Plenary
Lecture
Generator Power Transformer Wireless Thermal Management
System
Professor Aleksandar Nikolic
Electrical Engineering Institute Nikola Tesla
University of Belgrade
Serbia
E-mail: anikolic@ieent.org
Abstract:
Generator power transformer is the largest unit in power
plants, since its capacity could goes up to 1400MVA.
These transformers are very important for electric power
system due to the fact that nowadays it should be wait
more than two years for production of new generator
transformer. That is reason why it is necessary to
continuously supervise transformer operation. Thermal
management is one of the essential approaches. Mostly
spread method is based on calculating the transformer’s
highest temperature (i.e. hot-spot temperature) using
the measured transformer’s top oil temperature and load
current. Although power plants are noisy industrial
environments, a new solution based on wireless
communication is proposed since cabling costs were too
high due to complicated installation requirements. This
system is used for thermal management of two generator
transformers of 100MVA and 210MVA in the power plant and
performs all measurements, hot-spot estimations, and
transformer cooling system control (oil pumps and fans).
Communication between system parts located on and near
transformers and power-plant control room is done via
Zigbee wireless protocol using real-time application
running on Programmable Automation Controller. Because
the system is connected via Ethernet to the power
plant’s LAN, it could be remotely programmed and
supervised via the Internet, reducing maintenance time
and costs. System is tested during various ambience
conditions including high temperatures in the summer
(over 40C) and low temperatures during winter (below
25C), without any interrupt in its operation. This
proves opportunity for industrial wireless networks
application in the complex industrial environments like
thermal power plants.
Brief Biography of the Speaker:
Aleksandar Nikolic received the B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D.
degrees in electrical engineering in 1991, 1999 and
2009, respectively, from the Faculty of Electrical
Engineering, University of Belgrade, Serbia. Since 1995
he has been with University of Belgrade, Serbia, as a
Research Associate at the Department of Electrical
Drives, where he is currently part-time Assistant Prof.
He is now at Electrical Engineering Institute “Nikola
Tesla”, Belgrade, Serbia, as a Counselor for the field
of energy efficiency. He is also founder and a Head of
Accredited Laboratory for Power Quality testing at
Institute Nikola Tesla.
His special fields of interest include power quality and
energy efficiency, control of induction motor drives and
industrial automation. He has published over 70 papers
and one chapter in international book “Torque Control”.
He is reviewer of several international Journals.
A.Nikolic is a Senior member of IEEE and a Member of the
Board of Serbian Power Electronics Society.
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