High Voltage Testing Services

08/30/2026

👷‍♂️When it comes to electrical equipment, there’s a real difference between a technician who installs it and a technician who’s certified to independently verify it’s installed and performing correctly.

As an independent testing partner, HVTS doesn’t have a stake in cutting corners on installation, and we’re not selling you the equipment we’re testing. Our only job is to confirm your gear meets manufacturer standards and is ready to perform safely under load, tested and documented in accordance with IEEE standards.

Why this independence matters:

→ No conflict of interest. We’re not grading our own work. Test results reflect exactly what we find. Nothing more, nothing less.

→ Manufacturer standards, applied correctly. We stay current on OEM specs and torque values, insulation ratings, and commissioning procedures across a wide range of equipment.

→ IEEE-based methodology. Our testing follows established IEEE standards (like C57.104 for transformer diagnostics and related commissioning guidelines), so results are consistent, defensible, and repeatable; not “pass/fail”.

→ Best practices catch what installers miss. Proper installation is necessary, but it’s not sufficient. Loose connections, incorrect settings, and insulation issues often don’t show up until commissioning tests; or worse, until failure.

→ Documentation that holds up. Insurance carriers, AHJs, and engineering firms trust independent, standards-based test reports precisely because they’re objective.

For plant managers: independent testing is cheap insurance against unplanned downtime. For engineers: it’s the verification step that confirms your design intent actually made it into the field.

If your next installation or startup needs an independent set of eyes call or email

[email protected]
317.997.7021

08/30/2026

08/23/2026

⚡️ Emergency Transformer Replacement: Why Vacuum Fill Isn’t Optional 🚨

When a transformer fails and a spare has to go in fast, the pressure is on to get power restored. But there’s a step that can’t be rushed: vacuum filling.

Air and moisture are the enemy of insulation life. Even a properly stored spare transformer accumulates moisture in the paper insulation and dissolved gases in the tank over time. Pour oil in under atmospheric conditions and you trap air pockets and moisture in the windings, setting the transformer up for partial discharge, reduced dielectric strength, and premature failure, sometimes within months of an emergency install.

The right way: pull a deep vacuum on the tank (typically below 1000 microns, held for a set duration based on tank volume and voltage class), then draw oil in under that vacuum so it fills without entraining air. For larger units, that hold time can run several hours, which is exactly the kind of detail that gets skipped when everyone just wants the lights back on.

But a clean fill on the transformer is only half the job. Before we energized this unit, our crew verified the entire electrical path: from the 34.5 kV incoming service down to the 600V distribution:

• 34.5 kV switchgear and terminations: insulation resistance and hipot
• Transformer: vacuum fill, DGA, and dielectric testing
• Secondary switchgear and breakers: contact resistance and functional testing
• 600V distribution: insulation resistance and continuity verification

During visual inspection of the switchgear lineup, our team also flagged several 15kV breakers showing signs of wear; contact pitting, sluggish operation, worn hardware, signs of carbon and ionizing. We reconditioned them on the spot rather than leaving them as a future failure point. Every link in that chain gets tested, not just the piece that failed. A new transformer feeding into a compromised breaker or a bad termination is still a system waiting to fail.

Emergency doesn’t mean cutting corners on the process that protects the asset for the next 20 years. If you’ve got a transformer emergency, HVTS brings the equipment and certified crew to verify the whole system, not just the box that failed.

08/16/2026

⚡️Three outages, one day. Two causes nobody wants to see: flooded switchgear and a failed cable during production.

Our team responded to three unexpected outages back-to-back last week, flooded switchgear on two sites, a cable failure on another. Different failure modes, different root causes, same result: a crew that walked in already knowing what they were looking at.

Every HVTS technician trains on the failure modes before they ever see them in the field, moisture ingress patterns in switchgear compartments, insulation breakdown signatures in cable, the early warning signs that separate a routine maintenance finding from an imminent failure. When an outage hits, our crews aren’t diagnosing from scratch. They’re pattern-matching against hundreds of prior findings, moving straight to root cause instead of burning hours on discovery.

That’s the difference between a plant down for a shift or less and a plant down for a day.

Unexpected outages are, by definition, unplanned. But the response to them doesn’t have to be. Continuous training, disciplined documentation, and technicians who’ve genuinely seen it before, that’s what turns a crisis into a callout.

If your team is evaluating who you’d trust to show up when the power doesn’t, let’s talk before you need us.

THE Complete Source for All Your Power Distribution Needs
24/7

08/09/2026

Not every deficiency means a replacement. Transformers, switchgear, breakers, and protective relays can often be repaired, reconditioned, and returned to service, at a fraction of the cost and lead time of new equipment.

Our approach:

🔧 Diagnose first. Every repair starts with NETA-standard testing to pinpoint the actual failure mode, not guesswork.

🔧 Repair or recondition on-site when possible. Minimizes the time your equipment is offline and avoids costly transport/logistics delays.

🔧 Verify before re-energizing. Post-repair acceptance testing confirms the equipment meets NETA standards before it goes back into service.

🔧 Document everything. You get a full record of the deficiency, the repair, and the verification testing, for your files and for compliance.

Whether it’s a failed CT, a degraded breaker mechanism, or a transformer showing early DGA warning signs, the goal is the same: get you back online safely, fast, and with confidence in the equipment’s condition.

Facing unplanned downtime or an aging asset that needs a second opinion before replacement? Let’s talk.

08/02/2026

Open CT Secondary on New Switchgear: A Near-Miss Worth Sharing

A customer contacted us about unusual noise coming from newly installed switchgear. No fault codes, no protection trip, just an audible anomaly that prompted a call. That instinct prevented a serious incident.

Field investigation identified a current transformer with the shorting blocks removed, left open during installation or commissioning, prior to energization under load.

Why this matters technically:

A CT secondary is designed to operate into a low-impedance burden (relay, meter, or shorting block). Under normal conditions, the CT operates near saturation but within safe voltage limits because the secondary current has a path. Remove that path while the primary is energized under load, and the CT attempts to maintain the ampere-turn balance by driving secondary voltage upward, often into the thousands of volts, generated across a device with minimal insulation clearance not designed for that voltage class.

The result: dielectric breakdown, insulation failure, arc flash potential, and risk to any personnel near the cabinet. The audible noise the customer heard was arcing or corona activity from that voltage buildup, an early warning sign that could easily have gone unnoticed or been dismissed as normal equipment hum.

The gap: This was new equipment. It had presumably passed a visual commissioning check. But visual checks don’t verify CT circuit continuity or confirm shorting blocks are correctly seated, only electrical testing does.

Takeaway: New installations are not inherently low-risk. Installation errors on CT circuits are common, often undetectable without proper testing, and carry consequences ranging from equipment damage to personnel injury.

If your facility has recently commissioned switchgear that hasn’t undergone independent acceptance testing, or if something about your system doesn’t sound right, don’t wait for a failure to find out why.

HVTS provides acceptance and commissioning testing that catches exactly this kind of deviation before energization becomes a liability. Contact us to schedule testing on new or existing gear, before the next “noise” turns into an outage or worse.





Chris ScheidtJon AndersonBrian BorstJeff WilliamsKris Trammell
Rick Youngblood