Development of a commercially applicable prototypes for on-line monitoring of partial discharges and pollution effects on safety of high voltage power equipment

Electric utilities have been facing major concerns related to the ageing and deterioration of high voltage power equipment in service. With advancing technologies in the field of sensors and data acquisition systems it is feasible to develop and implement on-line condition monitoring systems for high voltage equipment. In the Department of Electrical Engineering, RMIT University, major research projects are in progress dealing with the development of such systems to assess the degree of degradation and the reliability of high voltage power equipment. In the scope of these projects, new systems are being developed for online monitoring of partial discharges (PD), leakage current (LC) due to pollution on insulators of outdoor power plant as well as other significant parameters related to the service condition of equipment. The partial discharges and leakage current monitoring sensors with their associated data acquisition systems have been fully developed and the prototypes have been extensively tested in the laboratory. The field trials have also been successfully conducted. Both systems have been developed keeping in mind their commercial viability which includes reliability of operation and low cost. The prototypes make use of nonintrusive sensors, fibre optic technology and state of the art data acquisition software and hardware. Enormous benefits to electric utilities can result from the introduction of such on-line monitoring devices in view of the reduction of down time, averting equipment failure and assisting in the formulation of effective maintenance strategies.