ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Small transformer better than over sized?

In Australia POCOs uusually close spec their trannys,have seen older units rated at 2mva,to 100kva tolerate 200% overloads on winter evenings for 12hrs or more,these are oil cooled with fins,of corse chinese stuff wont cop this for very long.

Ditto for American Pocos.

Transformers burn juice just at idle. An idle that runs 24/7 -- 365.

Consequently, every Poco I've known undersizes its transformers. It's a small matter to swap out to a larger unit -- since the pads and wires are pre-engineered to take a bump to the next rating up.

Normally, EUSERC Pocos use loop/ ring Primaries. This means that they can cut-out a given transformer by switching left and right -- and then hoist the old out and plop on a new one. You'd be surprised at how fast they can do this.

Star Primaries go even quicker.

Distribution losses -- in juice -- run beyond 10% of all power generated -- in most systems. So cutting that drain down is a BIG deal for all Pocos.

BTW, they monitor the loading on their system at every level constantly. It's the primary way that they spot cheats, too. Unmetered power pops up as a power drain akin to a bleeding hot, something that is looked for at all times.

The juice consumed by even one home would have any Poco tearing its hair out -- as kilowatts evaporating into the ground/ sky from one Primary loop/ star is too much to bear.