Presentation 07.1.

1
OMICRON 2013 Instrument Transformer Measurement Forum
A New Approach for In-Situ Calibration of Voltage Transformers
Part I: Theoretical Background
Michael Freiburg / Prof. Dr. Frank Jenau, Technical University Dortmund, Germany
Florian Predl, OMICRON, Australia / Dr. Michael Krger, OMICRON, Austria

Introduction
Instrument voltage transformers (IVT) are used in
electrical grids for metering or protection purposes.
The high requirements regarding their precision
demand a calibration of the objects before
installation. The accuracy classes of IVT are
different for protection and metering transformers
[1] and are classified depending on the maximum
ratio and phase-angle error between the vectors of
the primary voltage and the secondary voltage
related to the primary side. This calibration is
performed in the laboratories of the manufacturers,
operators or testing institutes. Once calibrated, the
IVT typically operates without re-calibration for its
lifetime. In some cases, e.g. reconstruction of the
switchyard, the accuracy of the IVT is reconfirmed
with a laboratory test or extensive On-Side
measurements [2]. The accuracy of the IVT is
dependent on the leakage inductance, the winding
resistance and the excitation current at power
frequency. Core or winding deformation as a result
of external influences for example can thus result
in a change of the error of the IVT. In addition it
may be interesting to obtain the excitation
characteristics of the IVT out of field
measurements for ferroresonance analysis or
simulation programs.
Against this background it is very helpful to have
the opportunity to get information about the
accuracy class and the excitation curve out of field
measurements. Thus, this test can be added to
standard measurements in respect of on-site
testing resp. condition based maintenance [3, 4] or
delivery approval, for example.
In this paper the theoretical background of a novel
model-based approach is proposed being able to
obtain the accuracy class of IVT on-site. It has
several advantages to other known methods
(model based or with use of a reference object [5,
2]) as it does not need a fingerprint of the IVT
based on laboratory tests and it is possible to
perform the measurements without the need of
having high voltage and heavy equipment on-site
available.
Methodology
The model-based approach allows calculating the
accuracy class in general by inversely applying the
Mllinger-Gewecke Diagram [6] comparable to [5].
For this autarkic method, knowledge of the
parameters of the equivalent circuit is necessary.
The parameters are determined by measurements
from the secondary resp. low voltage side of the
transformer. This approach uses low frequency
measurements to calculate the parameters with
respect to the rated frequency as physical
restrictions do not allow measurements at rated
frequency.
Equivalent Circuit and
Transformer Diagram
An equivalent circuit of the IVT is presented in Fig.
1. The ideal transformer without any losses is
connected to the T equivalent circuit (TEC) of a
transformer. The dashed notation indicates the
reference to the secondary side. The standard Tec
is completed with a concentrated primary winding
capacitance C
p
as this is influential at secondary
side measurements. At frequencies around power
frequency, the elements C
ps
and C
s
can be
neglected. The nonlinear inductance L
H
represents
the voltage-current behavior of the magnetic unit.
L
H
is assumed to be frequency independent. The
dependence on frequency is modeled with R
Fe
.

C
ps
C
p
C
s
R
1
L
s1
R
2
L
H
R
Fe VCore
Vb
I2 I1
Iex
VZ2
V1
PRIMARY SECONDARY
L
s2
ideal transformer
w=n
1
/n
2
V1HV Z
b
n
1
n
2
VZ1

Fig. 1 Equivalent circuit of instrument voltage
transformers. C
ps
and C
s
are neglected

The voltage drops V
Z1
and V
Z2
across the primary
and secondary impedances result in a voltage V
b

that is different from V
1
in magnitude and angle.
According to Mllinger and Gewecke [6], this error
of the IVT can be determined with the diagram in
Fig. 2. The vector of the secondary voltage V
b
is
drawn on the vertical axis. The end of this vector is
considered as the zero-point of the scale. The
abscissa is divided in minutes (1% - 34.4min)
whereas the ordinate is divided in percent of the
primary voltage. The error becomes negative when
the secondary voltage vector is smaller than the
primary. When the transformer is operated in no-
Presentation 07.1.2
OMICRON 2013 Instrument Transformer Measurement Forum
load condition, the excitation current I
ex
causes a
voltage drop across R
1
and L
s1
. This is indicated
by point A in Fig. 2. The distance 0-A is called no-
load error. When the transformer is loaded with a
burden, the additional current I
2
causes a voltage
drop across both primary and secondary
impedances (R
1
, L
s1
, L
s2
, R
2
). The load error
(distance A-B) is independent of the primary
voltage and with current I
2
proportional to the
burden. Once drawn, the error for any load can be
easily obtained from the diagram by shifting point B
in direction of Sn (change of power level) or by
circular shifting point B in direction of cos
(change in power factor). Point A is not influenced
by the load. When the applied voltage is changed,
point A shifts due to the change of excitation
current I
ex
and loss angle .
The previous explanations where made with the
assumption of a transformer ratio equal to the
nominal value. Manufacturers usually perform a
winding correction to enable a point of operation in
between the positive and negative error limits for
the intended operation range of the transformer [7,
8]. In the vector diagram (Fig. 2), the winding
correction is considered with a shift of the zero-
point with the percentage correction to -
u
.
I
ex
R
1

V
1
V
b
jI
ex
X
s1

jI
2
(X
s1
+X
s2
)
I
2
(R
1
+R
2
)
A
B
cos
Sn

-u
u -u
(
w
i
n
d
i
n
g
c
o
r
r
e
c
t
i
o
n
)
I

I
r
I
ex
I
2
I
1

0

Fig. 2 Vector diagram of the voltage transformer of Fig.
1 according to Mllinger and Gewecke with the
ratio error () and the phase-angle error ()
Parameter determination
To be able to calculate the accuracy of the IVT, the
parameters of the equivalent circuit of Fig. 1 have
to be determined. The parameters are measured
from the secondary side of the transformer. The
winding correction can be considered in two
different ways (see separate chapter). The goal is
to obtain the transformation ratio of the ideal
transformer in Fig. 1. The secondary winding
resistance is measured with a standard DC
measurement. The sum of the leakage inductance
(L
s
=L
s1
+L
s
) and the effective primary winding
resistance R
1
can be calculated out of an AC
short circuit measurement. Parameters L
H
and R
FE

representing the magnetic unit are measured
with an open circuit test. The excitation current I
ex

and the corresponding loss angle are measured
for the whole magnetization curve and represent
L
H
and R
FE
.
Capacitive Influence
The method presented uses open circuit
measurements from the secondary side of the
transformer to obtain the parameters to allow low
testing power. Depending on the IVT, the effective
winding capacitance C
p
affects the measurement,
its effect depends on the ratio w of the IVT as

C
p
= C
p
* w [9]. (1)

Even if the transformer has a large primary
winding, C
p
was found to be in the range of 100 pF
to 400 pF in a wide range of IVT [9]. Considering
the nonlinear and time dependent characteristics
of the core (Fig. 3), the additional capacitive
current increases with frequency and changes the
excitation current in magnitude and angle. The
capacitive current results in a shift of the hysteresis
graph in the zero-point of the diagram (see Fig. 3).

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
-0.2
-0.1
0
0.1
0.2
current [A]
f
l
u
x

[
V
s
]


Increasing Cp

Fig. 3 Schematic representation of the influence of the
effective winding capacitance on the nonlinear
time-variant behavior of the magnetic unit of IVT
at open circuit measurements from the sec. side

For the methodology described in this paper, the
RMS value of the excitation current I
ex
and the
corresponding loss angle are important. As
shown in Fig. 4, the capacitive current
Presentation 07.1.3
OMICRON 2013 Instrument Transformer Measurement Forum
compensates the excitation current and the loss
angle is shifted to smaller values. This effect is
most significant in the linear region of the excitation
curve with the highest impedance. In addition, the
capacitive current at rated frequency
measurements requires high power levels for the
test.
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
-100
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
c
u
r
r
e
n
t

[
A
]
a
n
g
l
e

[

]
flux [Vs]
loss angle of core at 50Hz loss angle of VT with cap. infl.
exc. current of core at 50Hz exc. current of VT with cap. infl.

Fig. 4 Excitation current and loss angle of a magnetic
core of a 24kV IVT: magnetic unit without
primary winding (solid line) and with primary
winding (dashed line)

This method uses low frequencies (LF) for the
measurement to enable a low test power and low
voltages for safety reasons. The capacitive current
at the LF-measurement is subtracted [9] or
neglected (valid for IVT with a small winding
capacitance and turns ratio).
When the measuring frequency is reduced, the
excitation current decreases and the loss angle
shifts due to the reduction in power losses. Thus,
power loss models have to be applied to the low
frequency data to compensate for this. As the
measurement is dependent on the constraint
R
m
+R
2
<<L
H
, where R
m
is the measuring
resistance, the reduction in frequency should be
performed in respect of the form factor of the core
voltage. When the core voltage gets nonlinear do
to the nonlinear voltage drop across the winding
and measuring resistance especially at high
inductions the power losses increase due to the
arising harmonics.
Power Losses
The magnetic cores of IVT are typically build of
stacked or wound silicon-iron steel sheets of non-
oriented (NO) or grain-oriented (GO) material. An
external magnetization causes macroscopic (dB/dt)
and microscopic (moving domain walls) eddy
currents which in turn cause power losses in the
form of joule heating [10]. These power losses are
divided into static and dynamic power losses and
are dependent on conductivity and intrinsic
material structure. The static losses are assumed
to be frequency independent but dependent on flux
density (intrinsic material structure) whereas the
dynamic losses are dependent on frequency and
flux density. The classical eddy current losses as
one part of the dynamic losses are dependent on
the conductivity of the material whereas the
additional eddy current losses are dependent on
the response of the material structure on an
alternating external field.
Depending on the material of the magnetic core,
the power losses are nonlinear over frequency.
Compared to NO silicon iron, GO silicon iron is
more nonlinear especially at low frequencies below
approximately 10Hz [11]. Additionally, the power
losses over frequency differ depending on the
ongoing magnetization process.
The power losses per cycle of an IVT core made of
stacked GO steel sheets can be seen in Fig. 5.
The losses per cycle increase nonlinearly up to
about 20Hz before they increase more linearly
because of the predominant additional eddy
current losses. The nonlinear behavior can be
explained as follows: The larger the domains of the
material, the higher the velocity of the Bloch Walls
at an external alternating magnetization. This
results in a high additional eddy current loss. With
higher fluxes, the additional losses increase as the
number of domains in the material decreases. With
increasing frequency, a natural multiplication of
domains can be observed what leads to a
reduction of the wall-velocity and thus a reduction
of the additional eddy current losses [12]. On the
other hand, the classical eddy current losses
which are dependent on the conductivity
increase with the square of frequency.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
frequency [Hz]
p
o
w
e
r

l
o
s
s
e
s

p
e
r

c
y
c
l
e

[
W
s
]



Fig. 5 Power losses per cycle of a magnetic core of an
IVT made of GO electrical steel including static
power losses (dotted line) and classical eddy
current losses (dashed line)
The power losses in Fig. 5 are divided into static
losses (dotted lines obtained by an extrapolation
to zero from low frequency measurements),
classical eddy current losses (dashed lines
calculated on the basis of the geometry and the
conductivity, approximated with [13]) and additional
eddy current losses. To be able to obtain the
excitation current at power frequency out of low
frequency data, (nonlinear) power loss models
have to be applied. With knowledge of the power
Presentation 07.1.4
OMICRON 2013 Instrument Transformer Measurement Forum
losses at rated frequency, the additional loss
current is calculated and added to the excitation
current under quasi static conditions.
Influence of Leakage Inductance
As mentioned, the sum of the leakage inductance
L
s
is obtained from a measurement from the
secondary side with the primary shorted. As seen
in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, the model requires a
separation of L
s
to the primary (L
S1
) and
secondary side (L
S2
) of the equivalent circuit. The
leakage inductance L
s
is a function of the geometry
of the primary and secondary winding.

0
50
100
150
200
250
0
10
40
60
80
100
-1.5
-1
-0.5
0
L
1
/L
s
[%] U/U
N
[%]
F
U

[
%
]

Fig. 6 Change of ratio error F
u
(equal to in Fig. 2)
dependent on distribution of the leakage
inductance to primary and secondary side and
voltage level
Fig. 6 shows the change of ratio error depending
on the distribution of the leakage inductance to the
primary side (L
s1
/L
s
in percent %). When the
leakage inductance is concentrated to the primary
side only, the ratio error is nonlinear over the
primary voltage due to the voltage drop caused by
the nonlinear excitation current. The higher the
proportion of L
s
concentrated to the secondary, the
more linear gets the behavior. The separation of L
s

also affects the phase-angle error, even more as
the ratio error.
The error-trend over the primary voltage is used to
investigate the distribution of the leakage
inductances for this model by comparing the
modeled data with data from laboratory
calibrations. It is valid with minor errors to use
L
s
=L
s1
for the calculations for a wide range of IVT.
Calculation and Results
With knowledge of the parameters of the
equivalent circuit (R
1
, L
s1
, L
s2
, R
2
) and the
excitation current and loss angle (I
ex
, ) the error of
the IVT can be calculated related to the Mllinger
Diagram for any voltage of interest. The algorithm
starts with the calculation of the secondary current
I
2
at rated secondary voltage V
b
and rated burden
Z
b
. Related to Fig. 2, this algorithm to calculate the
error of IVT starts at vector V
b
. The distance 0-B
and thus the error in ratio and phase-angle can be
obtained from the calculations of the internal
voltage drops. The ratio error is calculated with

F
u
= (V
b
-V
1
)/V
1
*100% (2)

and the phase-angle error is calculated with

= angle (V
b
) - angle(V
1
). (3)
Ratio Error and Winding Correction
The ratio is be plotted for the overall voltage range.
The obtained error of the model calculations is
typically defective as the winding correction is not
considered hitherto (see Fig. 7). The reduction of
primary turns in order to achieve the accuracy for
the intended voltage and burden range causes the
secondary voltage to be larger at an applied
primary voltage or the primary to be smaller at a
given secondary voltage. It is proposed to account
for the winding correction in two different ways.
The first proposal is based on measurements with
a reference capacitance connected to the primary
side with a low test signal. The shift in the
resonance frequency is used to calculate the exact
ratio of the ideal transformer of Fig. 1 [9]. The zero-
point P
z
of the ordinate is then set to

P
z
= (w
m
/w
n
-1)*100, (4)

with the obtained ratio w
m
and the nominal ratio w
n
.
The second proposal uses an open circuit
measurement from the primary side. As the error
plot gives information about the transformer error
for any voltage, the open circuit error can also be
calculated with the model for the overall voltage
range. A subsequent open circuit test at a defined
voltage obtains an open circuit voltage error. The
calculated open circuit error can then be set to the
measured open circuit error. The voltages have to
be exactly similar for the comparison. The error
curve is thus shifted with the obtained correction
factor (Fig. 7).
The ratio error becomes very large at low voltages
and higher voltages above the nominal value
because of the small permeability in this region.
The excitation current increases significantly and
causes a larger voltage drop across the primary
impedance. The burden dependent error stays
constant.

Presentation 07.1.5
OMICRON 2013 Instrument Transformer Measurement Forum
0 0.5 1 1.5
-1.2
-1
-0.8
-0.6
-0.4
-0.2
0
U/U
n
F
U

[
%
]


(winding correction)
without winding correction
calibration data from laboratory
with winding correction

Fig. 7 Ratio error of a 20kV IVT obtained from the
model calculations (solid line), with application of
the winding correction (dashed line) and
comparison to data from a normative laboratory
test (triangles) with the leakage inductance
concentrated to the primary side
Phase-angle error
The phase-angle error is obtained by simply
subtracting the angle of the voltages V
b
(0) and
V
1
(3). The phase-angle error is not affected by
the winding correction. The calculations are
performed for the overall voltage range again.
0 0.5 1 1.5
5
10
15
20
25
U/U
n
a
n
g
l
e

[
m
i
n
]


model
calibration data from laboratory

Fig. 8 Phase-angle error of a 20kV IVT obtained from
the model calculations (solid line) compared to
data from a normative laboratory test (triangles)
The phase-angle error becomes large at low
voltages (low permeability of the iron especially
at iron cores of NO material) and higher voltages
(saturation of the iron core). Again, this behavior is
caused by the increasing excitation current and the
corresponding loss angle at low core impedance.
Error graph
The results of the ratio error (Fig. 7) and phase-
angle error (Fig. 8) can be merged to the error
diagram (Fig. 9). The winding correction is
considered in the error diagram.


Fig. 9 Error diagram of the 20kV IVT (S
n
=50VA)
The error graph of the 20kV IVT is exemplary
shown in Fig. 9 for nominal burden S
n
, a quarter of
the nominal burden S
n
/4 and different cos. The
variation of error due to a change of the applied
voltage (0.8*U
n
..1.2*U
n
) is also marked in the
diagram. When the error graph is once drawn, the
error for any burden can be simply obtained for a
constant primary voltage and frequency.
Summary and Conclusion
In this paper, the theoretical background of a novel
method to obtain the accuracy class of IVT is
proposed. The algorithm is based on the common
vector diagram of voltage transformers according
to Mllinger and Gewecke. The parameters of the
equivalent circuit are determined by open and
short circuit tests. This method uses low
frequencies for the measurement to enable low
testing power level and low voltages. Depending
on the IVT the capacitive influence is subtracted or
neglected. At IVT with a large transformation ratio
(approx. 123kV), the capacitive influence has to be
subtracted mathematically first. To compensate for
the variation of the current caused by
ferromagnetic losses, appropriate loss models are
applied. Depending on the accuracy of the loss
model the excitation current for power frequency is
calculated by adding the loss component at 50Hz
to the quasi static excitation current. When the
parameters, the excitation current and the
corresponding loss angle are known, the error in
ratio and phase-angle can be calculated.
Depending on the distribution of the leakage
inductance, the results are accurate what was
verified by comparison with calibration data from a
testing lab. Further investigation has to be done on
the distribution of the leakage inductance.
Presentation 07.1.6
OMICRON 2013 Instrument Transformer Measurement Forum
Literature
[1] IEC 61869-3:2011 Instrument transformers
Additional reqirements for inductive voltage
transformers
[2] Bergman, Anders: In situ calibration of
voltage transformers on the Swedish national
grid. PhD Thesis; Upsala, 1994
[3] Raetzke, Stephanie et al.: Condition
assessment of instrument transformers using
Dielectric Response Analysis. Cigre 2012
[4] Azcarraga, C.G. et al.: On-site Testing of
Instrument Transformers; 2006 Annual Report
Conference on Electrical Insulation and
Dielectric Phenomena
[5] Brandao jr., A.F. et al.: On Site Calibration of
Inductive Voltage Transformers. 8th WSEAS
International Conference on System Science
and Simulation in Engeneering, 2009
[6] IEC 61869-3:2011 Instrument transformers
Additional reqirements for inductive voltage
transformers
[7] Braun, A.: Instrument Transformers, PTB,
1984 (rev. translation of the original German
edition, E. Zinn: "Messwandler, 1977)
[8] Bauer, R.: Die Messwandler, Springer Verlag,
1953
[9] Freiburg, M. and Jenau, F.: Measurement and
Computation of the Excitation Curve and Loss
Angle of Instrument Voltage Transformers,
48
th
International Universities Power
Engineering Conference (UPEC), Dublin,
2013
[10] Krings, A. and Soulard, J.: Overview and
Comparison of Iron Loss Models for Electrical
Machines, 5th International Conference on
Ecological Vehicles and Renewable Energies,
Monaco, 2010.
[11] Bertotti, G.: General Properties of Power
Losses in Soft Ferromagnetic Materials,
Magnetics, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 24,
no.1, January 1988
[12] Bertotti, G.: Hysteresis in Magnetism,
I. Mayergoyz, Ed. Academic Press, 1998
[13] Namjoshi, K.V. et al.: Eddy-Current Power
Loss in Toroidal Cores with Rectangular
Cross Section, IEEE Trans. On Magnetics,
Vol34, NO.3, 1998
About the Authors
Michael Freiburg (born in
1985) is currently working as a
research assistant at the
Technical University of
Dortmund, Germany. His
research interests include
Diagnostics of High Voltage
Equipment and Material
Science. He received the
engineering degree in 2010 and he is currently
working towards the PhD degree at the Technical
University of Dortmund in cooperation with
OMICRON electronics, Austria.

Frank Jenau (born in 1969)
studied at the University of
Dortmund and received the
Engineering degree in 1994. In
2000, he received the doctor`s
degree by the Brandenburg
Technical University of Cottbus,
Germany. From 2000 until
2009, he worked at different
industrial companies and positions in the field of
high voltage technology and non-conventional
measuring systems in Europe and China. At
present, he is a Professor in the Department of
High Voltage Technology at the Technical
University of Dortmund. His research interests
cover the characterization of electrical insulation
systems, measurement technology and EMC.

Florian Predl (12 November
1986) works for OMICRON
electronics as an Application
Engineer, mainly focusing on
instrument transformer
applications since September
2007. He graduated at the
Federal Higher Technical
Institute in Rankweil, Austria
with the focus on high frequency technology.