Critical flashover voltage mechanism and prediction of resin epoxy insulator on temperature changes

Nowadays, insulator material with resin epoxy has grown as alternative material or subsidizes the other insulator material such as porcelain and glass. But no many use this insulator in Indonesia with tropical climate, including Indonesia Electrical Company (PLN). One of reason is performance of this resin epoxy under condition have not good proofing, especially for outdoor with vary the temperature. Beside the advantages, resin epoxy insulator has a disadvantage. That is sensitive characteristics changes to temperature. This paper will examine the experiment results, temperature influence to flashover voltage on epoxy resin insulator with artificial light to vary the temperature and describe mechanism of critical flashover voltage on insulator surface with certain condition. This experiment is using clean insulator and polluted epoxy resin insulator. Pollutant weight level is determining based on IEC 815 standard. This paper is show prediction equation for critical flashover voltage with regression and polynomial interpolation methods base on experiment in laboratory. Experiment results shows that surface temperatures of epoxy resin insulator influence the value of flashover voltage. As the surface temperature increase, the flashover voltage will decrease. This is happened on each insulator conditions, clean condition or mineral contaminated condition.