We recently completed a series on dealing with power outages from the perspective of loss of power to the facility, but what about loss of power to an area of the plant? One common cause of localized power loss is a transformer failure. The good news is adequate maintenance can prevent this loss.
With liquid-filled transformers, these typically receive some partial maintenance. Unfortunately, the dry-type transformers are usually not maintained at all. With either type, the typical maintenance is grossly inadequate. Loss of power isn't the only potential consequence of inadequate transformer maintenance. A transformer failure can result in loss of human life and catastrophic loss of the facility.
Have you evaluated your transformer maintenance program lately? In Part 2, we'll begin examining what a good program includes.