Analysis and mitigation of Australian and New Zealand power transformer failures resulting in fires and explosions

When making decisions on infrastructure operation and replacement, utilities must take into account the risk of an asset failing and starting a fire or exploding. However, the challenge in determining the likelihood of such a failure is that since their rate is so low, there is often little statistical information available on which to analyze. A question posed by the Australian and New Zealand utilities is whether transformer fires and explosions become more likely with age. Since the power transformer fleets of these two countries are comparable, with a large number entering the later years of their useful lives, a relationship between nameplate age and fire and explosion likelihood will have implications on replacement policy.