Application of Vegetable Oil-Based Insulating Fluids for Transformers: A Review

Abstract

Vegetable oil-based insulating oils have been successfully applied in the field of insulation for distribution transformers because vegetable oils are fully biodegradable, high dielectric strength, high flash point and better compatible with paper insulators than mineral-based insulating oil. However, vegetable oils still have drawbacks such as high viscosity, high pour point, low oxidation stability and low resistance to the formation of fast mode streamers. Therefore, many studies have been performed to improve properties of vegetable oils. This paper will summarize the important research results on physicochemical properties of vegetable oils as well as the methods used to improve the efficiency of vegetable oils to establish a basis for determination of the research orientation in vegetable oil-based insulating oils in Vietnam.
 
Keywords: Vegetable oil, transformers, breakdown voltage, ageing, additives.

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