Importance of Depolarization Current in the Diagnosis of Oil-Paper Insulation of Power Transformer

Recently, Polarization Depolarization current (PDC) measurement is widely accepted time domain spectroscopy-based method for assessing the insulation condition. Various performance parameters like Dissipation factor (%tan $\delta $ ), Paper Moisture (%pm), Dielectric Adsorption Ratio (DAR), Polarization index (PI) etc. can be estimated by analyzing the PDC data. During field measurement various factors influences the recorded PDC data. As per existing literature, presence of low frequency noise, effect of temperature variation and influence of residual charge are common during field measurement. These factors significantly affect recorded polarization current and hence estimated performance parameters. Hence, analysis using recorded polarization current data may provide misleading information regarding insulation condition. Under such practical situation where polarization current is affected by above mentioned factors that generally observed during field measurement, depolarization current should be used for analysis of insulation condition. The depolarization current does not influence by such external factors. The present work shows the importance of depolarization current where polarization current is influenced by external low frequency noise and residual charge. The analysis firstly applied on sample prepared in the laboratory and then on data collected from real life in-situ transformers. The results obtained from the analysis shows that the data obtained from depolarization current is more reliable.