Insulation condition assessment of power equipments in electrical assets based on on-line monitoring of partial discharges

Partial discharge (PD) measurements performed online can provide important information regarding insulation system reliability. However, PD detectors suitable for online measurements (or monitoring) should be endowed at least with tools that are able to deal with noise and multiple PD sources. PD source identification tools that can exploit data streams from other sensors are, moreover, very important in order to provide an accurate failure risk assessment. This paper gives specifications about PD detection systems suitable for monitoring purposes, describes a detector that fits these requirements and provide examples of processing and analysis of PD data detected on in-service apparatus.