EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENT OF SINGLE PHASE TRANSFORMER USING VIRGIN COCONUT OIL

摘要

The application of mineral oil in transformer is prominently act as and insulator and a coolant liquid. More often, petroleum based oil is used because most its elements are good to act as insulator such as excellent heat transfer and low in viscosity. Anyhow, the usage of mineral oil in transformer is possibly hazardous to the environment considering that it is poor biodegradable liquid where when a spill or leakage happens, it could pollute the environment surroundings. Moreover, it is known as a non-renewable energy sources, the world will be out of it someday near future. For this reason, a new option of transformer insulation liquid is studied. Vegetable oil is a fully biodegradable insulating liquid and for this paper, coconut oil is used as the insulator. In this paper, it concentrates on the performance of the transformer before and after virgin coconut oil is applied in a single-phase step down transformer that use the 220 V supply and 50 Hz frequency. Transformer is connected to 110V induction motor as load and has been test in two conditions, dry and after virgin coconut oil is applied. Comparison is made from both results and clearly shown a good improvement when virgin coconut oil is used as insulation oil.