1.1 INTRODUCTION.

ZETDC is a utility company that transmits, distributes and retails electricity throughout
Zimbabwe. It is endowed with many assets such as transformers, electric lines, huge fleet of
motor vehicles and huge numbers of properties such as land buildings. These assets are located
and distributed almost everywhere in Zimbabwe.

Vandalism of electrical equipment in Zimbabwe has become a menace and a costly affair to
the society in terms of safety and low economic activities. Particularly, transformer vandalism
is on the rise year in year out and happens almost everywhere within the country.

Utility companies have enormous amounts of money invested in transformers of all types,
including distribution and power transformer. Operating, maintaining, and inspecting all
power transformers are not an easy work. In order to reduce burden on maintenance of such
transformers a new idea has been discovered.

Theft and vandalism are criminal acts that had really rocked the company and had pushed
company’s costs of operation higher. Scrupulous individuals tempered with electricity
equipment in order to obtain materials such as copper wire, aluminium and transformer oil
which they later sell to make quick money in the black-market.

The company owns thousands of transformers that are distributed across different regions
within the country. It is quite impossible and hard to monitor each and every transformer
physically. Use of technology can assist in such an environment where the equipment is
situated in different regions. Vandalism and siphoning of transformer oil happens anywhere
anytime and this spontaneous action makes it a big challenge to the company. Putting up a
strong and secure system is very important in an attempt to gap the vice.

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1.2 BACKGROUND.

Transformer oil, copper and aluminium are the main targets of the vandals. Oil mainly used in
transformer for two purposes one is for cooling of transformer and another use is for insulation
purpose. When temperature of transformer goes high, oil level in transformer tank decreases
due to heating effect. For normal operation of transformer oil level should maintain at required
level. If oil level decreases beyond required level, it affect cooling and insulation of the
transformer

It is reported that transformer oil is used in different areas and some of the areas they are
suspected to be of use are:

 mixed with diesel and sold as fuel

 used as fuel for industrial furnaces and as cooling for welding sets
 mixed with vegetable oil and sold as cooking oil
 Used as a cosmetic and treatment for wounds.

1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT.

When transformers explode some of the problems faced include:-

 ZETDC will be temporarily affected to make revenue from the affected customers.
 Business will stop operations hence creating unemployment or use other source of
energy like generators that might be costly compared to electricity,
 No or low business means no production which lead to less collection of taxes by the
government hence reduced revenue collection in the country,
 ZETDC will meet the cost of replacing the vandalized equipment, which is imported
through the use of limited forex in the nation.

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1.4 THE SIGNIFICANCE AND JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY.

The following figs shows snippets of the country state of the art local newspapers reporting of
the wide problem that has been hitting the country.

Fig 1.1: 29 DECEMBER 2016 snippet of chronicle article [1].

FIG1.2: 10 NOV 2017 THE HERALD SNIPPET ARTICLE [2].

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FIG 1.3: 14 JULY 2017 THE HERALD ARTICLE SNIPPET [3]

WHY PROTECTION IS NEEDED IN A TRANSFORMER.

 To minimize damage and interruption to the services.

 Prevents the electric failure so convenience to the consumers.
 Prevents loss of revenue due to outage.
 Reduces down time for repair or replacement which is very high.

Some of the anti-vandalism employed by ZETDC are:

 use of air cooled transformers

 securing transformers using Rapid Response alarms
 installation of surveillance cameras
 public awareness campaigns
 Installing units above High voltage lines.
 Installing alarms system on transformer units.
 Relocation of transformers to safer grounds such as home compounds or institutions

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1.5 METHODOLOGY.

The objectives of the project include:

 Continuous oil temperature reading of multiple transformers.

 GSM SMS based alerts.

 Auto circuit break of the transformer.

 Reliable for industrial needs.

 Regular alarm posts on a website

This project aims at monitoring the oil temperature of a multiple transformers continuously and
protects them from overheating. Since transformers are vital elements of the electric power
transmission and distribution infrastructure, they need to be monitored to prevent any
potential faults. Failures in a transformer can easily costs several million dollars to either repair
or replace, and will also cause a loss of service to customers and revenue until the symptom is
found and repaired.

In transformers the need for monitoring the oil temperature is very much necessary.
Turning the transformers OFF whenever the temperature is greater than its maximum operating
temperature protects the transformer from damage and also the lifetime of the transformers can
also be increased. Since the oil is present inside the transformer there is a necessity to
develop a system which can sense the temperature of the oil inside the transformer and
automatically switches ON the Circuit breaker if temperature exceeds the limit and also
informs the electricity department through SMS to predefined numbers .

The main aim of this system is distribution transformer monitoring and controlling
through IOT. Also, it sends SMS to a central database via the GSM modem for further
processing. The idea of on-line monitoring system mixes a global service mobile (GSM)
Modem, with chip micro controller and different sensors.

This project objective is to develop low cost solution for monitoring health condition of
remotely located distribution transformers using GSM technology to present premature failure
of distribution transformers and improving reliability of services to the customers.
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On top of that regular alarms should be send to a website for monitoring and GSM messages
will be reserved for more critical conditions.

1.6 PROPOSED SYSTEM MODEL.

AUTO CIRCUIT BREAKER GSM BASED SMS ALERTS.

FUNCTION.

DISTRIBUTION
TRANSFORMER
MONITORING AND
PROTECTION
.PROJECT

SENSORY INPUT. IOT ALARM POSTING FEATURE

FIG 1.4 :Proposed system architecture

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1.7 BUDGET

TABLE 1.1 PROJECT ESTIMATED COST

COMPONENT QUANTITY COST

230V AC TRANSFORMER 1 50
TEMPERETURE SENSOR 3 10
RELAY 1 10
CONTROLLER 1 10
GSM MODULE 1 12
WIFI MODULE 1 5
LEVEL SENSOR 2 5
ESTIMATED TOTAL COST $112-00

1.8 CONCLUSION.

Transformer is a vital device, we cannot imagine the power system operation without
them from generating to distribution end, they have effective role in interchanging the voltage
levels at transmission and distribution ranges.

The author believes that this project will go a long way in reducing headache pain which is
being inflicted on ZETDC.

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References

[1] C. Dube, "10 years jail for $60 oil theft," 29 december 2016. [Online]. Available:
www.chronicle.co.zw/10-years-jail-for-$60-oil-theft.

[2] h. team, "ZETDC gets tough on vandalism," 10 November 2017. [Online]. Available:
https://www.herald.co.zw/zetdc-gets-tough-on-vandalism/. [Accessed 15 july 2018].

[3] h. team, "Transformer vandalism needs to be tackled," HERALD, 14 JULY 2017. [Online].
Available: https://www.herald.co.zw/transformer-vandalism-needs-to-be-tackled/. [Accessed
20 AUGUST 2018].

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