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Dec 1, 2008 12:00 PM By Mohammad Reza Shariati, Ali Reza Moradian, Seyed Jamal Addin Vaseai and Seyed Ali Kamali, Niroo Rsesearch Institute, and Godratollah Alizadeh, Hormozgan Regional Electric Co.
Niroo Research Institute subjects insulators to field tests in order to create a severity map Pollution Deposits Can Accumulate on an Insulator Surface and become conductive paths when the insulator surface is wet due to rain or fog. This creates an increase in the leakage currents over the insulator surface, which decreases the electrical withstand voltage of the insulator, finally resulting in a flashover. Iran has a transmission system that comprises 90,000-circuit km (56,000-circuit miles) operating at voltages of 400 kV, 230 kV, 132 kV, 66 kV and 63 kV. The country's distribution network extends 300,000-circuit km (186,000-circuit miles) with operating voltages of 33 kV, 20 kV and 11 kV. The capacity of the transmission substations is more than 170,000 MVA, and some of these substations, located close to marine, industrial, desert and agricultural regions, are subjected to pollution. Insulator contamination caused by the close proximity of the Persian Gulf and Oman Sea, coupled with industrial pollution, have a major impact on the reliability of the transmission system and distribution network. Climatic conditions play a significant role in the pollution of insulators with the atmospheric characteristics of relative and absolute humidity, dew, fog and rain, establishing the formation of the conductive film. The resulting insulator flashovers in the regions of Iran that experience severe pollution have an adverse effect on the lifetime of insulation and system reliability. Operating records indicate that the transmission and distribution networks in many Iranian states are not able to cope effectively with these difficult service conditions, especially the overhead lines in the southern provinces. The performance of insulation, circuit operational history and maintenance cost in the southern provinces of Iran have prompted the need for in-depth studies of the pollution problem. One of the Iranian Ministry of Energy's priorities has been to assist utilities in fully understanding their pollution environments to optimize the selection of insulators designed to withstand these adverse service conditions. This task was recently assigned to the Niroo Research Institute (NRI), which was established in 1982. As the country's principal power research organization, NRI has played a leading role in developing new technologies for the electricity supply industry.
POLLUTION STUDIES
Many methods have been devised to quantify the pollution stress of the environment on the insulators. The most commonly used are the Equivalent Salt Deposit Density (ESDD) method and the Non-Soluble Deposit Density (NSDD) method, but more recently, the new Directional Dust Gauge (DDG) method is being applied. In 2000, NRI in cooperation with engineers from Iran's Khuzestan Distribution Electric Co. (KDEC) and Tavanir, the Iran power generation, transmission and distribution management company, embarked on a project to evaluate pollution levels at several sites along the coast near the tip of the Persian Gulf. Established for a period of about two years, this project was the first phase of what became a three-phase project.
In the first phase, 30 stations were established in the Khuzestan province to investigate insulator behavior and pollution severity. Each station contained an insulator string of five cap-and-pin discs, an ANSI class 56-3 pin insulator, an ANSI class 56-5 pin insulator, a long-rod insulator and a pedestal insulator supported on a concrete or wood pole structure (Fig. 2). In Phase 2, which was supported by Tavanir, 75 other test stations were installed in West Azerbaijan, Guilan, Mazandaran, Bushehr, Hormozgan, and Sistan and Baluchistan provinces, each containing an insulator string of six cap-and-pin discs. The top dummy insulator disc was used to evaluate the self-cleaning properties of the insulator. A total of 105 ESDD/NSDD and DDG test stations were located in heavy industrial and marine pollution areas of Iran with recorded adverse operational histories. The insulators and DDG instruments were exposed to contamination conditions for a year. ESDD/NSDD measurements were done based on IEC-60507 in three monthly sampling intervals; a pollution index was obtained using the maximum of 12 monthly DDG measurements. A pollution map of Iran was established using NRI's pollution field studies and by analyzing the results of Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the project (Fig. 3). This map is used to select the number and type of insulators for a given line and to establish the effectiveness of insulator-maintenance procedures, such as greasing, washing, silicon-rubber coating and creepage extenders for substations.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
The ESDD value alone may not necessarily reflect the real pollution situation; the new NSDD/ESDD criterion is required. It is suggested that a new category is required for the classification of pollution severity for exceptional areas such as Geshm Islan, which have an ESDD greater than 1 mg/sq cm, as well as a minimum specific creepage distance equal to 39 mm/kV. The effect of the insulator profile on the measured ESDD level shows how important it is to use the correct type of insulator when taking these measurements. The pollution level of a given site, when assessed with the ESDD measurement method, represents how the particular insulator is used and its expected performance for the type and magnitude of the pollution at the location. In contrast, the DDG method yields a value that is almost always a more direct measurement of the type and magnitude of the locations level of pollution. The pollution-index criteria obtained, based on field tests, are in good agreement with the ESDD/NSDD method. Therefore, use of the simple and inexpensive DDG method is recommended for the measurement of the severity of site pollution. RTV and replacement methods are presented as useful maintenance strategies for substations and transmission lines in polluted areas.