MEETINGS HIGHLIGHTS FROM
THE APRIL 2008 DOBLE CLIENT
COMMITTEE & USER GROUP MEETINGS
Held April 6 11, 2008 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA

The following is a brief report of highlights from the recent Doble Client Committee and User Group
Meetings. Detailed Committee Reports will be posted on the Doble Knowledgebase in July. If you have
questions or would like additional information on any of the following subjects, please contact your
Doble Client Service Engineer or Regional Sales Manager for assistance.

The comments in red in this document are typical of a reminder that an meeting attendee might put
in his or her notes so that some action will be taken when returning to his or her company. These
summaries are NOT the complete discussion that took place in the meetings.

Arresters, Capacitors, Cables and Accessories Committee


CAPACITORS:

Action Item: I need to get the capacitor survey filled out.

Mr. Rick Asche introduced a survey on capacitor failures. These were provided electronically prior to
and in paper form during the meeting. Mr. Asche stated his belief that since the capacitors are a
commodity item and are relatively easy to replace, and consequently, the failure rate of capacitors is not
being reported to Doble. He is concerned and would like to know if certain manufacturers have a higher
failure rate than others. His opinion is such that as a committee we are missing out on a lot of important
information on the rate of failures for different designs and manufacturers.

Mr. Asche went on to explain the intent of the survey, which is to capture failure and trouble information
from events that would have occurred within the last five years. He encouraged those in the audience to,
if applicable, fill out a questionnaire with whatever details they could remember and drop it off at the
registration desk at any time during the week. Furthermore, he went on to detail some of the specifics,
such as switching frequency, type of switching device, and whether they were new or existing
installations. The goal of this exercise is to collect this information over the next few months and present
an update on the findings at the next committee meeting. The officers then asked the group whether they
thought this would be a useful exercise and a majority of hands were raised.

Action Item: Get permission to attend the Tutorial on Capacitor Subjects.
Do we have it in the budget? Have we had failures that we can report?


A tutorial has been proposed to address the problems associated with capacitor and breaker failures. This
will be a joint committee effort between ACCA, Circuit Breakers and the Protection Apparatus
Committee. The tutorial is planned for the 2008 September Doble Client Conference and Committee
Meetings in Atlanta, GA.

Should we routinely test capacitor banks? Review this paper.
Testing Fuse-less Capacitor Bank with Serial Unit String Using the M4000 Test Instrument Update of
the CapBank test Procedure

Action Item: Check if we have capacitor fuses that have exposed fiberglass
due to weathering. Determine if we need to provide corrective action.

PGE has experienced problems with their fifteen year old GE Series Capacitor banks. The paint coating
on the current limiting fuses and fuse bodies has weathered, exposing the fiberglass layer to moisture
ingress. GE's recommendation was to paint the tubes, however; the paint is not sticking to the wet tubes.
This procedure was performed, as directed by GE, but we are still experiencing rapid degradation.
Replacing these could run into the millions of dollars. Given the large amount of these in the system, a
cost effective approach was needed to address this condition.

Instead of painting the tubes, PGE personnel decided to use DSG-Canusa's CBTM heat shrink to cover
the fuse tubes and current limiting bodies. This product was designed for covering electrical bus bar, but
they have discovered that the heat shrink forms a weather tight seal on the fuses. The fuses and tubes are
oven dried, then allowed to cool. The heat shrink is slipped over the fuses and placed back in the oven for
shrinking. The heat shrink is a cross linked polyolefin. The process is being performed by in house labor.

CABLES:

Do we need to modify our policy for grounding splices in manholes?

Harry Hayes, Ameren commented on his reasons for grounding every splice in every manhole. He stated
they did so to follow code requirements and make sure they had good grounds. As a result they have not
had any problems in this area.

See if we need to consider the use of cable rejuvenation techniques.

Recently, Hydro One experienced a failure of a 5 kV cable that connects Hydro One's switchyard to a
large nuclear customer. The 5 kV cable is a three phase Teck cable consisting of three individually
unshielded cores in a triplex arrangement. Each of the cores is individually insulated with carbon black-
filled polyethylene. There is also an uninsulated ground wire and filler. The conductors, ground wire and
fillers are contained in a cable jacket over which there is a helical steel armor (unsealed). There is a
further polymer jacket over the armor. The total cable length exceeds cable 3400 ft or 1036m.

On reviewing replacement versus refurbishment options they are considering cable rejuvenation by means
of fluid injection which they understand has been used by a number of utilities worldwide. Hydro One is
interested in your experiences both positive and negative on the cable rejuvenation process please.
Don Prien, SMUD stated they have used cable injection with good success on 15 and 21 kV cables. He
went on to elaborate the differences between doing it online while the cable is energized or performing
this activity offline. The latter is similar to the process presented in an earlier Doble Conference paper by
John Hinkle, PPL Utilities. The biggest differences noted by Mr. Prien was the dangers involved while
performing it online and the cure rate. Apparently online takes longer to cure. Reg Gamblin, Manitoba
Hydro asked how the success of the venture was measured. In summary, Mr. Prien stated success was
measured by post treatment cable non failure rates and not by diagnostics test methods.
ARRESTERS

Action Item: Check if arrester spacers could collect water. The water may
freeze causing a failure.

Mark Theryl, Alliant Energy presented an impromptu discussion on the problems surrounding change out
of lightning arresters on the GSU transformers. The slides showed some of the problems encountered in
the application of arresters in a cold climate. In summary, the spacers (hollow tubes) were not sealed
properly and water got in, froze and lifted the arresters off their base. Had this not been discovered the
possibility of a phase to phase flashover was imminent. In addition, it was discovered that the base of the
units did not have sufficiently sized weep holes to allow the water to drain.

Action Item: Do we want to start an arrester receipt testing program? Need
to go to the Doble Website and download the paper.

A paper was given on Manitoba Hydros arrester acceptance test program by Reg Gamblin of Manitoba
Hydro

GENERAL:

Have our thermography group read this paper.

Best Practices for using Infrared Thermography for Condition Monitoring of Utility

Asset and Maintenance Management Committee

Do my asset people know about this PAS 55? Action: Ask them.

Ken Elkinson, Doble Engineering provided a brief overview of PAS 55. Mr. Elkinson stated that PAS 55
is a Publicly Available Specification developed in the United Kingdom to act as a standard for asset
management in a similar way to QA standards such as ISO 9001 act for Quality. PAS 55 is limited to
physical assets and requires that the organization has a clear understanding of risk and a strategy to deal
with it, along side auditable systems and processes. PAS 55 helps identify what an organization needs to
do in their efforts to balance risk, cost and performance. Mr. Elkinson went on to explain that a Doble
Engineering guide to asset management has been proposed as a committee project. This document would
include all the essential elements for asset management accreditation. The PAS 55 document could be
incorporated or used as a model.

How have regulatory agencies affected our maintenance activities?


One member of the audience commented that his company has been posting their findings on equipment
failures and they are now discovering the insurance companies and regulators going through the public
documents of those failures. This has caused the regulators and insurance companies to begin mandating
the time frames for various maintenance and repair activities. He stated that there has been much pressure
regarding adopting these time frames.

The ISOs are getting more involved with the control of systems so it is becoming more difficult to get
equipment out of service for required maintenance.

Another utility employee is now noticing that at the state level, interested parties are looking at his
companys internal written maintenance practices with more scrutiny. Audits are being performed and as
part of the process, the auditor is using those documents to see how well the company is complying. He
also commented that as the states are acquiring the information,