IEEE ISIE 2006, July 9-12, 2006, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Remote

Online Monitoring System for Suspension Insulator Strings

Bo Li Xiujie Wang Liu Nian Dept. of Electrical Engineering; Sichuan University, 610065 Chengdu, Sichuan, China

E-mail: libolina@,]63.com

There are four stages from contamination depositing to flashover occurring. A. Deposition ofcontamination andNatural cleaning In the effect of natural power, the contamination in the air and rainfall fall the suspension insulators. The ingredients of contamination are different according to the pollution source and the area. The contamination deposited on the surface of insulators mainly comes from power, iron, steel, cement plant and chemical plant, as well as the exhaust of automobile and the people daily living contamination and so on. Additionally, in the coastal area, the contamination is mainly from the I. INTRODUCTION contamination of sea breeze or rainfall. Under the service Suspension insulator strings occupy very important position conditions, the deposited contamination is possibly blown in the insulation of the power system. In terms of material, they down by the wind or washes off by rain and heavy dew. The have three types, porcelain insulators, glasses insulators and repetition of the processes above gradually makes the polymer insulators. The various kinds of suspension insulators contamination of the surface of suspension insulator strings operating in the transmission lines and substations are exposed come into being. in the open air for a long time, and undergo the rainfall, B. Wetting contamination, ice and snow. Therefore, they can easily get Only under the moist situation, the contamination has the pollution flashover under the lightning over-voltage and the obvious influence to the flashover voltage of insulators. As the switching over-voltage. wetting effect of fog, rain drops, dew, thawy snow and ice and Flashover, aroused by contamination, on high voltage moist weather, the conductive channel forms in the transmission lines and substations is another dominated cause contamination layers. of outage except the lightning. However, the contamination flashover of suspension insulators is the more harmful fault to C. The forming of the dry-area and the production of some electrical-arc power system, and the loss is very great for the operation of Moist contamination is drying slowly as Joule-heat effect, electrical power systems. Therefore, the all parts of the world then, it forms dry-area on the surface of insulators. The distribution of pressure on the surface of the insulators will

Abstract-Suspension insulator strings are used in high voltage transmission lines and substations widely and they are important for the power system on insulation. This paper describes some insulation ability of suspension insulator strings and completes some exploration work to the remote online monitoring system for suspension insulator strings of high voltage transmission lines and substations. A new method of combinative leakage current and pulse current for insulators is introduced. This monitoring system can monitor the leakage current and pulse current of suspension insulator strings effectively, and it can make use of computer and communication technology to process the Real-time signal which is able to reflect the insulation state with the relevant data of insulators. The leakage current of suspension insulator strings can incarnate the grade of insulators contamination. Accordingly, the pulse current of them can embody the characteristic of internal insulation. Base on these methods, the system has the real-time early warning function, and the pre-warning work can be realized for the pollution flashover. The experimental equipment is also installed in the High Voltage Laboratory and the software of this system is programming. We will test the system and improve it continuously to achieve that this system can be used in field early. This can help the operators obtaining the data of insulators indoors, cleaning and maintaining the insulators designedly, and reducing the maintenance expenses of effectively.

have almost taken place pollution flashover on power system, and result in the serious economic losses. In the modern power system, more and more organic synthesis insulators with the antipollution and anticorrosive ability are used. At the same time, the method of seasonal washing the surface of insulators is also used in the practice. But, as short of knowing the status in the operating insulators, the washing on the online insulators is not obvious sometimes when winter with ice and snow, and the method is very dangerous for operation high voltage transmission lines and substations [1].

II. BACKGROUND
LIVE-LINE

KNOWLEDGE FOR REMOTE MONITORING SYSTEM

1-4244-0497-5/06/$20.00 C 2006 IEEE

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change. If the pressure which is between two ends of dry-area exceeds a certain value, part-discharge will take place and electrical-arc will come forth. This is the third step of flashover. D. Flashover behavior As contaminated status of the surface of insulators, the status of moist contamination and the pressure of dry-area such as, the form of part-discharge and its development are different, some weaken gradually and the other arouse flashover. Obennaus present a pollution flashover model in which the exterior electric-arc and the resistance of remained contamination are series-wound [1]. the maintained equation of electrical arc is as follow:
U = AXI -n + IR(X) (1)

III.
A.

METHODS FOR REMOTE ON-LINE MONITORING SYSTEM

Where X is the length of electrical-arc, I is the surface current, R(X) is resistance of contamination where the length of the electrical-arc is X, and A, n are the static constants of characteristics of the electrical-arc.

Methodsfor data acquisition system (DAS) Over the years, various methods for monitoring insulators on high voltage transmission lines and substations have been used. Some are active methods while others are passive, each one with its own advantages and disadvantages. They can be sorted into two types of electrical method and non-electrical method. Ultraviolet imaging method, infrared temperature method, ultrasonic method and digital image processing method are the mainly non-electrical methods. Each one has some advantage factors and disadvantage [2]. Ultraviolet imaging method detects the ultraviolet radiation which is emitted by the part discharge of insulators to judge the insulators well or not. However, it needs detecting when the part discharge took place and this method is influenced by the

Fig.2.The leakage current and pulse current sensor on the tower. This paper acquire the signal of the leakage current and pulse current by using different typesensr toavod pick-up pulse current from leakage current or leakage current from pulse current.

environment. Infrared temperature method can measure the temperature which is conducted by part discharge and some other factors. However, the sunshine, wind, humidity and environmental temperature are the mainly influencing factor for this method. Ultrasonic method can detect the rupture of insulators and it is primarily used in factory or laboratory. Digital image processing method can indicate the Fig. 1. Leakage current and pulse current sensor and RTU in the tower. The hydrophobicity of insulators. However, it will be need of RTU can acquire the signal and sent it to the center computer by Radio Frequency (RF) communication, mobile communication network or power helicopter to complete the measurement, if it is used in line carrier etc. transmission lines. This could increase the cost [3]. When the suspension insulators are installed, the equation of It is obvious to us these methods above are not suit for remote monitoring system of suspension insulator strings. flashover voltage is as follow: These could not be widely applied in the field. On the other hand, more and more electrical method are U1 E11 + E212 (2) reported by the papers. Electrical method is as follow: Where El is the flashover electric field (virtual value) of the 1. Potential detection surface, which is caught in; E2 is flashover electric field of the 2. Resistance detection Le is the length of surface, which is caught in; 12 is the air gap; 3. Electric field detection length of the air gap. 4. Leakage current detection

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5. Pulse current detection

1)

Potential Detection

Buzz method, this method which detects the potential is to put a shot-circuit across an insulator and listen for a sparking noise, is mentioned in the previous paper [4]. However, this method easily arise change of potential distribution of insulator strings and it is a very dangerous method to operators who need to climb tower to measure. According to above, we can conclude that buzz method is not suit for remote on-line monitoring.

Pulse current measurement mainly measures the corona pulse while there are fault insulators in the suspension insulator strings, part discharge pulse which is led by fissure on insulators and leakage current pulse before flashover. This method can monitor inner and exterior multi-parameter of suspension insulator strings [4, 5, 6]. There are four influencing factors on the resolution, the amount of insulators on one string, the corona inception voltages of the insulators close to line, the resistance of the faulty insulators and the location of the faulty insulator on the string [7]. B. Methodsfor data processing The main data processing methods

2)

Resistance Detection

are frequency

Resistance detecting method is an insulators monitoring method by measure the resistance of the insulators. This method was used mainly to test insulators before they left
Fig.4. The structure map of RTU. The remote terminal unit (RTU) is composed of the filter, the signal magnifying unit, the A/D change unit, the Single Chip Microprocessor unit, and the remote inquire unit.

characteristics [8], liner stochastic [9] and neural network-base system (NNS) [10, 11]. Although these methods can work in practical operation, it is not fully satisfied for pick-up wavelet.

NEW REMOTE ON-LINE MONITORING SYSTEM FOR SUSPENSION INSULATOR STRINGS Compared the methods above, this paper adopted an associative method of monitoring leakage current and pulse current to remote on-line monitoring the suspension insulator strings at the same time. Only in this way can we well exert the two detection methods above. Fig. 1 shows the arrangement of the remote monitoring system in tower. The leakage current 3) Electric Field Detection sensor and pulse current sensor are installed in one suspension insulator string and the remote terminal unit is fixed on the Electric field measurement is a method which is utilized the difference between the electric field of normal insulators and tower. The sensor secondary is connected to the RTU through faulty insulators. The difference is that the equi-potential line a coaxial cable. The leakage current which is determined by instantaneous of normal insulators is smooth and there is salient on the equipotential line of fault insulators. This method is not suit for practice climb electricity distance, weather and filthy degree is remote online monitoring. First, this method need operator to very weak. In addition, the leakage current, which include climb tower to complete them work. Second, it is a risk work partial information of the operating state of insulator, is for operator. Farther more, it is influenced by natural relatively easily measured. This method is suit for continuous on-line monitoring, and it includes the information of the qualification. insulator with the four processes, which reflect the complete of insulators. On the other hand, pulse current process 4) Leakage Current Detection reflects the inner insulated status of insulators, such as the Leakage current detection is a method to analyze the state of corona pulse while there are fault insulators in the suspension insulators by means of measuring the leakage current of insulator strings, part discharge pulse which is led by fissure on suspension insulator strings, registering the value of leakage insulator and leakage current pulse before flashover etc. Therefore, we adopt the integrated methods including current, counting the number of peak in vary value range. Obviously, this method is devoid of full monitoring to leakage current and pulse current, to assess the online state of suspension insulator strings, and there is no enough time for the insulators in the remote online monitoring system. In addition, this method is applicable for remote online operator to maintain. monitoring suspension insulator strings on the transmission lines and substations. 5) Pulse Current Detection
Fig.3. Adaptive noise cancellation for the testing system which is disposed the noise signal in the leakage current and leakage current signal. factory by megohm meters. It can be used in on-line detection after making some technical improvement. Therefore, we can conclude that resistance detecting method is not be used in remote on-line monitoring. IV.

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The remote live-line monitoring system of suspension insulator strings is mainly composed of the sensor group, the remote terminal unit (RTU), the transform unit, the monitoring computer and the relevant equipment used for information exchange. This paper acquire the signal of the leakage current and pulse current by using different types of sensor to avoid pickup pulse current from leakage current or leakage current from pulse current. The signal acquiring unit is as shown as fig.2. This monitoring system utilizes the adaptive noise cancellation to dispose the noise signal in the leakage current and leakage current signal. First, the principium of this system is, as show as fig.3, set one or several sensors around the suspension insulator strings to collect the noise signal of environment. Second, the noise signal is eliminated from the leakage current

For transmission line insulators, it selects Radio Frequency (RF) communication, mobile communication network or power line carrier etc. to achieve the data communication from RTU to central computer. RF is convenient, as shown as fig.5, but it is easily influenced by geography and the transmission distance. For the substation insulators, it directly adopts RS232/RS485 to achieve that. The RTU is connected to the central computer by a coaxial cable through RS485, as shown as fig.6. The signal from the microprocessor unit is sent to the central computer in the control room to process. The data processing is finished by the software, which is selects wavelet transform to analyze. The data, which is processed and conserved by the central computer, can be printed, shown, inquired and prewarned, as shown as fig.5. Here, the pre-warning will be realized through adopting fuzzy sentencing to the alert method in analysis on the remote terminal signal. Some practicable experience is mentioned in the early paper. On one hand, paper [7] has studied the corona pulse current. The amplitude of the negative pulses, which is conducted by corona pulse of the fault insulators, is larger than normal

RTU

iiti

Niftl

RiT.J

Fig.5. The constitution of the communication system between RTU and central computer on transmission lines. This model can be used in RF or mobile communication network.

and leakage current signal. In addition, ambient temperature, relative humidity sensors are installed on the every several towers to detect the weather condition. The remote terminal unit (RTU) is composed of the filter, the signal magnifying unit, the A/D change unit, the Single Chip Microprocessor unit, and the remote inquire unit. The structure map of RTU is shown as the fig.4. The power supply consists of a 12V, 18W solar cell installed at the middle of the tower together with the RTU box. A 105Ah battery, which is charged by the solar cell, is used as a backup during nights and cloudy days, and gives up to 5 days operation [6]. On the other hand, the RTU is set in saving power model. RTU intermittently collect the current signal and intermittently sent the signal to the central computer to reduce the wasting electrical-power.

insulaters. We can easily pick out the fault insulater from one insulater strings. In addition, the lower resistance of faulty insulater, the higher voltage drop, it will produce more corona discharge. So, it is safed to conclude that pulse current monitoring method is effective. On the other hand, the leakage current monitering method has used in the practice wildly. The interrelated technology is very self-contained. It can count the amount of peaks in different peak level, such as 50-150mA, 150-250mA, 250-350mA, 350-45OmAand >450mA. It can indicate the states of the insulaters well and truly.This paper acquire the signal of the leakage current and pulse current by using different types of sensor to avoid pick-up pulse current from leakage current or leakage current from pulse current. It's very convenient to obtain the leakage current singal and pulse current singal. It can be analysed by the computer information technology, such as nerval net work and fuzzy theory.

Fig.6. The constitution of the communication system between RTU and central computer. MAX489 is the drive of the signal transmission from RTU to central computer.

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V.

HIGH VOLTAGE LABORATORY TESTS

The experimental equipments are installed and the software of this system is programming. We will test the system in the high-voltage laboratory and improve it continuously to achieve that this system can be used in field early. This system will operate under different level voltage to test its validity.
VI. CONCLUSIONS

[9] Felix Amarh, George G. Karady, Raji Sundararajan, "Linear stochastic analysis of polluted insulator leakage current," IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, USA, Vol. 17, No.4, Oct. 2002 pp. 1063 -1069 [10] S.Kumagai, N.Yoshimura, "Leakage current analysis for monitoring the conditions of polymer insulators," Electrical Insulating Materials, Tokyo, Japan, Nov. 2001, pp.55-58 [11] M.A.R.M., Fernando, S.M. Gubanski, "Analysis of leakage current wave forms for field-aged and new composite insulators," Electrical Insulation and Dielectric Phenomena, 1997. IEEE 1997 Annual Report., Conference on,, Swedan, Vol.1, Oct. 1997, pp.350 - 353

The remote live-line monitoring system of suspension insulator strings is mainly composed of the sensor group, remote terminal unit, transform unit, central computer, and relevant equipment for the information exchanging, and the data processing is finished by the software, which operate on the central computer mainly. To high voltage transmission lines and substations, the ones that have adopted the online real-time monitoring system can monitor comprehensively for the integrative performance of the insulators very much. It can also master its insulating state real-time. This can help to clean and maintain the insulator designedly, and reduce the maintenance expenses of the insulator effectively.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT

BIOGRAPHIES

Bo Li was born in 1981 in the province of Sichuan in China. He graduated from Harbin University of science and technology and received his bachelor's degree. He was a graduate of Sichuan University, China. Major in Condition Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis technology of electrical equipment E-mail:libolina@163.com

This work was supported by the Sichuan Electric Power Building Company in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, China; and we greatly thank the support of the High-voltage laboratory, School of Electrical and Information Engineering of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
REFERENCES
[1] Liang Xidong, Chen Changyu, Zhou Yuanxiang, High voltage engineering. The Press of Tsinghua University. Beijing, September, 2003 [2] Song Wei, Zhao Linjie, Li Chengrong. "On-line detection methods of composite insulator," High Voltage Engineering. Wuhan, China, Vol.31 No.5, pp28-30, May,2005 [3] M. Berg, R. Thottappillil, and V. Scuka. "Hydrophobicity Estimation of HV Polymeric Insulating Materials, Development of aDigital Image Processing Method," IEEE Transaction and Electrical Insulation, Uppsala, Sweden, vol. 8 No.6, December 200 1, pp. 1098-1107 [4] Vaillancourt, G.H.; Bellerive, J.P.; St-Jean, M.; Jean, C. "New live line tester for porcelain suspension insulators on high-voltage power lines," Power Delivery, IEEE Transactions on, Canada,Vol.9, Issue 1, Jan. 1994, pp.208 - 219 [5] Richards, C.N, Renowden, J.D, "Development of a remote insulator contamination monitoring system Power Delivery," IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, USA,Vol.12, Issue 1, Jan. 1997 pp.389 - 397 [6] J.L.Fierro-Chavez, I.Ramirez-Vazquez, G.Montoya-Tena, "On-line leakage current monitoring of 400 kV insulator strings in polluted areas," Generation, Transmission and Distribution, IEE Proceedings, Mexico, Vol. 143, No. 6, Nov. 1996,pp.560 - 564 [7] Cheng Rong Li; Qian Shi; Yang Chun Cheng; Guo Lin; Huang Xingquan, "Identifying faulty insulator strings by detecting insulator corona pulse current," Power System Technology 1998. Proceedings. POWERCON '98. 1998 International Conference on, Beiing, China, Vol. 1, Aug. 1998, pp.529- 532 [8] Suda, T. "Frequency characteristics of leakage current waveforms of an artificially polluted suspension insulator," IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation, Tokyo, Japan, Vol.8, No.4, Aug. 2001, pp.705 - 709

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