Electric Power Supply Reliability Improvement Approaches of Generation Unit

The generator current lead failures caused by phase insulation damage are one of the generation unit cut off reasons. The most frequently emerging insulation failures are the results of insulator flashovers caused by their contamination, mechanical and electro thermal damage. It is important to note that insulation is affected by many factors such as electric field, ambient temperature change and humidity. The intensity of each factor effect is different. The practice has shown that it takes about five days to find the damaged insulators the number of which may vary around 1000 units. This fact results in significant economical extension costs for power plants participating in electric power wholesale. Therefore, the insulators damage detection at the early stage is especially actual for power supply and reliability maintenance improvement.