Increasingly, the Industry is having to deal with the consequences of performance drivers seeking both high reliability levels and the minimization of outage times. In the case of power transformers, best practice currently is initially to take an oil or Buchholz gas sample and send it to a laboratory for dissolved gas analysis and reporting.

Although well serviced with oil testing laboratories, Australian transformer asset owners frequently face delays in this process that are exceeding the acceptable tolerances for response and re-energisation decision time periods.

Now, with a device such as Morgan Schaffer’s “Myrkos”, one may measure the 7 key gases that evolve in all type of transformer faults on site and have a full DGA report in less than 2 minutes from inserting the sample. Optional ‘TOA’ software can also comment on severity levels and recommend courses of action.

“Myrkos” is, in fact, a portable high speed micro gas chromatograph optimized to perform, on-site, dissolved gas analysis rapidly with only modest operator training levels. Its accuracy and repeatability are equal or better than ASTM D3612 or IEC 60567 standards, an important feature of the equipment.

The set is virtually maintenance free 7-gas analyzer that offers the highest precision and accuracy in dissolved gas analysis measurements that are very comparable to laboratory performance. It measures dissolved Hydrogen at levels down to 5 ppm, and Methane, Ethane, Ethylene, Acetylene, Carbon Dioxide, and Carbon Monoxide down to 1 ppm, with repeatability better than ± 2ppm or 2%.

Its potential contribution is an ideal complement to existing laboratory services in the important area of transformer operations and is attracting wide interest accordingly.