2019 2nd International Conference on High Voltage Engineering and Power Systems (ICHVEPS) - Bali - Indonesia
Power Transformer Degradation Condition and
Insulation Index Estimation Based on Historical Oil
Data
Muhammad Fuad Al Hamdani
School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics,
Institut Teknologi Bandung
PT. PLN (Persero) Department of Electrical Engineering,
Jakarta, Indonesia
fuad_ah@pln.com
School of Electrical Engineering Computer and
Abstract—Power transformer is one of the most important
assets for any electricity utility. The overall power transformer
health condition can be assessed through the condition of its
insulation system. Recent result of transformer oil
measurements for parameters such as furan, dissolved gas
analysis, water content, breakdown voltage, interfacial tension,
acidity, and oil color scale are commonly used to assess the
health condition of power transformers. Degradation rate of
power transformer insulation system, especially paper
insulation, reflects the transformer aging condition and can be
used to estimate the useful remnant life of the asset.
Unfortunately, continuous aging process of power transformer
insulation system cannot be avoided due to the severe operating
conditions that a transformer is operating on. So, it is very
important to regularly monitor the condition of power
transformer insulation to maintain its reliability. Historical data
of transformer insulations are very substantial to define the
history of power transformer health condition. This paper
introduces two methods, first one to assess the degradation rate
of power transformers insulation, and then estimate the
insulation condition index based on historical data.
Keywords— Power Transformer, Furan, DGA, Transformer
insulating oil.
I. INTRODUCTION
With the continuous increase of the electricity demand,
reliability of power transformers has been prioritized within
the agenda of transmission and primary distribution network’s
operators. Along its operational life, a power transformer
experiences sever electrical, thermal and mechanical stresses
that lead to the decomposition of paper and oil insulation
system. While paper samples are hard to be acquired, oil
samples can be easily collected and tested in regular basis.
Tests such as Furan, dissolved gases, water content,
breakdown voltage and interfacial tension have been widely
recommended to reflect the health condition of the
transformer insulation system [1]–[4]. The rate of evolution of
some parameters such as dissolved gases is of more
importance than the absolute value [5]. Therefore, history of
diagnostic data of each power transformer should be stored
properly to facilitate reliable fault diagnosis analysis. Several
papers discussing various transformer oil tests to identify and
quantify different faults within power transformers can be
found in the literatures [6]–[11]. This paper is aimed at taking
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Rahman Azis Prasojo Suwarno
School of Electrical Engineering
Institut Teknologi Bandung and Informatics,
Institut Teknologi Bandung
State Polytechnic of Malang Bandung, Indonesia
Bandung, Indonesia
A. Abu-Siada
Mathematical Science,
Curtin University
Perth, Western Australia
the advantage of the availability of power transformer
historical diagnostic data to estimate transformer health
condition and predict its useful remaining life.
Lifetime of a transformer depends on the condition of its
insulation system, in particular the solid insulation. This is due
to the fact that transformer oil can be replaced while it is
impractical to replace paper insulation.
Degree of Polymerization (DP) is a reliable indicator that
reveal the condition of insulation paper [12], [13]. However,
it is impractical to acquire paper insulation from in-service
transformers. As such, several studies investigated the
correlation between DP and other measurable parameters such
as furan compounds that mainly generated due to cellulose
decomposition and dissolve in transformer oil [12], [13]. The
main compound of furan is the 2-furfuraldehyde (2fal) [14].
On the other hand, dissolved gas analysis (DGA) is used to
identify and quantify various faults such as partial discharge,
arcing and thermal faults within oil and paper insulation [15].
In this paper, history of diagnostic data of 10 power
transformers operating in the PT PLN (Persero) UITJBTB is
used to estimate the remaining life of these transformers.
Diagnostic data include Furan, DGA, and oil characteristics.
Transformer inspection method proposed in [6] is employed
to assess the transformers condition. Remnant life estimation
and asset management as described in [16] is adopted in this
paper.
II. DATA ANALYSIS
This section briefly presents the data and methodology used
in analyzing the 10 power transformers under investigation.
A. Furan and Degree of Polymerization
As described in [17] correlation between DP and paper
condition is as shown in Table I.
TABLE I. Correlation of DP and Paper Condition
Paper Condition Degree of Polymerization
New 1000 - 2000
Good 650 - 1000
Average 350 - 650
Aged < 350
B. Pyrolysis process (CO2/CO Ratio)
The flowchart of Fig. 1 shows the pyrolysis process [6]
based on the threshold limit given in [18].
Based on [17], Normal, Concern and Severe classification
can be identified based on the above table and flowcharts in
order to taking a proper action on the transformer
maintenance.
D. Contamination
Water content and oil breakdown voltage directly reflect
the dielectric capability of the insulating oil [6].

Cond.1

Cond.2 Cond.1

Cond.3 Cond.2

Figure 1. Pyrolysis flowchart

C. Hydrolysis process
Cond.3
The stage of hydrolysis process is evaluated using the
flowchart of Fig. 2 based on oil interfacial tension (IFT),
acidity and color of the oil sample [6].

Figure 3. Contamination flowchart

As shown in Fig. 3, additional classification of the

transformer condition can be made based on these two
parameters according to the limits provided in [17].
E. Duval Triangle for DGA
Cond.1 Duval Triangle is a tool to analyze dissolved gases in oil
insulation [19]. There are several key gases that can
determined what is happening inside the transformer. The key
gases described in [18] are relevant to the below faults when
they exceed their normal threshold limits:
Cond.2 • Ethylene (C2H4) along with a traceable amount of
Ethane (C2H6) and Methane (CH4) reveals excessive
overheating in oil.
• Carbon Monoxide (CO) reveals overheating in paper
insulation.
Cond.3
• Hydrogen (H2) along with a little amount of Methane
(CH4) reveals electrical low energy discharge or
partial discharge.
• Acetylene (C2H2) along with Hydrogen (H2) reveals
electrical high energy discharge or arcing.

Figure 2. Hydrolysis flowchart

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 The flow chart of Fig. 4 shows how Duval triangle can be Condition 2 : Good condition.
employed to classify the transformer health condition based Condition 3 : Average condition.
on DGA results. Condition 4 : Aged condition.

Combining the effects of DP and oil contamination, the

transformer degradation condition can be estimated based on
the accelerating aging as shown in Table IV. From the
collected 10 transformers diagnostic data, the variation of the
historical data can be employed to estimate the acceleration of
paper insulation ageing. Table V shows the estimated
Cond.1
degradation condition of the 10 transformers based on the
ageing combination of table IV.
TABLE IV. Degradation Condition based on Paper-Oil Criticality
Paper Degradation
Oil Criticality
Criticality Condition
Cond.2 Normal Normal Normal
Normal Accelerated Accelerated
Normal Excessive Excessive
Normal High Risk High Risk
Accelerated Normal Accelerated
Cond.3 Accelerated Accelerated Excessive
Accelerated Excessive High Risk
Accelerated High Risk High Risk
Excessive Normal Excessive
Excessive Accelerated High Risk
Excessive Excessive High Risk
Cond.1
Excessive High Risk High Risk
High Risk Normal High Risk
High Risk Accelerated High Risk
Figure 4. Duval triangle flowchart High Risk Excessive High Risk
High Risk High Risk High Risk

III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Transformer T9 degradation condition in Table V is less
In this section, the proposed degradation condition and
accurate because the water content in oil is near the limit
insulation index models are implemented using the historical
between severe and concern border as described in the
data of 10 in-service power transformers as given in Table AI standards [17].
in the Appendix.
TABLE V. Result of degradation condition estimation
A. Degradation Condition
Oil Paper Degradation
The degradation of power transformer insulation system Sample
Criticality Criticality Condition
can be assessed using historical data of the degree of T1 Excessive Normal Accelerated
polymerization and portion of contamination in the oil. T2 Excessive Accelerated Excessive
Degree of polymerization depends on the value of 2fal and the Accelerate
contamination level mostly depends on water content in the T3 d Normal Accelerated
T4 Excessive Accelerated Excessive
insulating oil. Tables II and III describe the status of paper T5 Excessive Accelerated Excessive
ageing based on the variation of paper condition and oil Accelerate
contamination. T6 d Accelerated Excessive
TABLE II. Transformer paper criticality determination using T7 Excessive Normal Accelerated
comparison between earlier and newer testing T8 Excessive Normal Accelerated
T9 Excessive Accelerated High Risk
recent Cond. T10 Excessive Accelerated High Risk
earlier 1 Cond.2 Cond.3 Cond.4
Accelerate
Cond.1 Normal d Excessive High Risk B. Insulation Condition Index
Cond.2 Normal Accelerated Excessive
Cond.3 Normal Accelerated Using the results from Pyrolysis, Hydrolysis,
Cond.4 Accelerated Contamination, and Dissolved Gas Analysis inspections,
Gumilang et. al. proposed method to identify transformer
insulation health index using equation 1, with corresponding
TABLE III. Paper Ageing based on oil contamination weighting factors [6].
recent
earlier Cond.1 Cond.2 Cond.3 = 1 + 2
Cond.1 Normal Accelerated Excessive + 3 (1)
Cond.2 Accelerated Accelerated Excessive + 4 ℎ
Cond.3 Accelerated Accelerated Excessive

1. WF1 = 0.167 3. WF3 = 0.167

Condition 1 : New condition. 2. WF2 = 0.250 4. WF4 = 0.417

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 Transformer overall criticality can be identified based on [2] K. U. Mulyodinoto, Suwarno, R. A. Prasojo, dan A. Abu-Siada,
the combination of pyrolysis, hydrolysis, contamination, and “Applications of ANFIS to Estimate the Degree of Polymerization
Duval analysis as shown in Table VII. Table VIII lists the using Transformer Dissolve Gas Analysis and Oil Characteristics,”
asset management decision of the 10 investigated Polym. Sci., vol. 4, no. 2, hal. 1–9, 2018.
transformers based on the transformer health condition
revealed in Tables VI and VII. [3] S. Forouhari dan A. Abu-Siada, “Remnant life estimation of power
transformer based on IFT and acidity number of transformer oil,”
TABLE VII. Insulation Index Evaluation
Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Prop. Appl. Dielectr. Mater., vol. 2015-
Insulation Octob, hal. 552–555, 2015.
Paper Index
Sample Condition DP Calculated Estimation [4] R. A. Prasojo, K. Diwyacitta, Suwarno, dan H. Gumilang,
T1 Average 372 1.835 “Transformer paper expected life estimation using ANFIS based
T2 Good 740 3.085 on oil characteristics and dissolved gases (Case study: Indonesian
T3 New 1179 4.67 transformers),” Energies, vol. 10, no. 8, 2017.
T4 Average 576 3.085
T5 Average 624 3.835 [5] S. Forouhari dan A. Abu-Siada, “Application of adaptive neuro
T6 Good 651 5.915 fuzzy inference system to support power transformer life
T7 Average 483 1.835 estimation and asset management decision,” IEEE Trans. Dielectr.
T8 Average 506 1.835
Electr. Insul., vol. 25, no. 3, hal. 845–852, 2018.
T9 Average 598 3.915
T10 Good 690 5.163 [6] H. Gumilang et al., “Condition assessment method for power
TABLE VIII. Recommended action based on insulation index transformer as a part of condition based maintenance program in
PLN P3B Jawa Bali,” Proc. 2012 IEEE Int. Conf. Cond. Monit.
Insulation
Diagnosis, C. 2012, no. September, hal. 269–272, 2012.
Index Recommended Action
9 Continue normal operation [7] R. A. Prasojo, K. Diwyacitta, Suwarno, dan H. Gumilang,
8 Continue normal operation, monitor trend “Correlation of transformer paper deterioration to oil
7 Analyze individual gases
characteristics and dissolved gases,” Int. Conf. High Volt. Eng.
6 Planning diagnostics
5 More frequent sampling interval Power Syst. ICHVEPS 2017 - Proceeding, vol. 2017-January, hal.
4 Reduce load 40–45, 2017.
3 Planning predictive maintenance
[8] D. T. Kinkeldey, M. S. T. Münster, P. P. Werle, E. F. Nasution,
2 Reclamation recommended
1 Consider take out of service, immediate action required dan P. Suwarno, “Estimation of the Degree of Polymerization ( DP
) of Oil-Paper Insulated Transformers Using a Novel Fuzzy Logic
Algorithm Fuzzy Inference System ( FIS ) Method,” hal. 303–308,
Table VIII shows the recommended action based on 2018.
insulation index proposed here. From 10 transformers
observed, 2 transformers (T6 and T10) is in index 6, 1 [9] H. Gumilang, “Hydrolisis process in PLN P3BJB Tx as an effect
transformer (T3) is in index 5, 4 transformers (T2 T4, T5, and of oil insulation oxidation.pdf,” no. September, hal. 1147–1150,
T9) is in index 4, and 3 other transformers (T1, T7, and T8) is 2012.
in index 2. The next step is to associate the insulation index [10] Suwarno dan R. Pasaribu, “Effects of thermal aging on paper
estimation to recommended action in table VIII. characteristics in paper-mineral oil composite insulation,” Proc.
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IV. CONCLUSION
[11] K. B. Shaban, A. H. El-Hag, dan K. Benhmed, “Prediction of
This paper emphasizes the urgency of proper arrangement
Transformer Furan Levels,” IEEE Trans. Power Deliv., vol. 31,
and storage of power transformer historical oil analysis from
when transformer first operated to the most recent time. These no. 4, hal. 1778–1779, 2016.
data help asset management team to identify a proper and [12] A. Abu-Siada, L. S. Pin, dan S. Islam, “Remnant life estimation of
timely maintenance action for the transformer. Two models to power transformer using oil UV-Vis spectral response,” 2009
evaluate power transformer has been proposed. The first IEEE/PES Power Syst. Conf. Expo. PSCE 2009, hal. 1–5, 2009.
model is degradation condition based on paper and oil
[13] A. B. Norazhar, A. Abu-Siada, dan S. Islam, “A review on
historical diagnostic measurement. Evolution of the measured
chemical diagnosis techniques for transformer paper insulation
parameters is crucial to enhance assessment of power
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result, the development of the model using advanced October, hal. 1–6, 2013.
computational process and ample historical data for various [14] C. W. Cigre D1.53, Cigre 738 - Ageing of liquid impregnated
transformers can be done. cellulose for power transformers, no. August. 2018.

V. ACKNOWLEDGMENT [15] A. Abu-Siada, M. Arshad, dan S. Islam, “Fuzzy logic approach to

The authors would like to thank PT PLN (Persero)
Indonesia for their support on this research.
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APPENDIX
TABLE AI. Historical condition of the investigated 10 Transformers
DP
Conta-
Hydro- DP Degradation Insulation Decrease
Sample Year Duval mina- Pyrolysis
lysis Calculated Condition Index Rate
tion
(/month)
2018 Severe Severe Severe Concern Average
T1 Accelerated 1.835 55
2017 Severe Severe Severe Concern Average

2018 Concern Severe Severe Concern Good

T2 Excessive 3.085 107
2017 Normal Severe Severe Concern New
2018 Normal Severe Concern Concern New
T3 Accelerated 4.67 18
2017 Normal Severe Concern Severe New
2018 Concern Severe Severe Concern Average
T4 Excessive 3.085 75
2017 Normal Severe Severe Severe Good
2018 Normal Severe Severe Concern Average
T5 Excessive 3.835 68
2017 Normal Severe Severe Concern Good
2018 Normal Normal Concern Severe Good
T6 Excessive 5.915 89
2017 Normal Concern Concern Severe New
2018 Severe Severe Severe Concern Average
T7 Accelerated 1.835 18
2017 Severe Severe Severe Severe Average
2018 Severe Severe Severe Concern Average
T8 Accelerated 1.835 15
2017 Severe Severe Severe Severe Average
2018 Severe Concern Severe Normal Average
T9 High Risk 3.915 13
2017 Severe Severe Concern Severe Good
2018 Severe Normal Severe Concern Good
T10 High Risk 5.163 177
2017 Normal Normal Normal Severe New

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