The world’s energy requirement has been dominated by petroleum oil resources for years in many applications, especially in the area of electricity generation and utilization. Mineral oil application in power system equipment can be potentially hazardous to the environment, especially when there are incidents of transformer explosion, which caused spillages of oil to the soils or water streams and thereby pollute the surrounding environments. This paper is aimed at finding a substitute for the use of mineral oil as transformer oil. Experiments on breakdown voltages, flash points, pour points, viscosities, densities and insulation resistances on conventional mineral oil and some selected vegetable oils were conducted, analyzed and compared to the internationally accepted standards, ASTM (America Standard Test of Material). Rubber seed oil, Palm oil, Mellon oil, Ground oil and Palm kernel oil were found to have good electrical, chemical and thermal properties which the transformer oil has.

The problems facing the Power Holding Company of Nigeria PLC (PHCN) which was formerly called the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), are numerous to the extent that every power electric engineer both in the industrial sector and in academic is being challenged to proffer possible solutions. In an attempt, to combat some of these problems, this paper is therefore focused on a problem, affecting frequent power interruption to consumers during rainy season by PHCN. A research carried out before now ascertained that more than 500 hours were lost annually on power interruptions due to lightning discharge in various substations throughout the country during rainy season. Therefore, this paper has suggested the use of double lightning arresters instead of one, for the protection of industrial and domestic electrical installation work. It recommended the use of Thyrite or Oriaghe low voltage lightning arrester to prospective power consumers for domestic application. Also, for the high voltage protection it recommended the use of the high voltage Thyrite lightning arrester for lightning discharge protection of transformers and switch gears, used by PHCN.