Development of a New Environment-conscious Transformer Impregnated with Palm Fatty Acid Ester (PFAE)

We have developed a new environment-conscious transformer impregnated with vegetable based insulating oil which called PFAE (Palm Fatty Acid Ester). PFAE has 0.6 times less viscosity and 1.3 times higher dielectric constant compared to mineral oil. This means that a PFAE immersed transformer has better cooling efficiency and better insulating performance in paper-and-oil composite insulation systems, resulting in size reduction in comparison to conventional mineral oil immersed transformers. In this paper, insulating performance of lead to plane electrode models, cooling performance of a PFAE immersed transformer, and the result of analytical study of dissolved gas for abnormal diagnosis are described.