21, rue d’Artois, F-75008 PARIS A2-101 CIGRE 2016

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Remote monitoring system and analysis of equipment performance for asset

management

L. F. Queiroz J. M. Araújo P.V. Almeida R.J.C. Padilha

Eletronorte Eletrobras Eletronorte Eletronorte
Brazil Brazil Brazil Brazil

D.O. Neto C.C. Santos L.G.Lima A. Altmann L.C.F. Santos

Eletronorte Eletronorte Eletronorte Eletronorte Eletronorte
Brazil Brazil Brazil Brazil Brazil

SUMMARY

The availability of assets is essential to the effective power supply and service of the agents facilities
and electricity services. The evolution of maintenance occurs both in order to improve the procedures
used, and in order to make better use of resource management. The advent of on-line monitoring
systems allowed the acquisition of data for electronic systems, providing deployment of predictive
maintenance based on monitoring equipment. There was migration from the preventive maintenance
to predictive maintenance, which was only possible through on-line monitoring systems.

The analysis and diagnosis of substation equipment has evolved with the use of procedures and testing
systems with techniques and tools that promote an effective and rapid assessment of such equipment.
Regular maintenance for on-line checking of the operating conditions of these devices become
increasingly important and it becomes imperative to search procedures and tools enabling it to gather
the data from the facilities quickly and accurately. Thus, the main objective is to allow the assessment
of equipment through new techniques and detect as early as possible internal failures. Linked to this,
increased economic efficiency in business processes, the need for technological development in order
to reduce costs without reducing the quality of services and availability of equipment, electric utilities
need modern tools, and condition on-line monitoring can be one tool among the most important ones.
This article shows the practice adopted by Eletronorte company to detect and act preventively in the
pre-existing problems, reducing downtime costs and equipment maintenance. It presents the system
DianE used in predictive maintenance process, supervision of equipment condition monitoring and an
study in a transformer HVDC - High Voltage Direct Current.

KEYWORDS
Predictive maintenance, on-line systems, Diagnostic Systems, Monitoring, Maintenance
Management, HVDC transformer

lilianf.queiroz@yahoo.com.br
1. INTRODUCTION

Technology and innovation is a strategic business for Centrais Eletricas do Norte do Brasil SA -
Eletronorte, one of the most important state-owned generation and transmission of electricity in
northern Brazil, including the Amazon Region. Through the National Interconnected System - SIN,
also supplies power to buyers from other regions of Brazil. The Company encourages the development
of operational solutions. To act mainly in the Amazon, Eletronorte has continually confronted with
challenging situations, but always promoted knowledge. The company has 9,983 km of transmission
lines and 31,017 MVA of installed capacity. Among the assets highlights the Tucuruí Hydroelectric
Plant with an installed capacity of 8,370 MW. The total installed capacity of 9,294.33 MW.

Figure 1 – Eletronorte Transmission System 2015 [1]

To meet the increased demand for electricity users, the reliable supply has never been so necessary
and is requiring energy providers to improve control of the production process as well as
manufacturers develop new alternative techniques ensuring high product reliability.

It can be said that the long-term plan for power grids is the smart grid, which is a fully automated
power system obtained through information technology integration, communication, monitoring and
control of smart devices, and provides greater security of supply and better use of existing energy
resources. The technologies developed and used with condition monitoring purpose are moving in that
direction. They have evolved over the past 20 years and have already demonstrated its potential to
provide critical information for making technical and economic decisions.

The technologies used for continuous on-line condition monitoring use microprocessors and digital
signal processing devices for measuring parameters of the condition and / or operation, storing them
properly and linking them to the state of the main components of power equipment, at any necessary
acquisition rate.

Through the corporate integration with other historical and contextual data about the topology of the
substations, equipment type (based on the design and manufacture), commissioning tests, off-line
testing and on-line diary test and other relevant information protection systems. All of these
continuous data can be converted into useful intelligent information and diagnostics to guide users of
the assets in prioritizing their actions.

The change of preventive maintenance based on time for predictive maintenance focused in working
condition in high voltage equipment is a reality, substantially changing the philosophy of approved
maintenance. Thus, the on-line monitoring systems have been adopted as an important tool to enable

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this change, without jeopardizing the safety and reliability of equipment operation, allowing to know
their condition or predict and diagnose potential problems. [2]

2 - MONITORING EQUIPMENT

Monitoring is the on-line measurement of substation equipment parameters to identify the action of
failure modes of slow evolution, in order to make the diagnosis of the condition and prognosis of
remaining useful life, allowing the programming of maintenance on condition for ensuring decisions
on the management of assets.

Large transformers are found around the world in industrial, commercial and electric companies. They
have significant importance in process of Generation, Transmission and Power Distribution.

For the effective operation of the system, they should run perfectly, since the energy transfer process is
critical. An unexpected failure of a bushing, tap changer or in the isolation of transformer can
compromise an industrial process, besides causing outage of power plants and substation. Depending
on the extent of the damage, the disruption can last for weeks.

Eletronorte adopts for your maintenance process, the use of a continuous monitoring system "on-line"
and "off-line" of its facilities. With this, you will have the following benefit: maximizing equipment
uptime. Therefore, interruptions of unnecessary maintenance are eliminated. Productivity and
availability of assets is increased. It seeks to minimize the inherent periodic maintenance failures.
Routine maintenance are effective if done regularly. Often, however, the gap between them is too
large to detect an impending failure. We have to take care not to trust fully on these maintenances,
because the regulatory bodies considers the availability of the equipments, so if they are out of
services penalties are imposed.

In this sense, the company has in its transformers / autotransformers and reactors, continuous on-line
monitoring, or on-line sensors to acquire continuous data ( currents, voltages, temperatures, etc.) . In
transmission grid, the most importante equipments for monitoring are: transformers, reactors, switches
and This paper will present the experience of Eletronorte with on-line monitoring of the transformers
belonging to the HVDC Transmission System of the Madeira Complex.

3.0 - DIANE SYSTEM AND ITS APPLICATION IN ELETRONORTE

DianE System is an application, developed by the Electric Energy Research Center - CEPEL for use in
analysis and diagnosis of the state of the equipment used in substations High Voltage.

The main purpose of the system is to integrate known techniques of analysis in a single system able to
give the user as much information that assist in making decisions about the operating system and the
maintenance needs of all registered devices. Its main objective is to integrate information on the
evaluation of the operational condition of the equipment such as power transformers, reactors, circuit
breakers, disconnect switches, surge arresters, bushings, bypass switches, instrument transformers,
among others.

DianE is a system that uses data from physical-chemical analysis, dissolved gas analysis (DGA),
furfuraldehyde analysis, partial discharge measures, degree of polymerization, power factor test,
thermography inspections, on-line temperatures, charging on-line, indicating evidences of defects in
substations equipments and plants. The system is used for registration of equipment and tests
performed on them. The DianE System uses a strategy that standardizes and integrates different
analyses methodologies with the process of an RCM - Reliability Centered Maintenance - diagnostics,
that resulting from the evidences of defects identified, a degree of risk for each possible cause of
failure of each registered equipment. The Figure 2 shows the methodology used in DianE. [3]

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 Figure 2 – Methodology used in DianE to capture and systematize knowledge

From the standardization and integration of techniques available for equipment analysis in a single
environment, with the ability to access data from various sources and provide broad access to
corporate information, what would facilite decision-making on priorities for maintenance, the system
is designed to help companies to search for greater reliability and operational availability. The Figure
3 shows Graph of Defects and Failures of equipment.

Figure 3 – Graph of Defects and Failures of equipment.

Using the DianE system the company started to make a transformer recovery program that had
systematic failures, enabling to increase the operational reliability of such equipment it is increasing
system reliability, following the evolution of equipment life, reducing costs for business. DianE
system was capable of detect evidence of failures, that after were confirmed in field, in various
Eletronorte outfits. Thus, it gathered the failure detection technologies such as Acoustic Emission for
troubleshooting

Eletronorte is a pioneer in the electric sector to integrate the systems used by personnel service, DianE,
with a control and operation system, SAGE. Through this integration, the on-line data of active power,
reactive power, current, voltage, the temperature of the transformer can now be used for analysis and
diagnosis of faults, defects and loading of transformers.

3.1 Characteristics of the evolution of maintenance and monitoring

The predictive maintenance instead of traditional maintenance uses the monitoring as a tool to assure
the continuous operation of the equipments, so it is possible to consider other important parameters
such as maintenance costs, hours of unavailability and so on.

Facing the new reality, the picture changes dramatically. With all the technological resources available
currently and the requirements imposed by the regulatory bodies, the electric companies must adopt
new technologies including tools of monitoring of the equipments. It is necessary to ensure the
management of the assets

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The table I shows the evolution of the manner how to do maintenance

Table I - Evolution of maintenance and monitoring [4]

Past
Few data are available on-line More data begins to be
(high cost of sensors and
hardware)
Data not organized
Few methods of diagnosis
Few computational analysis
programs (Basic, Fortran)
Deterministic and statistical
techniques
Corrective and preventive
maintenance
Present
available on-line (cost
reduction of sensors and
hardware)
Systematization of databases
to record the operational
history
Increased number of
diagnostic methods
Programs running locally and Integrated programs and more
not integrated techniques
(majority)
Application of deterministic
and statistical techniques
together with some
computational intelligence
techniques
Predictive maintenance
Future
Large volume of data
available on-line for major
equipment of substations
Historical basis with
consolidated data
Remain only the methods that
have proved more efficient
efficient
Application of deterministic
and statistical techniques with
the largest number of
computational intelligence
techniques
Reliability Centered
Maintenance (RCM)

4.0. EXAMPLE OF FAULT DETECTION BY DIANE MONITORING SYSTEM -

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

4.1. Defect in the transformer HVDC system caused by failure to bushing

The Madeira River HVDC system (7.100 MW ± 600 kV) is a high-voltage direct current transmission
in Brazil that is being built to transport electricity from new hydro power plants on the Madeira River
in the Amazon Basin to major load centers in southeastern Brazil - a distance of about 2,500 km,
making it the longest transmission link in the world.

The reliability and availability of the equipment is of utmost importance to the national economy, and
the untimely failure, for instance of a converter transformer compromises the security of the
aforementioned installation and leads to sizeable losses to Eletronorte, to the own Interconnected
Transmission System and the country;

In Substation of Araraquara - SE Araraquara - the converter transformers 500/√3 - 236/√3 kV ( Y-Y )

and 500/√3 - 236/√3 kV (Y- ∆ ) unit with a potency of 292,1 MVA are only a secondary winding to be
of Y connection, either in connection ∆ making twelve units (six for pole 1 and six for the pole 2) plus
one reserve unit . The total weight of the equipment is 256 Tons (in the Y-Y of increased mass units).
The Figures 4 and 5 shows pictures of SE Araraquara.

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 Figure 4 - Overview of the SE Araraquara Transformers

Figure 5 - Valve House SE Araraquara 2 - transformer bushings

4.2. Monitoring the generation of gases in transformer

The converter transformer Y Phase A, polo 1 dipole 1, serial number 1ZBR60988, operational code
TF1Y FA, started commercial operations in 2013 and in October 2014 presented the first record of
fuel gas evolution dissolved in the insulating oil. Monitoring the evolution of gases dissolved in oil
was the method of manual oil collection and shipment of samples to the laboratory. In December 2014
oil spill was found in capacitive tap of the secondary bush "a" TF1Y FA of the transformer, and in
January 2015, the results of tests on insulating oil indicated the presence of acetylene gas.

Installing on-line monitoring system for dissolved gases in the insulating oil, as well as monitoring of
voltage, current and temperature has been set. The data from dissolved gas analysis provided by the
on-line monitoring system and the results in laboratory showed abnormalities due to the presence of
combustible gases of thermal fault C2H4, C2H6, CH4 etc. These gases come out from a normal
growth rate to a very high rate, within limits laid down by the methods of analysis and fault detection
in the transformer insulating oil, and the Brazilian and international standards, e.g. IEEE C57.104-
2008. [5]

In July 2015, coinciding with the transformer shutdown for visual inspection of the bushing tap of the
HVDC 600kV considering that had some evidence of oil spill in the tap bushing, there was a jump in
the profile of the gas formation rate in the insulating oil of the transformer, with presence of ethane
and ethylene gases.

In the case of events involving the active part of the transformer, when it has high internal pressure in
the tank of the equipment, the bushing may be expelled into the valve room with deterioration caused
by the insulating oil poured into the combustion process, reaching the columns of converter valves and
the bushing of the other five (05) converter transformers that step into this same room compromising
even the whole metal structure of the valves room leading to the total or partial loss of the pole 01 of
the HVDC system.

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The damage can be catastrophic if the fire reaches, by internal bushings located in the valve room, the
other adjacent converter transformers totaling approximately 840,000 (eight hundred and forty
thousand) liters of oil.

4.3 DianE System

The system DianE shows the results of DGA of the insulating transformer oil. Evidence of rising fuel
gases was identified.

By analysis of DGA methods, the system found that the transformer had overheating of conductors.
The ABNT methods, Dornenburg, IEC, Cepel, Laborelec and Rogers, diagnosed the overheating
defect. [5]

Table II - Results oil chromatography

Figure 6 - Defect diagnosed

Figure 7 - Methods of diagnostics Figure 8 - Graphic evolution of gases

After technical discussions with the manufacturer, it has been set up the equipment removal from
service. For this activity, it was set up a complex operation for phase switching of transformers.

4.4. Inspecting the Bushing and transformer

Internal inspection was carried out on the transformer to identify the cause of the occurrence.

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 Figure 9 - Discharge points in the transformer tank

Inner shield

Outer shield isolated

Figure 10 - Discharge points in bushing Figure 11 - Discharge points in bushing

4.5. Conclusion of the Inspection

Evidence of carbonized oil shield/insulation of the internal terminal HVDC 600kV bushing terminal
(a).
Internal inspection and Results
Possible correlation DGA and carbonization oil in shielding / insulation of the internal terminal HVDC
bushing: a) Electric potential fluctuation between adjacent electrodes, electrical arcing, high energy
discharges and initial formation of H2, C2H2, H2> CH4, C2H6> C2H4 CO2 / CO> 10 with moderate
involvement of cellulose insulation; b) Electric discharge between adjacent electrodes - loss (total /
partial) of the bushing shield empowerment; breakdown in internal contact lower bushing; etc.; c)
Thermal fault with temperature higher than 250 ° C with carbonization of the oil and the adjacent solid
insulation; d) Poor contact (defective) between adjacent metal parts together by screws (reduction or
failure of the gasket clamping force, reduction or loss the electric contact pressure, reducing pressure,
etc.); e) Induction of current circulating in a closed loop error (for faulty isolation and / or disruptive
discharge between adjacent electrodes; etc.). The transformer will be fully inspected and bushing sent
to the manufacturer for recovery.

5. CONCLUSION

Currently, many advances have been made with equipment monitoring, but there is still great potential
for new developments. The on-line monitoring systems have been adopted as an important tool for
changing the preventive maintenance move to predictive maintenance, without jeopardizing the safety
and reliability of operation of the equipment, allowing us to know their condition or predict and
diagnose possible issues.

It is seen an effort in terms of standardization for the development of a common language, requiring
terminology - with names and clarity of the scope of the technical specification of equipment

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parameters to be monitored, the rules for comparison and interpretation of acquired data and common
presentation of results. In other words, these are the necessary efforts to establish the basis for an
information exchange platform beyond a simple exchange of information and abnormal events
restricted to a small number of users or manufacturers.

The company seeks an overview of the status of all assets and allows its common classification. With
the project, it was made available at Eletronorte, a corporate system analysis and substation equipment
diagnostics (DianE System) with intranet via access to the entire company, and digital media, a
historic single database - via Oracle database, which allows advances in the understanding of the
relationship between the diagnostic variables. Thus, the broadening the knowledge of the teams,
deploys training for users and facilitates analysis of the equipment.

They are cited as reasons for deploying continuous on-line monitoring to reduce costs (e.g.:
postponing maintenance), staff reductions (limited knowledge of experts), regulatory issues (e.g.:
dwell time), environmental pressures, company image protection (e.g.: reducing blackouts), avoid
teams on standby (e.g.: especially at night or weekends), extending the useful life of an asset that
would otherwise be retired by erroneous perception of excessive risks to its continued operation.
Advantages of on-line monitoring: Monitoring equipment to detect as early as possible internal
failures by monitoring and / or diagnostic equipment.

5.0 - REFERENCES

[1] http://www.ons.org.br/conheca_sistema/mapas_sin.aspx

[2] Working Group A2.23 CIGRE. “Data Management for Monitoring and Evaluation of
Operational Condition transformers (GDMT)”

[3] Milasch, Milan: Maintenance of Liquid Insulation in Transformers. Editora Edgard Blucher Ltda., de
1984

[4] Action Plan - Monitoring Equipment Companies of Eletrobras

[5] IEEE: Guide for the interpretation of gases generated in oil-imersed transformes, IEEE Std C55,
104- 1991, de 1991.

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