Modelling the leakage current behaviour of polluted ceramic insulators by using acoustic emissions and relative humidity

Abstract

Understanding the behaviour of leakage current (LC) is not an easy task for engineers and new techniques are needed to identify the outage risk of some electrical circuits. Therefore, this paper presents a Generalized Linear Model (GLM) to characterise the LC variations in 230 kV ceramic insulators located in outdoor electrical substations subject to high pollution levels. The model uses data such as LC, acoustic emission (AE), and environmental variables (EVs). We found that the model represents the LC variation of electrical insulators of high voltage circuits. This model is useful for designing detection systems that represent the contamination levels and predict the behaviour of changes related to EV. With this model, we can determine the risk indicators for failure of electrical insulators in high-pollution areas.