Method and apparatus for monitoring high voltage bushings safely

Abstract

The voltage at the test tap of a high voltage bushing is applied to a bushing coupler which includes circuitry to sense and process voltages generated at the test tap and convert the voltages into corresponding data signals. Data signals corresponding to the test tap voltages are then transmitted wirelessly to a bushing monitoring system. The wireless transmission may be, for example, via an optical coupling (e.g., fiber optics) arrangement or an electromagnetic radiation (e.g., RF transmission) arrangement. Thus, the signals from the bushing coupler are wirelessly transmitted to a monitoring system which is not conductively connected to the bushing coupler and the test tap. The bushing coupler includes a power supply which is chargeable from the test tap or wirelessly from the bushing monitoring system which is adapted to receive values of the high voltage applied to the bushing and to calculate changes in the values of selected bushing parameters.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.