Partial Discharge Testing vs. Monitoring
When to perform PD testing and monitoring to assess insulation condition in electrical equipment
Partial discharge (PD) is a very reliable indicator of potential failure-causing faults in electrical equipment insulation. Regular PD testing and PD monitoring are used to reliably assess insulation condition throughout equipment lifetime.
PD testing and monitoring play a critical role in assessing insulation condition, focusing maintenance efforts and preventing the pre-mature failure of electrical equipment, such as power transformers, generators, motors, switchgear and power cables.
There are various methods of PD testing and monitoring, but when is each method ideally used to detect potential failure-causing insulation defects? What are their differences and how do they complement each other? To answer these questions and to offer some insight on this topic is Patrick Zander, a specialist in PD testing and monitoring at OMICRON, and Samuel Scheller, the OMICRON product manager for PD monitoring solutions.
"PD Monitoring is the smoke detector for Electrical Assets"
- Samuel Scheller, Product Manager Monitoring Solutions
"PD Testing - Definitely do it! This would be my suggestion to every customer out there"
- Patrick Zander, Specialist PD Testing & Monitoring