A novel approach for the inference of insulator pollution severity

In this paper, experiments aimed at achieving information on partial discharge activity on polluted ceramic insulators are reported. The investigation serves the purpose of collecting typical partial discharge patterns from outdoor insulators in order to develop a technique to infer insulator pollution level. The reported results indicate that partial discharge analysis of polluted insulators provides useful information concerning the degree of pollution of insulator surfaces and, therefore, can be used to establish condition-based maintenance practices