Newfoundland Power is the first utility in North America to come up with a more environmentally-friendly alternative to the mineral oils used in transformers.
Vice President of Customer Operations with Newfoundland Power, Jamie Mullins, says mineral oil becomes a problem when it leaks, or ends up in the environment.
He says when it escapes from a distribution transformer, which happens from time-to-time, it requires environmental remediation which can be “disruptive and expensive.”
Newfoundland Power has come up with a biodegradable, synthetic alternative to the mineral oil. The use of biodegradable esters will be explored through a pilot project introduced by Newfoundland Power and made possible through $101,532 in green transition funding from the provincial government.
Mullins calls it a “significant step” in finding ways to reduce the utility’s environmental impact.
Newfoundland Power has identified a commercially-available synthetic ester that is not only safer to handle and use, but also has the unintended benefit of cooling properties that may allow the utility to get more capacity out of the devices they’re using.
