We can assist in the development or review of power transformer specifications to ensure that the procured transformers meet all customer requirements and industry standards and to ensure high reliability, low cost, and minimal maintenance.
A proper design review by competent personnel is key to ensuring that proposed designs meet the customer's specifications and applicable industry standards, while minimizing cost and maximizing reliability. While it is not practical, nor appropriate, for the reviewer to verify every single detail of the design, checks of key calculations and of critical dimensions and geometry can and should be made to ensure an appropriate design has been proposed that will meet expectations of a long and reliable service life.
Ensuring a quality supplier is essential to the procurement of a reliable power transformer. Constructing power transformers is an unforgiving business. One small error can result in a multi-million dollar transformer becoming a heap of scrap. A factory audit can help to ensure that necessary quality control methods are in place and, more importantly, being followed. This will generally involve a visit to the factory and discussions with vendor personnel, preferably following a documented, thorough, and neutral methodology.
Inspections of the transformer can, and should, occur at specific checkpoints agreed upon ahead of time between the supplier and the purchaser. This is the final check on manufacturer quality before a transformer leaves the factory is the factory acceptance test. This is a series of tests established by standard and by customer specification. While these tests cannot mimic all stresses and conditions a transformer will undergo over its service life, the tests and test levels have been determined through more than a century of experience to provide a transformer that will perform with the expected reliability.
Once a transformer leaves the factory, it must be handled appropriately and install and commissioned properly. While we don't perform these tasks directly, we can provide engineering support in reviewing proposed processes and procedures or handling exceptions and unanticipated issues.
Proper operation and maintenance of a power transformer are critical for a full, reliable life. We can provide guidance in developing or improving mainenance practices and programs to ensure reliable operation over a full service life, while minimizing cost. In particular, we have extensive experience working with available data to understand past maintenance needs and drivers in order to identify areas for improved practices.
Monitoring the condition of operating power transformers and diagnosing incipient fault conditions is a uniquely challenging task. Faults can and often do, evolve rapidly. The core and windings are not directly accessible, in most respects. Therefore, data and direct observations are limited. Nonetheless, we do have some useful tools at our disposal. We have extensive expertise in assessing the condition of power transformers utilizing readily available test data and developing data-driven decision making methodologies and processes. We can assist in one-off assessments or provide exertise and guidance to implement fleet-wide assessment methodologies.
Transformers represent a large capital investment. Managing the investment prudently, maximizing reliability while minimizing cost, requires a wealth of expertise, data, and strategic thinking. We have decades of experience working with utilities to develop data-driven methodologies for improving asset management decision making, deeply rooted in transformer expertise. This includes capital replacement planning, sparing strategies, and refurbish vs. replace decisions.
Effective asset management is rooted not only in data, but in practical application of appropriate statistical and analytical modeling methods. Many analytics efforts fail to adequetely marry data science expertise with the nuts & bolts asset engineering. We have decades of experience applying analytical methods to develop asset management insights across a wide range of asset classes, including, but not limited to, power transformers.