Power Engineering Chapter
IEEE Singapore Section

Electrical utilities are facing the nerve-racking problem of the continuous ageing of electrical plant. Serious accidents and blackouts have occurred worldwide, which caused millions of dollars damages to power industry. Unfortunately, in the current economical climate, no utility can afford replacing all aged equipment according to their designed lifetime. Even for relatively new equipment, insulation failures often occur due to various problems such as manufacture defects and inappropriate maintenance.
 

Utilities have therefore used more and more condition monitoring techniques and advanced measurement instruments, continuously or periodically collecting data from various HV equipment such as generators, HV motors, transformers, gas insulated substations and power cables. Some of the widely used measurements are insulation resistance, temperature, dissolved gasses in insulation oil and partial discharges.

However, there is a concern about the large amount of data which are sometimes confusing. How to interpret the data and determine the equipment insulation condition has become an important issue for condition monitoring engineers and asset managers.

The common questions are

•   What are the significance and limitations of a condition monitoring technique?

•   What is the critical level of a measurement, for example, how large a partial discharge would warrant the repair or replacement of a HV motor?

•  Can we predict the remaining life of a piece of HV equipment from the condition monitoring data collected?

This seminar covers some important aspects of data interpretation and condition assessment of HV insulation. The up-to-date technology on insulation condition monitoring and incipient fault diagnosis, especially on-line condition assessment of electrical plant, will also be presented.

The seminar is partially based on the speaker’s book “Condition Assessment of HV Insulation” (co-authored with Prof. R. James) recently published by the Institute of Engineering and Technology in the UK.

BIOGRAPHY:

Professor Su Qi received his MEng in 1981 and PhD in 1990 (UNSW, Australia). He was a tests and operations engineer from 71-78, an Honorary Research Associate at the University of WA in 85 and a Lecturer at the University of NSW from 90-91. From 1992-2002, he was with Monash University working as a Senior Lecturer and late Associate Professor. He was also the Head of High Voltage and Insulation Condition Monitoring Group. In 2002, he took up the Chief Technologist position in Singapore Power (SPPG) Ltd. Since 2007, he has been with the Petroleum Institute in UAE as a Professor and the Chair of Research Committee (EE).

Professor Su has published a book and over 150 journal and conference papers. He received the Vice-Chancellor’s Special Commendation for Teaching Excellence at Monash University in 2001 and an IEEE Standards Award for contribution to the Guide on Partial Discharges in Rotating Machines in 2002. He has provided consulting services to many utilities in the world and conducted a number of training courses for industry in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Taiwan and Indonesia. He is a Fellow of IET (former IEE), a Senior Member of IEEE since 1991 and a member of CIGRE SC A2.