Evaluating station post insulator performance from electric field calculations

This paper illustrates the use of electric field calculations for evaluating the performance of porcelain post insulators in stations for AC system voltages up to 1200 kV. The electric field was calculated using a 3-dimensional commercially available computer package that is based on the Boundary Element Analysis method. A comparison has been made of the effectiveness of several commonly used methods for improving contamination performance, namely, adding leakage distance (taller posts, ribbed sheds and creepage extenders) and coating the insulator with hydrophobic materials. It is shown that for station post insulators used in EHV and UHV systems (greater than 240 kV), coating the insulators with hydrophobic materials or replacing them with composite insulators offers superior protection to flashovers initiated under wet and contaminated conditions than provided by methods that simply increase the leakage distance. For lower voltages (less than 240 kV), all methods considered are effective.