How do you ensure a transformer installation meets project specifications? How do you get baseline maintenance data on it? In either case, acceptance testing is the answer.
What this means used to be up to the engineer responsible for the installation because there wasn't an acceptance testing standard. This problematic situation was somewhat alleviated by drawing upon C57.94-1982 - IEEE Recommended Practice for Installation, Application, Operation, and Maintenance of Dry-Type General Purpose Distribution and Power Transformers. However, that still left a void, which the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) filled in 2009 by approving the NETA Standard for Acceptance Testing Specifications for Electrical Power Equipment and Systems (ANSI/NETA ATS-2009).
Proper acceptance testing ensures the new transformer is reliable. However, sustained reliability requires other testing, which we'll cover in future issues.