, tank ruptures are rare for voltage levels below 245 kV, as the arcing