Siemens Transformers

Grid Resiliency & Stability

Resiliency PREVENT

Resiliency PROTECT

Resiliency QUICK RESPONSE

Restricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.

prevent, protect and respond

is three diferent ways of dealing with various phisical security issues on your power system
so we'll be covering those three areas in an overview way moving rapidly through theese
concepts

PREVENCIJA, ZATITA i REAKCIJA VRIJEME ODZIVA

SU tri razine ili tri koncepta koji se bave razliitim sigurnosnim pitanjima koja se odnose prvenstveno na fiziku odnosno materijalnu sigurnost
elektroenergetskog sustava pod zajednikim su nazivnikom otpornosti elektroenergetskog sustava. U ovom radu emo pokriti ta tri podruja I istraiti
dodatne mogunosti fizikog poboljanja elektroenergetskog sustava, kroz ta tri koncepta.
-

Od ega se sastoji ees

Kljune toke - strateke toke

Grid at risk in the United States

due to ageing assets

The Problem ; ageing assets in a strained grid infrastructure roblem:

the issue that we are talking about today falls in the general category of power system resilience and the other term that is associated with that is stability
I will talk about stability for a moment: if you think of stability as I do in the slassical sense of rotating machinery and rotating generation assets and their stability of
falling out of synchronism and not being able to suply the system WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT KIND OF STABILITY
rather we are talking about the aspect of phisical security and stability and security of the system if you lose some critical or widespread loss of system assets , so
the stability of the system is also threatened not only by the loss of generation but under the context we are using it the loss of stability is the loss of power
capability due to the loss of these transformer assets
this is refering specificaly the issue of the power transformers on the transmission system and the generation system and, as we show on this chart, it has to do a
lot with the age of our infrastructure in North America particularly
the system: the electrical infrastructure had a big build up period in the 60's and 70's and many or most of those power transformers are still in service on the
system wright now
so we have some very old power transformers on the system, many of them quite critical to the system operation and so the concern is what do we do to protect
those assets and protect the integrity of our system if those assets are lost
particularly in the case of common disasters, recent times have shown a new area of contingency planing which has to do with various threats that can be on the
system such as ; storm surges; hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorist attacks , things of that sort where there is a common mode failure; you may possibly lose
Problem; starenje imovinu u napetoj grid infrastrukture roblem:
pitanje je da govorimo o danas spada u ope kategorije otpornosti elektroenergetskog sustava, a drugi pojam koji je povezan s tim je stabilnost
Ja u govoriti o stabilnosti za trenutak: ako mislite stabilnosti kao i ja u slassical smislu rotacijskih strojeva i rotirajui generacije imovinu i njihovu stabilnost
ispadanja iz sinkrono i ne bude u mogunosti da suply sustav MI ne govorimo o Takva vrsta sTABILNOSTI
a govorimo o aspektu fizikom sigurnosti i stabilnosti i sigurnosti sustava ako izgubite neku kritinu ili proireno gubitak imovine sustava, tako da je stabilnost sustava
takoer je ugroena ne samo zbog gubitka generacije, ali pod kontekstu koristite ga na gubitak stabilnosti je gubitak snage sposobnosti zbog gubitka tih
transformatorskih imovine
to se i odnose se namjenski pitanje energetskih transformatora na transportni sustav i sustav proizvodnje i, kao to smo pokazali na ovoj ljestvici, to mora uiniti
mnogo s godinama nae infrastrukture u Sjevernoj Americi osobito
sustav: elektrina infrastruktura imao veliki izgradi razdoblje u 60-ih i 70-ih godina, a mnogi ili veina od tih energetskih transformatora su jo uvijek u slubi u
sustavu Wright sada
tako da imamo neke vrlo stare energetskih transformatora na sustavu, mnogi od njih vrlo kritine za funkcioniranje sustava i tako je briga to radimo kako bi zatitili
one imovine i tititi integritet svog sustava ako su imovina izgubljena
osobito u sluaju zajednikih katastrofa, novije vrijeme pokazala novo podruje za potencijalno blanjanje koja ima veze s raznim prijetnjama koje mogu biti u
sustavu, kao to su; oluja udara; uragani, tornada, teroristikih napada, stvari te vrste u kojoj se nalazi zajedniki nain kvara; vi svibanj izgubiti

Ageing assets in a strained grid infrastructure!

EM Transformers
for improved grid resilience in the United States
Power Outages in the U.S. per year1)

Causes of transformer failures

28%
27%
13%
9%
6%
4%
4%
4%
3%
2%

As a result, power outages in the U.S. are becoming

increasingly more frequent and it is feared that their
number will continuously increase as equipment
ages.

Electrical Disturbances
Other
Lightning
Insulation
Electrical Connection
Overload
Foreign objects
Moisture
Line disturbance
Stress / fatigue

Most power transformers fail in operation, but

natural disasters and attacks do occur and harm the
equipment-

More than half the power transformer outings are due to electrical disturbances, natural disasters (e. g. lightning), insulation failures and vandalism!
particularly in the case of common disasters ; recent times have shown a new area of contingency planning which has to do with various threats that can be on the
system such as storm surges , hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorist attacks things of that sort where theres a common mode failure where you may lose a lot of your
power transformers all at one time
so the industry is talking about what is
particularly in the case of common disasters, recent times have shown a new area of contingency planing which has to do with various threats that can be on the
system such as ; storm surges; hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorist attacks , things of that sort where there is a common mode failure; you may possibly lose a lot of
your power transformers all at one time,
and so the industry is now talking more about what happens from disaster type scenario when you lose critical transformer assets ; rather then just focusing on the
occasional individual transformer that failed on its own separate from the rest of the system ;
I think power industry is very good planing for those single mode contingencys where an individual transformer failed ; the talk we wanna talk about today has to do
with common mode failure or some sort of disaster which is impacting a lot of your transformers;
power outtages in our transmission and generation system are increesing; this is data that we have gathered form Harpford Steam Boilers (they insure power
systems); they can plot outages on the number of claims they receive and they categorize those outages according to various types of outages and you can see that
various causes can lead to various types of PT outages ; more than half of them has to do with lightning , natural disasters and various sorts of electrical
disturbances
so the power transformer that is sitting on your power system is certainly a critical transmission asset but it may very well be subject to types of risk that we would
not in years past have considered in terms something like a hurricane or flood hitting a wide area of your transmission system and jeperdising multiple power
transformers all at the same time ; so what we are really talking about here is a new type of a risk assesment of your transmission system and what the impact is on
transformers and how you can respond to those issues

Siemens Resiliency Offerings

Risk Factors for Grid Resilience
Operational issues

Natural disasters

Attacks

Need for a comprehensive and effective grid resilience concept

at all energy companies in the U.S.
this chart summerises what i've been saying verbally
the idea here is you have to do a certain
the first stage in this process is considering power transformer resiliency is what I would call
risk assessment stage; you have to actually look at the types of risks that might subject your transformers to damage or destruction and try to
figure out what those are and how critical they are ; in many of these cases of natural disasters or physical attacks on your transformer fleet you
have to do a certain amount of risk assessment in a very organized fashion because you are talking about events like storm surge, flooding events;
tornadoes;
that maybe a very unlikely event but if it occurs it can cause a lot of damage to your transformer fleet ; so you are talking about low probability high impact events , and theres a certain kind of risk assessment procedures that can be done there to figure out how you can prioritize those events
;
a lot of our customers in North America are talking to us and other manufacturers and other people, regulatory people , system operators; such as
MERC organization;
theres a lot of conversations about how we get around these risks of physical security , physical damage,
physical security of power transmission infrastructure but specifically the power transformers and the reason we are really focusing on power
transformers is because if a line blows down in an ice storm or tornado it takes some time to repair that ; but it can be repaired in a fairly short order
in matter of hours or days ;
if a power transformer gets damaged or destroyed in a physical disaster the replacement time on power transformers can be a year or longer from
the time that you decide to replace a damaged transformer to when its actually manufactured shipped to the field and installed ; so we are talking
very long lead items when we are talking power transformers and thats where the severity of these attacks has to be evaluated

Transformer Resiliency
-+ Prevent
Restricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.

siemens.com/answers

Siemens Grid Resilience concept

Most EHV-transformers in the U.S. will need to be replaced by standard transformers.
But theres a strategy beyond replacement.
Prevent

Protect

React

Transformer Service

Safeguard transformers so they

can withstand offenses from the
outside no matter if natural or
human.

Mobile resiliency transformers

Monitoring and Maintenance can

prevent aged transformers from
failures and lower the operators
risks.
Condition Monitoring
Repair & Retrofit
Prevent component failures
(e.g. bushing service)
Long Term Program (LTP)

Bullet resistant transformers

Shielding with materials up to
Cal.50 Ball M2 (for new PTs or as
an upgrade)

GIC*-safe transformers
Avoid critical heating with nonmagnetic steel inserts
Up to 200 A extra DC-capacity

Be prepared even for unforeseen

events by having a mobile,
rapidly installable and versatile
mobile resiliency spare unit on
stock.
Compact & lightweight design
Covering different ratings
Plug & play connections &
bushings

*Geomagnetically induced current (e.g. from sun storms)

as you consider these various risks we go back to our three legged stool approach
well start with very basic prevention portion of the approach:
that is nothing new in that area; we're just talking about bassicaly the serveice philosophy ; it has to do with condition monitoring; possibly repairing or
retrofittnig older transformers and embarking on some sort of organized approach to secureing and assuring the reliabiity of these aging transformer
assets that you have in your fleet := there's three ways to do that : the first one that you start with is condition assessment and thats probably what we
all do on our power systems but maybe not in as organized or as periodic fashion as we should ; and so we'll talk a little bit about condition assessment
and then based on how you assess your transformers you can move in to a repair or retrofit type of approach and maybe move into active monitoring
aspect to control the transformer assets and monitor their capabilities on a more real time basis and if you do that what you really wanna do is talk about
the various kinds of condition assessment aproaches that we have would be

Siemens Transformers Grid Resilience Concept

Prevent
Siemens Transformers cutting edge solutions give operators peace of mind.

PREVENT-strategy consists
of several Service-blocks:
Condition Assessment
Repair & Retrofit
Condition Monitoring

condition assessment is the kind of stuff that we would normaly do on a maintenance and service basis which is monitoring various transformer
parameters such as gas and oil analysis, moisture in the oil, various sorts of electrical tests such as power factor tests on the insulation and bushing
capabilities and what you do for an organized approach to that assessment is categorize the types of periodic tests that you do while youre online ;
those are youre base tests and then follow that with the more critical test that may have to be taken

January 2016

Condition Monitoring (active)

for Operational Reliability
condition assessment is the kind of stuff that we would normally do on a maintenance and service basis which is monitoring various
transformer parameters such as gas and oil analysis, moisture in the oil, various sorts of electrical tests such as power factor tests on
the insulation and bushing capabilities and what you do for an organized approach to that assessment is categorize the types of
periodic tests that you can do while youre online ; those are your base tests; and then follow that with the more critical test that may
have to be taken
the essential tests are online test that you can do without taking outages for monitoring;
and then based on the results that you get from those sampling of parameters you can highlight those units that need to be looked at
more critically and those would be more detailed electrical testing that you have to do by taking a transformer out of service ; thats
what we would call the advanced level;
And in the final aspect what we would call high voltage testing you can actually do some high voltage testing in the field similar to
what the transformer would receive in the factory where it was built or when it was repaired; and that would be mostly done not just
as a maintenance sort of monitoring aspect but rather if you have done a repair inside transformer tank and done some major electrical
work on your transformer ; you can do some commissioning and insurance testing in the field before you put that repaired or
retrofitted transformer back in service;

Then the aspect that we would want to do on this is to prioritize the transformer fleet; most of us are gonna have dozens or hundreds
of power transformers on our system and if youve done a sort of condition assessment you know which ones are your problematic
transformers ; and rather than worry about all of them equally you can focus your attention to individual transformers and look at their
status
and then what you have to do is as this chart shows, you have to look which are your strategic transformers if you have a collection of
old transformers all of which seem somewhat problematic theyre not all gonna have the same kind of impact on your system if they
have failures or if they have bad symptoms, so you not only look at the prioritization based on the condition of the transformer but you
also look at the significance of the transformer ;
And you can go with repair approach; maybe theres somethings you can do to replace gaskets ; do oil treatment test ; replace aging
bushings; various sorts of things that you can do to repair the transformer and improve its status or you may have to consider retrofit
versus replacement ;
and then the question is, is it worth to replaceing the transformer before it acctualy goes to failure, most people dont like to do that ,
but if its a strategic transformer where an outage would have a big impact on your system you may wanna opt for a full replacement
of an old transformer, or you may decide to go with retrofit approach where you can take the transformer out of service get inside of
tank and do some major repairs ; maybe put some new windings on an existing transformer to extend its life without a wholesale
replacement; so thats the whole condition assessment and retrofit type of approach ; its the first stage of looking at these physical
security issues and the way you may want to do that on a more active basis is condition monitoring and we distinguish between the
condition assessment which is sort of periodic analysis of the transformer status, where as condition monitoring in an active approach;
theres a number of systems on the market that do this, Siemens has a system which this chart shows and the idea here is that you can
put some instrumentation online with a link to the internet and you can actively gather data on a given transformer or a given
substation or even your entire transformer fleet can be monitored to gather the Certain information on an real time basis and if do so
allows you more immediate sort of assessment of these critical transformers and at this point its not done widely in the industry for
the whole thousands of the power transformers out on the system but rather its focused on particular critical transformers that may be
strategic to a particular load center1 or strategic to your overall system operation2 ; so thats the overall prevention approach
probably pretty conventional at least it has aspects that we all do to operate our system the idea there is we would advocate that
everybody get a lot more systematic at this sort of assessment approach to have a much better idea on a continual basis on their
various power transformers conditions and what needs to be done in that area
Do 2110

SITRAM CM includes
Top Level

Optional

Entire transformer feet

Substation Level

All transformer per substation

Remote access if required

More than 200 protocols

supported
Optional

Optional
Substation
SCADA

Web

IEC 60 870 - 5 104

IEC 61850
Modbus
DNP3, and much more.....

Transformer Level
1n transformer possible

PD

No limitation on type, make and model. All sensors can be implemented

by using specific protocols
Fully customized solution possible

DAU

Cooling (optional)

OLTC

Alarm contacts

Bushing

Status signals

DGA

Temperatures etc..

And you can go with repair approach; maybe theres somethings you can do to replace gaskets ; do oil treatment test ; replace aging
bushings; various sorts of things that you can do to repair the transformer and improve its status or you may have to consider retrofit
versus replacement ;
and then the question is, is it worth to replaceing the transformer before it acctualy goes to failure, most people dont like to do that ,
but if its a strategic transformer where an outage would have a big impact on your system you may wanna opt for a full replacement
of an old transformer, or you may decide to go with retrofit approach where you can take the transformer out of service get inside of
tank and do some major repairs ; maybe put some new windings on an existing transformer to extend its life without a wholesale
replacement; so thats the whole condition assessment and retrofit type of approach ; its the first stage of looking at these physical
security issues and the way you may want to do that on a more active basis is condition monitoring and we distinguish between the
condition assessment which is sort of periodic analysis of the transformer status, where as condition monitoring in an active approach;
theres a number of systems on the market that do this, Siemens has a system which this chart shows and the idea here is that you can
put some instrumentation online with a link to the internet and you can actively gather data on a given transformer or a given
substation or even your entire transformer fleet can be monitored to gather the Certain information on an real time basis and if do so
allows you more immediate sort of assessment of these critical transformers and at this point its not done widely in the industry for
the whole thousands of the power transformers out on the system but rather its focused on particular critical transformers that may be
strategic to a particular load center1 or strategic to your overall system operation2 ; so thats the overall prevention approach
probably pretty conventional at least it has aspects that we all do to operate our system the idea there is we would advocate that
everybody get a lot more systematic at this sort of assessment approach to have a much better idea on a continual basis on their
various power transformers conditions and what needs to be done in that area
E T TR

PREVENT Siemens Service Solutions

Condition Monitoring
Knowledge-Module
Thermal modeling according to international standards
or self developed Siemens model
DGA diagnostic module (Duval, Rogers, Keygas,)
Overload capability model
Fleet ranking model
Continuous reporting model
OLTC module
Bushing module
Cooling module
GIC module
DCC module

Transformer ranking with health index

We are permanently working on new market demands

and transform these needs into new knowledge
modules!

We help you to get the most information out of

your data. We work hard to implement all our
experience into this tool.

Overload capability tool

Restricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.

PagP
e a1g0e 10

January 2016

E T TR

Transformer Resiliency
-+ Protect
Restricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.

siemens.com/answers

Siemens Grid Resilience concept

Most EHV-transformers in the U.S. will need to be replaced by standard transformers.
But theres a strategy beyond replacement.
Prevent

Protect

React

Transformer Service

Safeguard transformers so they

can withstand offenses from the
outside no matter if natural or
human.

Mobile resiliency transformers

Monitoring and Maintenance can

prevent aged transformers from
failures and lower the operators
risks.
Condition Monitoring
Repair & Retrofit
Prevent component failures
(e.g. bushing service)
Long Term Program (LTP)

Bullet resistant transformers

Shielding with materials up to

Cal.50 Ball M2 (for new PTs or as
an upgrade)

GIC*-safe transformers

Avoid critical heating with nonmagnetic steel inserts

Up to 200 A extra DC-capacity

Be prepared even for unforeseen

events by having a mobile,
rapidly installable and versatile
mobile resiliency spare unit on
stock.
Compact & lightweight design
Covering different ratings
Plug & play connections &
bushings

*Geomagnetically induced current (e.g. from sun storms)

R The second aspect that we wanna talk about is the protection approach; and this means protection not in terms of relay protection but what we

can do physicaly to protect the transformer itself either on a design basis or on a retrofit basis to deal with some of these physical threats against
specific power transformers , and so when we are talking about protection we are really talking about hardware modifications to the transformer
and design analysis of the risks of these transformers being damaged and we'll talk about two particular examples ; to day one is development
that siemens has done on bullet withstand capabilityies at transformers and the other has to do with the jepardy that some power transformers
are subjected to in terms of what GIC (geomagneticaly induced currents) having to do with large solar storms that impact the earth and cause
electrical distress for part of transformers ,
E T TR

PREVENT Siemens Solutions

Bullet resistant power transformer
Effects of a Firearm Attack on a Transformer
Bullets may penetrate the tank and cause a internal flashover in the windings
Internal flashovers are the dominant cause of transformer failures
Such situations often result in explosions and subsequent fire
Other units maybe also affected by an explosion or the subsequent fire
Blackout of units on substations
Damage to a transformers windings require the whole unit to be replaced
The replacement time for a large power transformer exceeds 1 year

Transformer windings in tank

Bullet penetration causes damage in

windings - internal flashover results

Explosion and subsequent fire

because of internal failure

R so as far of bullet resistant transformers go first question is why would we even do that and this is an example of the types of new systemic risks that

we are talking about at the industry is now beginig to deal with, there has been a case in the silicon walley where there was an attack on a substation
branded as domestic terorist or an unhappy rate payers, there were people that took high calibre rifles and shoot the high power substation at silicon
valey, the transformer itself in that case was not damaged but the radiators attached to the transformer were shoot up and there was oil leckeage which
caused widespread outage of a lot of different transformers; so the bullit resistant aproach comes from the fear that the regulators have that theres
maby domestic terorisam of some sort where you can actualy have widespread attacks and physical attacks on transformers and substations taking
these key assets out and causing widespread outages; so a lot of our customers are asking questions about what to do about that and is there
domething different in the way we odd to be designing and operating and installing our transformers; the key thing here is the bullets can ... you have a
transformers tank but if the bullets are high power enough you can actually penetrate that tank and damage the transformer internaly in an electrical
sense and so what we've done at siemens we did some research on this based in Europe in our main transformer center of competences in Europe and
we took some high powered tests and went to a fireing range and did some testing on various aspects of how the bullets would interact with the
transformer tanks (ADAC crash test :D ) ,
E T TR

PREVENT Siemens Solutions

Bullet resistant power transformer
Effects of a Firearm Attack on a Transformer
Tests with VPAM Class 13 on Concrete
VPAM Class 13 was tested on 20cm (8 inches)
reinforced concrete walls. The bullet easily
penetrates the massive wall.

Tests with VPAM Class 13 on Siemens

Protection System

50BMG M2 AP bullet hits Siemens protection system

backside of 8 inches reinforced concrete wall penetrated

by 50BMG M2 AP bullet

no penetration by 50BMG M2 AP bullet gets reflected

from Siemens protection system

Re, and a lot of people say I dont need to worry about bullit resistance because I ve got concrete walls around my substation and depending on the

calibre you ll find out that a 50-calibre range or 35mm range can actualy penetrate block walls easiliy as shown on the left hand side of this chart and so
the bullits can got through your block walls and bounce arround in your substation and still cause substantional damage, the other thing is on the top
right side shows a high speed photograph of a bullit impacting a piece of steal and you may not have to have the bullit actualy penetrating the tank walls
to cause damage; theres an event called spalling1 where the bullet kicks and impacts the steel plate doesnt go through the steel plate but in the process
of denting it individual metalic particles are ejected on the inside of the tank, of the plate and these metal particles can be spread arround inside the
transformer tank eventhoe the transformer tank just has a dent in it and no bullit penetrated it, theres still metallic dubree tossed arround inside of the
transformer and from an electrical point of view that can cause you a lot of operating problems and possible transformer failures as well,
stricted
Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.
Page 14

January 2016

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Application and benefit

of Bullet Resistant Power Transformers
Weapons used during Testing

10 mm S335 Steel penetrated

by a Class 7 standard rifle bullet

The Solution
Polymer concrete panels are capable of
withstanding Class 9 bullets while Class
12 rounds have successfully been
stopped from penetrating high-hardness
steel sheets 2)
Mobile/ fast replacement
Other applications possible such as
seismic proof, explosion prevention

with polymer concrete

sound panels

Impact resistant high-hardness

steel panel

R so we did testing according to the VPAM test aproach which is a European guidelines on accessing the balistic energy of projectiles versus the performance of the

steel plate that is resisting them or a concrete block as well and this VPAM test aproach was tested out up to 50 calibre bullets2 (The .50 Browning Machine
Gun (.50 BMG) or 12.799mm NATO is a cartridge developed for the Browning .50 caliber machine gun in the late 1910s.) and we came up with the
procedure for basicaly bullitproofing selected critical transformers, you may wish to use this not on every power transformer in your system but some critical ones.
The regulators in Washington DC actually are concidering and discussing this wright now that there may be mandated protection steps required for the physical
security of select critical substations throughout the US so if there was terorism attacks the most critical substations would be protected physicaly. As I said the
VPAM approach is where the testing is done for us in Europe and there is a corresponding UL standard in the US and we've basicaly come up with armoured walls
that can be placed around the transformer to protect against this bullet impact they're not something that would be used on every particular transformer but you
can see down here in the middle of the screen there three possibile aproaches here you can just put walls around the transformer to protect the transformer tank
and extend it up to include the expansion oil tank, the oil conservator up above that, these walls are ventilated so it still allows air to flow in there or the heat
exchange neccesary for radiators and fans, you can extend that and actually have covers on the top cover of the transformer. The bushings are the issue here, you
can't actually put armour around your bushings due to electrical reasons but what we are recomending for the bushings is if bushings are converted from the
conventional porcelain aproach to the newer resin impregnated polymer bushings, the solid bushing without the oil impregnation3 those are more resistant to
any gunfire and any sort of gun damage that happened on a polymer bushing is not as ... doesn't actualy shatter the busing and cause an electrical failure, so theres
some stuf you can take for physical security in that area... The nice thing about this aproach a lot of people laugh when we talk to folks ''i'm gonna put armour
plate around my transformer '' well again; if it's mandated for physical security reasons it maby an option to consider and this can be retrofitted to existing
transformers so thats one aproach;
estricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.
Page 15

January 2016

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Prevent Siemens Solutions

GIC-safe power transformer
Current practice and development
GIC effects on the power grid

Affects on transformer performance

Transmission lines and transformers are

linked to geomagnetic field changes

GICs affect many areas of a transformers

performance
Increased temperatures
Higher noise levels
Additional tank vibrations
Higher Reactive power consumption

Moderate GIC levels are able to last for

several days
Adverse impacts to the transformer
Increased loss of life due to higher
hotspots and gassing
Worst case
Blackout of the power grid

GICs affect many areas of a transformers

performance
Measures against critical heating
Optimized cooling, Usage of
non-magnetic steel
GIC-safe transformers
Extra DC capability, up to 200 Amps

R the second one has to do with withstand of a power transformer in the case of GIC; this is basically an event such as a : you may heard it over the

news when there is a large solar storm solar flair that errupts on the Sun surface it eject the highly charged particles that actualy pass through space and
impact the Earth and other planets and theres a large electromagnetic interaction in the upper atmosphere with these particles from the Sun and the
Earth magnetic energy, thats the event that causes Aurora Borealis, estricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.
Page 16

January 2016

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Prevent Siemens Solutions

GIC-safe power transformer

Cross section of transformer (upper half)

GIC effects on transformers

Critical eddy loss heating in metallic parts
Tie bars nearby the core are most
vulnerable
Additional noise increase and tank
vibrations
5-limb and single-phase cores are more
sensitive

Increased currents in the windings

Backlash effects from transformer to grid

High magnetization current
Higher current harmonics
Increased reactive power consumption
Can cause voltage instability of the total
network

R in this case were talking about a very intense storm that not only causes Aurora Borealis but actualy induces ??DC currents in the ground and these currents flow

through the ground and try to return up through the transformer neutrals on to the transmission system, and so the impact on this is that basicaly the transformer
gets saturated during the solar storm if the particular DC currents flow through the transformer neutral , its very easy to saturate a transformer, at very low
levels of DC current and if this occurs the transformer core doesnt work properly as you can see in the upper left side here, we're talking about the magnetic energy
that is normaly contained inside the core steele of your transformer now spills out of the core steele because of the saturatiuon and heats up windings And tank
walls and transformer leeds and bushing , tye rods that hold the transformer together ;
so during this particular solar event you can have power transformers subjected to this GIC currents and theres been discusion that this can be systemic event that
can blank out the entire continent and cause all the transformers to go out of service simultanuosly, some doom sayers say that all Power TXs in the Nort America
are gonna fail at the same time ...
but there is a much more serious concern about transformer saturating not failing emidiately but haveing an overheating condition due to this saturation of the
core and the flux heating up the metallic parts inside the transformer; so theres been quite a lot of research done by MERC/NERC and some of the transformer
manufacturers about this area , some of the Canadian utilities in particular are notable for having their system studies on this event and this comes back to the risk
asessment point of view, you have to not only say ooooh the solar storm might occur ,but how long does it last, how mouch flows , and where geographicly are
those currents gonna come up on the Power TXs ,
estricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.
Page 17

January 2016

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Prevent Siemens Solutions

GIC-safe power transformer
Typical GIC signature

Up to 200 Amps/phase

E.g. 30 hours

1-2 minutes

GIC is not dc!

Its a series of short pulses with durations between 1-2 minutes.
Duration of the total GIC storm can last some hours/several days
What is necessary event specification ?
Peak levels for some minutes, smaller base levels for steady state.
Please consider if Amps/phase OR Amps/neutral are specified!!

Restricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.

Page 18

January 2016

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Prevent Siemens Solutions

GIC-safe power transformer

R so there has been done a lot of work on the signature storm talking about what kind of storm could be expected as the worst case event and a lot of out major

strategic transformers that are now being purchased have a specification in them that says the manufacturer shall anylise the transformers performance in a
presence of a such and such electrical solar storm and theres a way to quantify that in terms of how much DC current is expected to flow in the neutral and for
how long and thats basically a thermal analysis of the transformer so ... Siemens has done a quite a bit of research in that area ... and one more thing about the
signature storm ; the things I realise on these solar storms is that everybodys not uniformaly subjected to the risk from this because its the solar storm that impacts
the ionosphere and Earth is tilted its basicaly the northern latitudes and the southern extreme latitudes that see the large sorts of storm impact (page 21 map) and
this map shows where those severe solar storms impacts are gonna be and thoe it highlights whole North America in relity the impact are more concentrated alog
our north border with Canada
estricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.
Page 19

January 2016

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Prevent Siemens Solutions

GIC-safe power transformer
We can offer:
Detailed studies of the transformer behavior during dc or a
solar storm can be performed on request
Special test arrangements in laboratories can be used to
verify the GIC strength of power transformers
GIC risk evaluation with only a few transformer design
parameters can be performed

R So NERC had a task force working on this for several years ..... and basicaly you have to look at the severity of the storm and the particular location to get an idea

of how much current is gonna flow under this particular event , having said that; theres always gonna be a certain kind of worst case storm that might impact your
transformers and then we are left with whats the physical impact on the transformer; its not going to physicaly fail imidiately but as I say the transformer core may
saturate and force the magnetic energy out of the core and start some heating of the metalic marts inside ; so we've done some research on that as shown on this
very busy slide (page22) ; we have electromagnetic models that we can use to predict the behaveure of this core under this very unusual condition; and we've also
done some full scale testing
in conjunction with the couple of our customers where we actualy put two power TXs back to back and induced DC current to flow
through their neutrals and than we observed what kind of thermal deviation?? occurs in the transformer ; so theres a begining to be a pretty good model as to
what a solar storm looks like; what the currents are flowing in the system and what the impact on the transformer is thermaly and so what we do there is that we
can ..
p
From the user point of view what do you do about the solar storm risk; well for new transformer you can have the specification or you can have a dialog with the
manufacturer about what sort of storm intensity do we expect to see and whats the impact on our transformer and if a manufacturer haS a dialog with you at that
stage before the transformer is designed there are certain steps that can be taken to minimize the risks and check and make sure that the thermal behaviour is
proper so the power transformer could ride through the storm without thermal failure ; in the case of older transformers that are allready on the system , thats
more of the chalange for the user; some of those transformers are old enough that you cant go back to the original maufacturer and ask for an analysis however if
you have a fairly recent vintage transformer such as in our case Siemens transformer we can bring up the designs and do an analytic study to determine what sort
of analysis the transformer could have ; we re particularly proud in the case of new transformers that we have some ways that we can redesign the metalic parts
inside the transformer so they resist the saturation phenomenon and cause no thermal impact so thats last peace of THE PROTECT slide...
estricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.
Page 20

January 2016

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Siemens Transformer Solutions

Rapid Response / Resiliency Units
Restricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.

siemens.com/answers

Siemens Grid Resilience concept

Most EHV-transformers in the U.S. will need to be replaced by standard transformers.
But theres a strategy beyond replacement.
Prevent

Protect

React

Transformer Service

Safeguard transformers so they

can withstand offenses from the
outside no matter if natural or
human.

Mobile resiliency transformers

Monitoring and Maintenance can

prevent aged transformers from
failures and lower the operators
risks.
Condition Monitoring
Repair & Retrofit
Prevent component failures
(e.g. bushing service)
Long Term Program (LTP)

Bullet resistant transformers

Shielding with materials up to

Cal.50 Ball M2 (for new PTs or as
an upgrade)

GIC*-safe transformers

Avoid critical heating with nonmagnetic steel inserts

Up to 200 A extra DC-capacity

Be prepared even for unforeseen

events by having a mobile,
rapidly installable and versatile
mobile resiliency spare unit on
stock.
Compact & lightweight design
Covering different ratings
Plug & play connections &
bushings

*Geomagnetically induced current (e.g. from sun storms)

Re When we are talking about this phicsical security issues under the general umbrella of resiliency there is a lot of resistance to some of these

discusions ; the whole issue behind this is if you are worried about terrorist atack or solar storm or foloding alog the east coast shoreline those are not
your normal everyday events and the issue here is you realy need to do a rigid formalized risk assessment aproach to say what are the risks of these
particular events and should I take some additionl measures to minhimize those or be prepared to minimize those events in the future; I'm not
advocating that every power transformer in NA will be subjected to solar storm or that every power transformer in service should have a spare sitting
beside it's more a matter of risk versus reward analysis; what are the risks that you can reasonably expect , are there gona be more storm surges or
floding ... so now we wil touch the work thats being done in rapid responce unit ; Siemens is not the only one in the industry working on this but I just
wanted to give you a touch base on our particular work thats being done to give you an idea whats avaliable ;
This is the case where its not just protecting your transformer or repairing your transformer or deciding to ride through an event; a lot of utilitys are
now actively concidering what should I do as long as being prepared in advance goes , in case one of my critical transformers goes down; as we said.. if a
transformer goes down in a major way either a repair of replacement may take moths and months to more than a year to be replaced ; so the question
then is as you do your risk assessment is your system gonna be able to continuosly operate with this system down, and sometimes you have contingency
plans where your powerflow can go in different directions but in a lot of cases utilities are saying they want a rapid responce transformer to an at least
have a system spare for those crytical assets that might go down so they are not waiting years for replacement unit so I just wanna touch base real
quickly on what we've done in that regard ; we had discussions with a lot of different customers and I'll just show you a case study of one or two where
we are actually building rapid responce transformers for customers ;
stricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.
Page 22

January 2016

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Siemens Transformer Technology

300/150 MVA Resiliency Transformer
Preliminary Transformer Requirements
Rating

Additional Details

1. One Unit that covers the following two ratings and

1. Nomex insulation

operates under two configurations:

a) 335-136-13.8 kV, 300 MVA
b) 132-68-13.8 kV, 150 MVA
2. Looking for Qty 3 x One Phase units for transport
ease
3. Tertiary needed to supply transformer ac power
requirements and other station auxiliary power
requirements

2. Life expectancy of 5-years. Intent is to use transformer for 2

years, until replacements can be receive and installed.
3. FOA coolers to minimize cooling equipment size. Cooling
equipment to be installed on separate flatbed truck.
4. Two part, plugin bushings.
5. 70 db(A) sound level under no-load and full load
6. Ester fluid (benefit or detriment). Use full temperature capability of
fluid. Higher average temperature and winding hot spot limits.
7. Electrical wiring pre-installed on the transformer
8. Piping on the transformer (pre-assembled, flexible)

Transportation
1. To be transported oil filled
2. Interconnection between transformers and
cooling components with plugs or flexible hoses
to allow for separate shipment
3. Weight as light as possible
(tank design braces instead of thick walls)

Load Tap Changer

+/- 12% with LTC in main tank

Develop a Plug & Play 3-phase transformer solution that can be

Relocated to site and ready to energize in less than 5 days.
R this particular case was a 300/150 MVA resiliency transformer and the customer basically wanted a replacement unit in town stored ready to

go so they could role it out if they lost one of their substation transformers . One of the things you have to do when you are talking about rapid
response transformers is that you have to have a pretty good idea what your requirements are , I wont go through those in details* , but we've
worked with the customer and developed what their requirements were and some needs as far as transportation , certain weights and sizes, so
they could move it around from the storage area to the side of the substatition, they have some issues as far as sound levels and cooling
requirements, they wanted to load tap changers so the unit was able to operate through the particular load cycling that it would see and the
results of that we came up with was a what we call plug and play transformer that can be energized in less than 5 days so if the transformer
failed this new transformer would be on site replacing that transformer in 5 days. estricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.
Page 23

And the key to that (one of the keys) that we have worked with bushing manufacturers and developed some plug-in bushings so the unit can be stored with out the
bushings in it, to aid in ease of storage, it's liquid filled and the tank is intacked but the bushings are not in place, so once the unit is rolled in place on an emergency basis
transformers can be pluged in, bushings can be plugged in to the transformer very quickly, and this is both for the HV and the MV system we have the plug in pushing
avaliable up to 345kV rating and than we also have plug in cable connections at the LV side to alowing (turcuries)*** (47'16'') to be connected. The second aspect of this
was that the desision was made to design this transformer as in the first case we have designed three single phase transformers sittig as you see on the trailer wright here ,
the customer actually buys theese transformers, fills them with insulating fluid , in this case natural esther fluid was used rather than mineral oil because of the concern
about the environmental damage if something wnat wrong with this replacement unit, and so we have three of these units sitting in storage and the customer actually
purchasing a tractor trailer arangement so they have insurance that they can move these units in the place, so they have great flexibility in terms of the transportation
aspect, in terms of weight and size and the special trailer avaliable, it's low profile and the bushings can be plugged in very quickly to put it into service and because its a
three single phase units they have munch smaller size avaliable

Janu

Mobile replacement transformer

for various applications
Innovation 2015: Modern Flex-Tx, USA
The challenge
In case of a transformer failure customer often need to
wait too long for a replacement unit
The solution
A modern flexible transformer unit which can be used
in different grid environments. This unit can be
installed until the real replacement is ready for service

The customer benefits

Very flexible transformer
Can be integrated in various grid
topologies
Easy to load and ship
Cost of outage are minimized

Single-phase transformer to be used under one of the

following ratings and in two different configurations
Project 1: 6 x 100 MVA 1ph
- 335-136-13.8 kV, 300 MVA 3 phase rating
- 132-68-13.8 kV, 150 MVA 3 phase rating
Project 2: 3 x 133 MVA 1ph
- 345/230 kV, 345/138 kV, 345 kV/115 kV
- 230/138 kV, 230/115 kV, TW 14.4 kV

R. The second aspect of this was that the desision was made to design this transformer as in the first case we have designed three single phase

transformers sittig as you see on the trailer wright here , the customer actually buys theese transformers, fills them with insulating fluid , in this case
natural esther fluid was used rather than mineral oil because of the concern about the environmental damage if something wnat wrong with this
replacement unit, and so we have three of these units sitting in storage and the customer actually purchasing a tractor trailer arangement so they
have insurance that they can move these units in the place, so they have great flexibility in terms of the transportation aspect, in terms of weight and
size and the special trailer avaliable, it's low profile and the bushings can be plugged in very quickly to put it into service and because its a three single
phase units they have munch smaller size avaliable
in contrast to that over here on this slide on the bottom left side you will see we have a second project which is a MORE TRADITIONAL SPARE UNIT , in
the first case it had posibility to operate 345kV to 138kV or 138kV to 69kV , LVr was 150MVA and HVr is 300MVA, so we have some links and
connections inside of transformer that alows us to be connected to multiple voltage levels and second transformer was the same way, it was outter
(out of) transformer design in this case operating 345kV/230kV or 230/138kV
you'll notice this is a depiction of the name plate** of one of these
transformers where you can go inside with mechanical links and change the
connections arround to get multiple voltage output;
this is a very typical arrangement that can be done with mobile
transformers; however it's not been done in the past for this large rating of
transformer, when we are talking about mobile transformer we're usually
talking about a substation unit in 10-30-50 MVA range, predesigned on a
trailer to roll out for rapid responce, then we're talking about large MVA
substation transmission transformers that can be moved throughout the
power system to operate in the case of emergency, in one of these cases as
I said before
over on the right hand side in the middle here this is
our case one example where the unit is ready , its now being designed and
tested , it will be sitting in the customers system filled with the esther fluid
with all the components avaliable for rapid assembly and they have their
trailer to roll it out ;
in the second case down in the right hand corner the tx is gona be put into
a bomb shelter , the customer is developing a hardened warehouse so if
they have a tornado or hurracane that knocks their system apart that
transformer and that bulding are gonna ride through the worst case windstorm and theyre gonna be able to open that up and move that transformer
on to their system.
estricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.
Page 24

January 2016

 N
e
u
t
r
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c
o
n
n
e
c
t
e
d
t
o
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p
e
r
b
u
s
m
o

u
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t
e

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o
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i
t
2
ETTR

So there's been a lot of thought done not only about the transformer design and the ease of assembly
but on the physical protection of that; and theres also some Medium power level transformers that we can design and these are some examples (PAGE31 MP mobile transformers from Linz); some examples: 50
MVA units with tap changers allready designed to roll on trailers or interval with the trailer so they are permanently installed that way ;

Siemens Transformer Technology

300/150 MVA Resiliency Transformer
Siemens Solution

Overall Design Features

Single phase units that meet the customers power and voltage
requirements within the required impedance bandwidth and ratios
Oil air coolers mounted to the tank
Alternative fluid for additional safety measures and Hybrid insulation
Reconnect between the 335/136kV and the 132/68kV system by
NLTC and by plug-in bushings or cable connections within less than
2 hours and no oil handling
Transformers can be moved fully assembled and oil filled
The units can be connected to the grid within a day on site
Restricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.
Page 25

January 2016

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Extension of plug & play concept

to variable shunt reactors
Design study for variable shunt reactors (VSR) in progress
The technical data / specifics
50 MVA

50 to 100 MVAr in 31 steps

242 kV
3 phase

60 Hz ANSI

ONAN
Design study based
on existing unit
Plug In bushings

The design proposal

The solution & benefits

- Cost reduction due to asset optimization
(reduced space and less maintenance)
- Reduced tied capital
(VSR can reduce high variety of shunt reactor ratings)
- Proven concept for fast installation
- High reliability and grid efficiency
- Flexibility on future network changes
The Variable Spare Reactor concept from
Siemens ensures a asset optimized spare
concept and simultaneously highest reliability
and grid efficiency!
R So there's been a lot of thought done not only about the transformer design and the ease of assembly but on the physical protection of that; and theres also

some Medium power level transformers that we can design and these are some examples (PAGE31 MP mobile transformers from Linz); some examples: 50 MVA
units with tap changers allready designed to roll on trailers or interval with the trailer so they are permanently installed that way ;
and we can also use this plug and play concept with the plug in bushings ; the modular design (page 32) on the right hand side here where we have standalone
cooling systems so the unit is much smaller for transportation and can be rapidly assembled on site with plug in pipeing to allow the oil flow between the main
tank and the cooler systems; in this case it's being applyed for shunt reactors , it can be applyed for autotransformers, generation units; this plug and play concept
gives us a lot of options for various sorts of key transformers
the idea here is to pick a unit that is very critical that you need very quickly move (53'20'')
estricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.
Page 27

January 2016

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Natural Ester - Environmental friendliness

up to highest power ratings
Transformer Requirements
Biodegradation in %

How to contribute to more environmentally

friendly energy transmission in day-to-day
business with standard transformers?

100

80
60

Natural ester
Synthetic ester
Mineral oil
Silicone oil

40
20
0

Siemens Solution: Natural Ester

10

15
20
Time in days

25

30

Siemens transformers with natural ester are

proven for ratings up to 420 kV / 300 MVA
Advantages:
Higher flashing point for insulation fluid
High personnel safety, neutral at human skin
Strongly reduced environmental impact :
to be produced from renewable sources, fully
biodegradable (water pollution class 0)
Fully recyclable
Requirements:
new design, modified oil treatment etc.

R government contingency planning for physical system requiremnts ...

57'30''; DOES Siemens have a program that helps utilities to sense the health of aging transformers to make decisions and prioritize for replacement; or do you
have any idea of thermal history of transformer including heating induced by GIC effects ;
There is a way to actively monitor transformers for this GIC risk and it basically involves taking a condition monitoring system that is already looking for the
transformer for other factors taking a conventional condition monitoring system adding a CT in a transformer NEutral (58'30'') that filters out when this additional
DC current is flowing through neutral and than we can pipe that to the monitoring system and do a thermal calculation based on this particular aspect. So yes, if
you are willing to invest in full blown conditinon monitoring system and buy a GIC monitor which is basically a donut CT that goes in the neutral with some filtering
than you can take that signal back to your monitoring system and do a real time thermal calcualtion to monitor this risk; that would be the ultimate solution that
you would do; the other way would be to do some analisys to look at the signature storm profile, figure out what your worst case storm would be in that location
and than do an analytical study offline ; we can do those studys for the system transformers where we have design information ...
IS the resiliency methodology you propose applicable only to HV / MV transformers or is it applicable to all kinds of transformers including MV and LV and is it an
issue of applicbility or cost efectivness when you start taking it into the smaller units ;
Methodology could be applyed to any TX but cost effectivness is only good on the most strategic/biggest HighestVoltage Highest MVA TXs
Theres a whole are of study called fleet management which says ; OK iVe got these several hundred transformers on my system and how do I categorize those;
which ones are the most critical units ; which ones are the oldest units ; the combination OLD+CRYTICAL means a RED FLAG that I watch those particular units
closely ; so you can apply on your medium voltage TX-s as well but ofcourse it takes alot more work cause you have a lot more transformers and each of them are
smaller ; maby not so crytical to system integrity ; so the focus generaly starts with your biggest transformers and depending on how much time and money you
have you can extend that to your medium voltage range as well
estricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.
Page 28

January 2016

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Modular Product Architecture "Mix and Play"

for Power Transformers

Plug
& Play
Spare Unit

345 kV
Plug-in
Bushing

Bullet
Resistance

420 kV
Ester
Filled

MPT
Mobile TXs
GIC safe
Tank Rupture
TLM
Service
Concepts

Restricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.

Page 29

January 2016

E T TR

Siemens Grid Resilience concept

Most EHV-transformers in the U.S. will need to be replaced by standard transformers.
But theres a strategy beyond replacement.
Prevent

Protect

React

Transformer Service

Safeguard transformers so they

can withstand offenses from the
outside no matter if natural or
human.

Mobile resiliency transformers

Monitoring and Maintenance can

prevent aged transformers from
failures and lower the operators
risks.
Condition Monitoring
Repair & Retrofit
Prevent component failures
(e.g. bushing service)
Long Term Program (LTP)

Bullet resistant transformers

Shielding with materials up to
Cal.50 Ball M2 (for new PTs or as
an upgrade)

GIC*-safe transformers
Avoid critical heating with nonmagnetic steel inserts
Up to 200 A extra DC-capacity

Be prepared even for unforeseen

events by having a mobile,
rapidly installable and versatile
mobile resiliency spare unit on
stock.
Compact & lightweight design
Covering different ratings
Plug & play connections &
bushings

*Geomagnetically induced current (e.g. from sun storms)

Restricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.

Page 30

January 2016

E T TR

Siemens US Transformers Contact

James McIver
Principal Application Engineer
E T TR US
6723 Shelter Lane
Las Vegas NV 89103
USA
Mobile: (702) 241-0157
E-mail:
james.mciver@siemens.com

siemens.com/answers
Restricted Siemens AG 2016 All rights reserved.
Page 31

January 2016

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Improving the North American

infrastructure of
power transformers
Thank you!
Restricted
Siemens
AG 2016
All rights
reserved.
Restricted
Siemens
AG 2013
All rights
reserved.
Page 32 January 2016

siemens.com/answers
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