Effect of manufacturer, winding age and insulation type on stator winding partial discharge levels

With thousands of machines monitored for as long as 25 years with the same method, on-line partial discharge (PD) testing has become a recognized, proven tool to help maintenance engineers identify which stator windings need off-line testing, inspections and/or repairs. With over 63,000 test results acquired with the same test method, what constitutes a winding with low, moderate or high PD has been identified. This paper presents tables that enable test users to easily identify with some certainty which stators are likely to suffer from groundwall insulation deterioration, with only a single measurement on a machine. The practical importance of these tables is that if one applies PD sensors to a machine and, in the first measurement, one obtains a Qm that exceeds the 90 percentile of the relevant Qm distribution, then one should be concerned enough at the PD level to take action, such as more frequent testing and/or off-line tests and inspections at the next convenient machine shutdown. Within the statistical accuracy possible with several thousands of independent results, it seems that critical PD levels only depend on operating voltage, hydrogen pressure, manufacturer, and the specific type of PD sensor and instrumentation used.