OIL FILTRATION & SAMPLE ANALYSIS

CEC provide a range of services for oil filtration and the testing of oil and insulation used in electrical power transformers. As part of our High Voltage Maintenance, our expert staff have a detailed knowledge of transformer diagnostics and can provide detailed current and historical reports to assist in the maintenance of transformers. We also offer oil filtration services. We facilitate the collection, transportation and processing of used non-PCB and PCB-contaminated naphthenic-based transformer oil from power utilities, electrical maintenance companies, used oil collectors and other sources. CEC also provide instruction around the collection of samples using approved sample containers to send the samples to our testing facilities.

CEC’s minespec Transformer Oil Filtration unit and 4WD service truck travel the East Coast of Australia servicing councils, mines & industrial clients. CEC are experts in HV installation and maintenance, and onsite Transformer Oil Filtration forms part of CEC’s overall HV maintenance.

Onsite Transformer Oil Filtration restores the oil to its new state. The filtration process removes acidity, sludge and soluble oil decay products from the transformer windings and cooling system.

The filtration process lowers operating temperatures of the transformer, which helps prevent recontamination. The desired outcome of onsite Transformer Oil Filtration is to maintain the insulating properties of the Transformer Oil. This can be achieved with the optimum seven year cycle. This will allow the integrity of the transformer oil to remain intact and prevent costs by not only increasing the life of the transformer, but also reducing the probability of an unplanned outage. 

To handle electrical stresses, transformer oils are required to have better dielectric strength. Lower residual water, gas and contamination content must be maintained to reduce the speed of oil ageing. All of these operations are performed using CEC’s onsite transformer oil filtration unit.

Power transformer oil filtration, dehydrating and degassing can be performed individually or simultaneously based on the various conditions of the mineral oil and customer requirements.

BATTERY LOAD TESTING

With the increasing dependency of back up systems on battery strings, and the escalating cost of replacing batteries, instrumentation and software systems that can measure, trend and manage the life-cycle of cells is a cost effective option.

As part of its High Voltage Maintenance, CEC can test a battery bank at constant current, constant power, or using a user-defined load profile. CEC can also test battery chargers and other electrical equipment that require resistive load testing.

CEC can:

• Test batteries “in service”

• Unit adjusts to include load currents in the test parameters

• User adjustable alarm and shutdown points to avoid excessive discharge

•Provide digital report with graph on how battery performed, this allows trending.

Full Load Battery Testing.  CEC Callaghan Electrical Contractors perform full load battery testing. This test is often performed online so there is no disturbance to operation. The batteries are tested with a full load applied and the results are graphed and reported.

It is important to implement a Battery Testing regime to test protection batteries, because in the event of a major fault – current spikes and voltage drops, which means the control circuit doesn’t have the required voltage to operate the shunt trip – and if the battery back-up fails the fault will not be cleared.

Routine Battery Load Testing will detect any issues with battery during normal operation so any issues can be resolved before a major fault happens.

There are three main reasons to test battery systems:

-To insure the supported equipment is adequately backed-up

-To prevent unexpected failures by tracking the battery’s health

-To forewarn death

There are three basic questions that battery users ask:

-What is the capacity and the condition of the battery now?

-When will it need to be replaced?

-What can be done to improve / not reduce its life?

Batteries are complex chemical mechanisms. They have numerous components from grids,active material, posts, jar and cover, etc. – any of which can fail.