MONITORING

The cost of damages caused by bushing

failures and the lost opportunity to deliv-
er energy could be several hundred times
higher than the price of a bushing

ABSTRACT
Transformer bushings are one of the
Transformer
bushing
most critical components of a trans-
former. Up to 20 % of major failures
on high voltage transformers today
can be tracked back to bushings.

monitoring
Almost half of these failures result
in catastrophic failures like explo-
sions, fires or oil spillages. The cost
of these damages and the lost op-
portunity to deliver energy could be
several hundred times higher than Higher accuracy leads to better faults
the price of a bushing. Even a fail-
ing bushing which will not lead to a
detection
catastrophic failure can harm people
due to burst porcelain insulators and 1. Introduction within the lifetime of the bushings. One:
broken fragments that can be cata- when the bushings reach an age of 10 to 13
pulted through the air by the force of Today, the experience is that a transformer years, failure is possible due to production
the breakdown arc. will have two sets of bushings during its and quality related issues. The second
entire lifetime. Transformers are expected wave of bushing failures can happen
to last 50 years, while bushings have an between 20 to 30 years of age, which is
KEYWORDS expected lifetime of 25 years. Experience considered as the normal life time. It is
bushing, monitoring, accuracy
suggests there are two points of failure also true that bushings can fail younger

108
108 TRANSFORMERS MAGAZINE | Special Edition: Bushings, 2017

than 10 years as is also true that there are
bushings installed on transformers with
an age of more than 50 years.
Bushing monitoring is designed to detect
incipient faults and give an early warning,
as well as using the bushings until their
real end of life. In order to have a reliable
monitoring system, the accuracy of the
acquisition of the monitored parameters
needs to be very high. For example,
even if a relevant amount of moisture is
impregnated into the bushing core, the
Table 1. Transformer failure statistics [1]
FAILURES & POPULATION
INFORMATION
Failures 145 212 163 154 11 685
Transformer - Years 15220 48994 47473 41569 959 156186
FAILURE RATE / YEAR 0.95 % 0.43 % 0.34 % 0.37 % 1.15 % 0.44 %
w w w . t ra n sfo r m e r s - m a g a z i n e . co m
In order to have a reliable monitoring system,
the accuracy of the acquisition of the moni-
tored parameters needs to be very high
loss angle will only show a slight change at
ambient temperature. Common bushing
monitoring systems today are not able
to capture these slight, but important
changes. The bushings from different
phases are being cross-referenced to
each other. The sister bushings are used
as a reference source to assess the relative
condition of a bushing. Voltage and angle
differences between phases, as well as
different temperatures and aging rates are
not considered with these methods.
Newer approaches are using stable voltage
sources as reference signals, preferable
from the same phase as the monitored
bushing. The phase shift between the
leakage current signal from the bushing
and the voltage from the voltage
transformer will be measured, corrected
by the phase shift offset, and the loss factor
can be calculated directly. For example,
by using a voltage transformer (VT)
as reference source, small, but relevant
changes can be detected.
The two main health indicators for a
bushing are the loss factor (tan δ / power
factor) and the capacitance. While the loss
factor is sensitive to almost all bushing
faults, the capacitance is an important
factor to detect partial breakdowns
between capacitive layers and to detect, in
combination with the loss factor, contact
problems inside the bushing such as bad
contacts inside the bushing taps.
2. Failure statistic
Transformers are one of the most critical
components within the electrical network
Highest system voltage
69 kV <100 100 kV <200 200 kV <300 300 kV <500 700 kV All
Advertorial
and cannot, once one fails, be exchanged
easily by a new one. Often transformer fail­
ures cause the inability to deliver energy,
and have high potential to harm people in
addition to causing environmental disas­
ters. Due to these factors, a high financial
impact is often connected to transformer
failures.
Old economies such as Europe, North
America and Japan are facing aged key
network components. Continuous moni­
toring solutions were not used extensively
in the past, due to n-1 availability of the
main equipment. Furthermore, moni­
toring solutions were less reliable or not
available 10 to 20 years ago. The condi­
tion assessment in the utilities of the old
economies was typically carried out using
comprehensive periodic measurements
and maintenance programs. Nowadays
these utilities are seeking more and more
for solutions to operate their costly com­
ponents until their real end of life. Fur­
thermore, asset exchange programs will
have to be based on the condition of the
equipment. Condition monitoring (CM)
and condition based maintenance (CBM)
are an important factor to achieve these
goals. Transformers and transformer bush­
ings are important components to look at
in these regards.
The CIGRE WG A2.37 released in 2012
an interim report [1] which shows the
newest statistics on transformer failures,
see Table 1.
It can be seen that over all voltage classes,
transformer failure rate is 0.44 %, which
means, out of approximately 230
109
 MONITORING

Figure 1. Failed component statistics [1]

Power factor and partial discharge meas­ure­ of a bushing can lead to catastrophic
failures and can be going along with
ments are the most powerful parameters environmental disasters or fatal accidents
of personnel. According to a transformer
which can uncover most of the incipient reliability study published in [2], the
bushing failures majority of transformer fires are caused
by bushing failures.

transformers, one will fail per year.
Besides the preventions of failures or
early detection of upcoming faults,
the assessment of the remaining life
and the health of equipment is of
immense interest, especially for aged
equipment. To assess the asset condition,
a comprehensive set of data from the
transformer and its main components
needs to be gathered. Besides other
components and accessories, bushings
are one of the main causes of transformer
failures. The contribution to transformer
failures is around 20 % of the overall
transformer major failures, depending
on the type of transformer, Fig. 1. Failing
The causes of bushing failures are
varying from normal aging, moisture,
quality issues during manufacturing,
repeated thermal and mechanical cycling,
transients and external influences like
external flashovers. As result, a high
number of bushing failures develop from
partial breakdowns, thermal instabilities

Table 2. Detectability of different bushing failures (plus – it can be detected, minus – it cannot be detected)

Defect Tan δ Capacitance Partial discharge

-/+
Insulation aging + - Detectable if discharges are the
cause of the degradation/ aging

Moisture + - -

(+)
Void / Delamination After a certain time once the - +
dielectric material starts to corrode
+/-
Surface contamination + - If the surface contaminations
are creating surface discharges

+/-
Surface discharges Surface discharges with a high intensity - +
can be seen by a unstable tan δ
+/-
Partial breakdowns If it is combined with erosion of + +/-
insulating material
+ +
Contact problems Shows up as an increased Shows up as decreased +
or unstable tan δ or unstable capacitance

110 TRANSFORMERS MAGAZINE | Special Edition: Bushings, 2017

Figure 2. Leakage current and power factor / dissipation factor

or degradations of longitudinal insulation 3.1 Power factor / dissipation factor between capacitive and resistive current,
interfaces. which are presenting in their summation
The power factor reflects, as property of the leakage current.
The average lifetime of bushings is esti­ the insulation material, the condition of
mated in general as half of the life of a the insulation itself. It represents the ratio The capacitive current is the result of the
transformer (25 years). In reality, there are
bushings still working properly which are
older than 40 years as well as there are bush­
ings which are failing after 10 to 12 years
The advantage of online power factor moni­
of operation. To improve the transformer toring is that the power factor of a bushing
reliability the demand of reliable bushing
monitoring is increasing throughout the can be seen at different temperatures
industry.

3. Bushing monitoring
parameters
The main bushing parameters used
today for bushing health assessment are
the power factor in the IEEE world or
dissipation factor in the IEC world, the
main bushing capacitance and the partial
discharge activity. Table 2 provides
reference to the different bushing
parameters and their ability to be used to
detect different failures in an early stage
of development.

It can be seen that power factor and Figure 3. Power factor behavior over temperature due to increased moisture
partial discharge measurements are the
most powerful parameters which can
uncover most of the incipient bushing
failures. The capacitance monitoring is
a good indicator for partial breakdowns
(breakdown between two or more layers
with the result of a short circuit between
them) and contact problems (capacitance
decreases or is fluctuating heavily). Each
parameter will be discussed further
regarding the best usage for online
assessment of the condition of capacitor
core bushings. Figure 4. Bushing series capacitances

w w w . t ra n sfo r m e r s - m a g a z i n e . co m 111
 MONITORING

Figure 5. Challenges for online bushing PD monitoring

capacitive layer design and therewith

given by design. The resistive current is
caused by the resistivity of the insula­
tion material and is a direct parameter of
the quality of the insulation system. Each
healthy solid and liquid insulation mate­
rial has its typical relative resistive current
component. An increasing resistive cur­
rent will indicate a degradation of the in­
sulation system and will increase the angle δ
and decrease the angle φ and will result
in an increase in power factor, Fig. 2. The
power factor measurement under online
conditions requires a high accuracy in
order to detect already small changes and
to guarantee the detection of increasing
moisture content in the insulation system,
which is difficult to achieve under online
condition. External influences like low
frequency magnetic fields, external noise
and harmonics as well as the lack of sta­
ble reference signal sources are the factors
which influence these measurements.
Figure 3 shows the behavior of an
insulation system with increased moisture
contamination. The accuracy of the power
factor monitoring needs to be very high to
Detection of bushing related partial dis-
charge under online conditions is facing
major problems
detect the power factor difference at 20 °C
for a “wet” and “dry” insulation. With the
current online methods, this accuracy
can hardly be achieved. The difference
between a dry and a wet bushing could
be 0.2 % at 40 °C, which still needs a high
accuracy to detect moisture or insulation
aging early enough.
The advantage of online power factor moni­
toring is that the power factor of a bushing
can be seen at different temperatures.
Depending on the load of the transformer,
the temperature of the bushing will vary.
Figure 3 shows that the power factor
gradient of “wet” bushings is much higher
at higher temperatures than for “dry”
bush­ings at the same temperature. Offline
measurements at ambient temperature
and low accuracy online monitoring are
not able to detect this kind of defects.
3.2 Capacitance
As described above, the capacitive
current resulted by the capacitance is a
parameter which represents the design
of the capacitive layers of a bushing.
It will increase if two or more layers
of the electrical field control foils are
electrically shorted, Fig. 4. If only two
layers are shorted, the capacitance will
increase by a percentage equivalent to
the total number of layers. For example,
if 2 out of total 50 foils (layers) will be
short-circuited, the capacitance will
increase by 2 %.
Although pure capacitance monitoring
is easy to apply for online purposes
by simply using a defined secondary
capacitor (C3), the number of detectable
defects are limited, see Table 2.

112 TRANSFORMERS MAGAZINE | Special Edition: Bushings, 2017

Common methods, give limited information about the
health of a bushing. Mainly the partial
e.g. balanced current discharge from a bushing will be hidden
method, have limita- by ‘external’ discharges/disturbances.
Furthermore, the sensitivity is limited
tions due to the influ- and it is difficult to allocate detected
ences of the natural discharges to a certain component or
even to distinguish between internal and
load imbalance external discharges.
More promising is to use capacitance
3.3 Partial discharge and the power factor. They can be
monitored for bushings specifically by
using different methods, which will be
discussed in the next chapter more in
detail.
4. Overview of today’s used
bushing monitoring methods
The newest method used today for bush­
ing monitoring is the reference signal
m­ethod, where the phase shift of the
leakage current of a bushing and its stable

As per Table 2, a high number of different

bushing defects can be detected by partial
discharge monitoring but not moisture.
Therefore, partial discharge (PD) mea­
surements are very important for routine
and re-testing at factory or onsite. Never­
theless, the detection of the bushing re­
lated partial discharge under online con­
ditions is facing major problems.

The measuring principle for online PD

bushing monitoring used today is based on
the IEC 60270 method. The bushing capa­
citance will be used as coupling capacitor.
Mainly this PD monitoring principle is ap­
plied to monitor PD in transformers but in
some cases also to monitor the bushings.

The PD magnitudes of incipient bush­

ing faults are between 5 pC up to 100
pC. Higher values are possible in case of
contact issues. Typical values are usu­
ally below 50 pC. Comparing that with
the allowed and possible PD activity on
overhead lines (some nC) and inside the
Figure 6. Principle overview of the balanced current method
transformer (typically 500 pC up to 1 nC
allowed – see Figure 5), most likely the
bushing PD will be hided due to the high­
er ‘external’ signals. Furthermore, due to
the high capacitance of the test object and
the typical onsite background noise, the
sensitivity of such a PD monitoring using
the bushing as coupling capacitor is quite
limited. Additional to that, if a PD signal
is detected, it is difficult or even in some
cases impossible to find the origin of the
detected PD without any additional mea­
surements, which might require an outage
of the transformer. It could come from the
overhead lines, line connectors, trans­for­m­
er, high current duct or maybe even the
bushing itself.

3.4 Proposed parameter for online

monitoring

It can be concluded that partial discharge

online monitoring for bushings will Figure 7. Principle of the reference signal method

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 MONITORING
Figure 8. Example for effective noise elimination
reference signal is measured. This method
will be discussed further below in more
detail, but first the most common method
and its advantages and disadvantages will
be described.
4.1 Balanced current method
The balanced current method, also
known as sum of currents method, Fig. 6,
is today’s most used method for bushing
monitoring. The assumption is that under
perfect circumstances the summation of
the leakage currents of the three bushings
of the different phases under considerati­
on of its phase angles is zero. The perfect
circumstances mean that for all phases,
the magnitude of the voltage amplitudes
are absolutely the same, and the phase
shift between the phases is exactly 120
degrees. Further, the bushings are con­
sidered to behave the same.
Real electrical networks are carrying an
114
imbalanced load. Phase asymmetries re­
garding voltage magnitude of 1 to 1.5 %
and 0.2 degree in phase angle variations
are very common for stable networks
known from the ‘old economies’. Much
higher asymmetries can be seen in more
unstable networks in other parts of the
world.
The asymmetries are changing with the
load conditions in a daily, seasonal and
unpredictable manner. Changes in capa­
citance of a bushing (partial breakdowns)
can be detected more easily because the
general fluctuations of the voltage mag­
nitude across all the three phase is lower
compared to the expected change because
of a critical partial breakdown. But still, the
clear detection of a partial breakdown for
voltage levels 500 kV and above remains
a challenge, even if the voltage magnitude
asymmetry is only 1.5 %. Nevertheless, a
partial breakdown shows up rather as a
permanent step change, while changes in
TRANSFORMERS MAGAZINE | Special Edition: Bushings, 2017
load happen mostly more gradually and
are not permanent.
Another challenge for that method is the
phase asymmetry regarding the phase
angle. If the phase angle unbalance is only
0.2 degree, it would result in a deviation of
the power factor of about 0.35 %, which
is more than 100 % assuming the power
factor of a healthy OIP (Oil-impregnated
Paper) bushing will be around 0.25 %! The
small power factor changes, caused by
moisture (compare Figure 4), cannot be
detected or being detected in a late stage
of degradation.
Modern systems are using self-learning
methods, which are recording the typi­
cal daily and seasonal behavior of the
bushings to predict the load conditions.
Nevertheless, the achievable accuracy re­
garding the measured power factor is lim­
ited and is mostly displayed as a relative
change to the sister bushings.
Using this method for single phase trans­
former is even more challenging.
4.2 Reference method
Today the biggest drawback to increase
the accuracy and stability in power factor
and capacitance monitoring is that bush­
ings will be compared across phases.
The only approach to overcome this
drawback is to find a load independent
ref­erence signal source within the same
phase of the monitored bushing.
The installation of a standard capacitor
(gas filled) as used for offline measure­
ment and during routine testing in high
voltage laboratories is far too expensive.
Another possibility is the usage of a volt­
age transformer. A voltage transformer
(VT) always has a stable load on its sec­
ondary winding (not load depended).
Furthermore, the VTs are not changing
their transfer behavior with varying load
of the network. The principle of this meth­
od is to measure the phase shift between
the bushing leakage current and reference
signal. While existing equipment can be
used, it reduces the needed hardware to
a minimum. Figure 7 illustrates the prin­
ciple of the reference signal method using
VTs (CVTs) from the same phase.
The reference signal is taken from the
same phase which increases the achieve­
a­ble accuracy. It is then not depending on By using a reference signal from the same
phase asymmetries any more. After digiti­
zing both input signals, all signal proces­ phase, a higher accuracy and a better de-
sing will be done by software algorithms.
Existing phase constant shifts from VT,
tection of incipient faults can be achieved
cables, etc. must be compensated.

The major challenges are the elimination

or limitation of noise, and the availability
of a stable reference source. Especially the
second is not always given. Sometimes
there are no VTs/ CVTs at the high volt­
age side or they are far away in a separate
switchyard (especially in power plants)
or VTs/ CVTs existing only for one phase
(mostly the middle phase). A comparative
monitoring in these cases can be applied,
where another bushing from the same
phase but a different transformer can be
used as reference and vice versa. Other
alternative methods are under develop­
ment.
Figure 9. Raw data example from site
The elimination or limitation of noise is
one of the major requirements to achiev­e
the necessary accuracy in the phase interest by utilities and power producers. References
shift measurement of 0.0057 degree (or Common methods, e.g. those based on
0.1 mrad). Fig. 8 is showing a noisy signal bal­anced current principles, are having 1. A2.37, CIGRE WG, Transformer Reli-
before and after signal processing, which limitations due to the influences of the na­ ability Survey: Interim Report, No. 261,
can be described as follows: tural unbalance of the network load. ELECTRA. 2012

• Noise and harmonics need to be elimi­
nated by advanced software algorithms
• The accuracy of the phase measurement
is better than 0.1 mrad (0.0057 degree)
• The accuracy enables to detect changes
in tan δ form, e.g. 0.325 % to 0.340 %
• This enables to detect moisture increa­
se, insulation system aging and degrad­
ation early enough
By using a reference from the same phase,
a higher accuracy and a better detection of
incipient faults can be achieved. Further,
this method will deliver direct power
factor readings instead of the percentage
read­ings being shown today.
Further developments will be done to
provide a reliable reference voltage source
more easily and lesser efforts in cabling.
2. H.-P. Berg and N. Fritze, Reliability
of main transformers, Bundesamt für
Strahlenschutz, Salzgitter, Germany,
2011
Contact
Thomas Linn
Phone: +1 585 643 3625
E-mail: tlinn@qualitrolcorp.com

• Temperature compensation will be Author

necessary to achieve this accuracy
Furthermore, Fig. 9 shows another ex­
ample for recorded raw data. Due to the
relatively high amplitude, the signal from
the reference source (blue curve) is almost
not disturbed, while the signal coming
from the bushing tap has a noise compo­
nent of about 15 to 20 %.
Conclusions
Bushings are critical parts on transform­
ers and having the potential to lead to
catas­
trophic transformer failures. The
bushing online monitoring is gaining high
Thomas Linn graduated from the Technical University
of Dresden with a degree in Electrical Engineering,
specializing in High Voltage Techniques. In 1998 he joined
ABB in Switzerland and was responsible for high voltage
onsite testing for GIS and cables, PD measurements onsite
and PD monitoring of gas insulated switchgear. Afterwards
he worked for 10 years with high voltage transformer
bushings and became a senior technical expert for high
voltage techniques and equipment. In March 2013 Thomas joined Qualitrol as
Technical Application Specialist. As a TAS, Thomas is able to leverage 20+ years
of experience in high voltage equipment such as GIS, high voltage bushings,
cables, transformers, high voltage testing, partial discharge measurement and
monitoring, and high voltage test equipment. Thomas is a member of CIGRE
and IEC TC42 in Switzerland and is contributing as an expert to different
CIGRE Working Groups internationally.

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