Electric Utilities

Yes. VIE sensors install on the external surface of any transformer — wet or dry, pad-mounted or substation, any make, model, voltage class, or vintage. The transformer stays fully energized throughout the installation process. No modifications to transformer internals. No de-energization required. Sensor count scales with transformer size: 3 to 4 sensors on units under 10 MVA, 5 to 7 on units between 10 and 100 MVA, and 6 to 9 on units above 100 MVA.

Transformer failures are low-frequency events — and that frequency is exactly the problem. Because failures are rare, they are easy to defer planning for, easy to underestimate, and easy to assume will not apply to your fleet until they do. The consequences of a single failure at a substation serving critical load are not proportional to the statistical frequency. A 500 MVA transformer on a transmission corridor serving hundreds of thousands of customers has a replacement lead time of three to five years. The operational and regulatory exposure from that single failure does not fit into any maintenance budget.

Frequency also does not account for the slow-developing degradation that produces sudden failures. The transformer that fails without warning was typically degrading for months before failure. VIE detects that degradation during the months when intervention is still possible.

Most condition-monitoring methods learn a baseline from the asset's own history and then flag departures from it. That approach assumes the asset is healthy when monitoring begins. VIE does not, because operators usually install the sensors on transformers of unknown condition. A baseline learned from a unit that already carries a defect would absorb the defect as normal and hide the very problem the system exists to find.

VIE uses a different reference. From the approximate geometry of the specific transformer, VIE builds a virtual model of the unit, grounded in how a transformer of that construction should vibrate and conduct heat. VIE compares each measurement to this model rather than to the asset's own past. That lets the platform identify a defect present at the time of installation, not only one that develops later.

VIE refines the virtual model with every sample. A typical sensor records 3 to 4 times per hour, so the model improves continuously and converges on an accurate, unit-specific reference. It never treats an existing fault as the normal state. The same geometry also informs where to place the sensors, so each one sits where it best resolves the structure-borne and fluid-borne signatures. Each sensor carries more than ten years of battery life, which sustains this sampling rate for the service life of the installation without intervention.

VIE does not learn its baseline from operating history. A system that does can absorb a slowly developing fault and treat it as the new normal. A physics-based model cannot. A clean reading from VIE is an affirmative statement that the measured mechanical and thermal behavior matches a healthy unit — not merely the absence of an alarm.

Online DGA requires a physical connection to the transformer's oil system, penetrating oil containment to place a sensor in the oil. VIE sensors are external and non-invasive. No oil system penetration. No new access point to maintain.

Online DGA is threshold-based: an asset within its gas concentration thresholds generates no alert, even if its insulation system is degrading in a way that will cause failure during the next peak load event or extreme weather condition. The most dangerous failures are often the ones that look fine on gas readings right up until the moment they fail. VIE models what each transformer should produce based on its geometry, load, and ambient conditions. A deviation from that expected behavior generates a finding regardless of gas levels.

Online DGA covers one failure mode channel on the transformers it is installed on. VIE covers five failure mode channels across every transformer in the fleet simultaneously. And at $8,000 to $30,000 per unit installed plus $500 to $1,500 per year in maintenance, fleet-wide online DGA is cost-prohibitive for most utilities. In practice, utilities deploy online DGA on their highest-risk assets and leave the rest unmonitored. That is fleet-level blindness — documented and accepted.

VIE enables fleet-wide coverage at a cost that scales. Lab DGA results feed back into VIE's platform, where the AI combines gas data with continuous vibration, thermal, and weather analysis to extract insights no domain expert could derive from gas data alone. The accuracy compounds with every additional lab result. Every lab DGA sample targeted by VIE is more valuable than one pulled on a fixed schedule.

Yes. NFPA 70B-2023 mandates condition-based maintenance with documented results. The myVIE platform automatically logs all transformer health data with timestamps and complete audit trails. Reports export on demand in formats suitable for compliance review and inspector documentation requirements.

No. VIE sensors mount to the external surface of the transformer tank using two-part epoxy. No de-energization. No modification to internals. No service interruption. Installation takes under 30 minutes per transformer on most units.