A comparison between measured leakage current and surface conductivity during salt fog tests [power line insulator applications]

This paper deals with an insulator pollution monitoring relay (IPMR), designed to measure and monitor pollution on high voltage insulators. The IPMR determines the pollution severity by measuring the surface conductivity on the test insulator. The paper reports on how the IPMR was used to measure surface conductivity on the lest insulator while a salt fog test was performed on typical power line insulators. The leakage currents were measured on the test insulators and the data was captured together with the surface conductivity values. The results discuss whether the IPMR is capable of the early detection of an instantaneous pollution event. The results are also utilised to compare the relationship between measured surface conductivity and leakage current values thus predicting flashover.