A Novel Approach for Estimating the Service Lifetime of Transformers within Distributed Solar Photovoltaic (DSPV) Systems

Abstract

The rapid transformation of the energy sector in South Africa towards renewable energy (RE) production calls for the management of assets to keep pace with the ongoing developments in a reliable manner. Aging assets, increasing energy needs and reliable supply of energy without load shedding are some of the challenges utilities are facing in South Africa. In resolving these challenge, imaginative solutions are required to maintain the installed assets and determining the viability of refurbishment, replacement or upgrading. In the current work, an extension of the author's previous work, a novel approach for estimating the service lifetime of transformers within Distributed Solar Photovoltaic (DSPV) Systems in South Africa is introduced. This experiential form has been derived by extensive experimental trials. The proposed approach is initially employed to evaluate the Degree of polymerization (DP) of cellulose insulation based on measured furan (2FAL) contents of 9 case scenarios. The calculated DP is then used to evaluate the service lifetime of these units. In efforts to authenticate the proposed approach, a comparative study is conducted against 5 other models. Finally, the proposed approach is compared with the results of the measured DP. It is observed that the proposed approach produce accurate estimates with an approximation not exceeding 1% and 2.2% from the measured DP and service lifetime respectively.