Abstract
The accurate estimation of deposits adhering on insulators is of great significance to prevent pollution flashovers which cause huge costs worldwide. Researchers have developed sensors using different technologies to monitor insulator contamination on a fine time scale. However, there is lack of analysis of these data to reveal spatial and temporal characteristics of insulator contamination, and as a result the scheduling of periodical maintenance of power facilities is highly dependent on personal experience. Owing to the deployment of novel sensors, daily Equivalent Salt Deposit Density (ESDD) observations of over two years were collected and analyzed for the first time. Results from 16 sites distributed in four regions of Hubei demonstrated that spatial heterogeneity can be seen at both the fine and coarse geographical scales, suggesting that current polluted area maps are necessary but are not sufficient conditions to guide the maintenance of power facilities. Both the local emission and the regional air pollution condition exert evident influences on deposit accumulation. A relationship between ESDD and PM10 was revealed by using regression analysis, proving that air pollution exerts influence on pollution accumulations on insulators. Moreover, the seasonality of ESDD was discovered for the first time by means of time series analysis, which could help engineers select appropriate times to clean the contamination. Besides, the trend component shows that the ESDD increases in a negative exponential fashion with the accumulation date (ESDD = a − b × exp(−time)) at a long time scale in real environments.
Highlights
Flashovers happening in high-voltage electric power transmission systems caused huge losses to society, estimated at 80–100 billion dollars just in the USA [1]
We collected daily Equivalent Salt Deposit Density (ESDD) from 16 monitoring sites located in Hubei Province, China, acquired by on-line measurement apparatus which utilize optical technology
There are many fluctuations on the daily ESDD curves containing both signals and noises owing to the low precision of the relevant apparatus
Summary
Flashovers happening in high-voltage electric power transmission systems caused huge losses to society, estimated at 80–100 billion dollars just in the USA [1]. The damage caused by contamination flashovers would definitely be more serious unless appropriate measures are taken To tackle this problem, periodic maintenance of insulators is indispensable for power transmission systems. Periodic maintenance of insulators is indispensable for power transmission systems Such tasks are usually based on manual measurements of insulator contamination which are quite expensive and time consuming. Laboratory tests and measurements of samples collected from the real environment (in-situ measurements) are the major means to study the characteristics of the ESDD. On-line daily measurements of the ESDD were collected from 16 sites in four different cities distributed across Hubei Province, in central China, to reveal the spatial and temporal characteristics of the ESDD in real environments. Owing to its low precision, we prefer to summarize by providing some qualitative rules rather than quantitative equations
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