An Alternative Partial Discharge Monitoring System for High Voltage Equipment

Partial discharge monitoring systems are important tools for the predictive diagnosis of various high voltage equipment, being applied to evaluate the condition of the insulation that integrates each of these machines. In the market there are some systems, however they are high cost due to the limited number of companies specialized in this type of measurement and the fact that they develop dedicated hardware for the necessary data acquisition and processing. In an attempt to find a low cost solution for partial discharge monitoring, we developed a solution capable of using readily available low cost oscilloscope hardware. In this instance we opted to use two handheld oscilloscopes, one with 4 channels and another with 8. The development allows for both options to be used in the sampling and processing of partial discharge signals, as well as the seamless integration of data provided from other systems. The system includes a database, processing nodes and a web server. Partial discharge data and operational status of any given asset is visualized in dashboards and analysis tools available in the plant internal network. The new system was successfully implemented in a thermoelectric and a hydroelectric power plant and has been operating properly for a long period of time, corroborating its effectiveness and reliability.