Partial discharge characteristics of palm-based oil and mineral oil as dielectric material

Abstract

The purpose of this study experimentally is to investigate the partial discharge characteristics of Palm-based oil and mineral oil as dielectric material and to make a comparison between it. Mineral oil as an important insulating material in power system has been used more than 150 years. The world’s energy requirement has been dominated by petroleum oil for centuries in many application fields, including transportation, household, and electricity. Also, mineral oil application in power system equipment can be potentially hazardous to the environment especially when there are any incidents during operational time like transformer explosion, which may cause a spill of oil to the soil or water stream. Due to the concerns about the reducing petroleum resources and the environmental issues, the alternative insulating oil with biodegradable characteristics has been attracted lots of attentions for a couple of decades. In this thesis, the dielectric properties of a type of mineral oil and a type of palm oil were investigated. Palm Fatty Acid Ester (PFAE) have been known because of its potential as alternative oils that would replace mineral oil such as Hyrax. The purpose of this project is to identify the effect of electrical stress and ageing time on electrical properties of PFAE, FR3 and Hyrax. The experimental processes have been conducted to determine the effect of partial discharge activities due to electrical stress and the ageing time.