Advanced condition monitoring of insulation systems: A building block for smarter grids

Smartening the grid is becoming imperative to deal with several issues as, e.g. competitive energy markets and the impact of renewable energy sources. Condition monitoring techniques and smart asset management are a fundamental part of this framework. Indeed, techniques that are able to evaluate apparatus condition and residual life/maintenance time can allow failure risk to be managed in transmission and distribution grids, thus enabling optimum economic exploitation of the involved assets. This paper deals with technological improvements that have led recently to raise expectations about the use of partial discharge monitoring systems as a tool to avoid failures of electrical apparatus insulation systems. General considerations on the requirements that monitoring techniques should fulfil to be able to be part of a smart grid are presented, along with a working case where an improved partial discharge monitoring system was able to highlight insulation faults and suggest an appropriate course of action for maintenance.