Fault Anticipator for Substation Equipment

Following an inordinate number of in-service failures of 230-kV current transformers, a need was perceived for some sort of early failure warning device for equipment in substations. The development and evaluation of an inexpensive partial discharge detection system for continuous on-line monitoring of substation equipment is described in this paper. The source of partial discharge activity, which nearly always precedes failure in high voltage equipment for times from minutes to months, may be unequivocally identified in a noisy substation environment, with no false alarms. Possible personnel hazard and damage to other equipment caused by an explosive failure can be avoided with appropriate operator action upon an alarm.