AbstractIn selecting adequate insulators for substations at distribution and transmission voltage levels, special measures may be
needed in locations exposed to freezing conditions. This first part
of the paper describes the environmental and insulator parameters
that influence the risk of flashover on station insulators exposed to
freezing conditions.
Index TermsClimate, contamination, flashover, fog, high
voltage, ice, insulator coordination, snow, station insulators.
I. INTRODUCTION
is essentially based on two reasons. First, more than half of electrical icing flashover problems in North America are associated
with station insulators [2], [3], [26], [29]. Second, the flashover
risk is very sensitive to pollution exposure [28]. It is desirable
to develop experience with the modeling at specific locations,
where distances to nearby pollution sources are known, such as
substations, before attempting the more difficult problem of integrating all pollution sources along the length of an overhead
line.
These recommendations, dealing with all voltage levels, will
be helpful for selecting insulators in new installations, for insulator replacement programs, and for treatment options where
existing insulators must be upgraded. Parameters for insulator
selection include insulator type, profile and configuration, dry
arcing and leakage distances.
The first objective is to provide sufficient climate data and
environmental exposure to establish the risk factors at a fixed
location, such as a substation.
The second objective is to describe the relation between climate exposure and risk of flashover. This risk changes in discrete steps depending on the level of icicle bridging of shed
spacing, but it changes smoothly with increasing ice deposit
thickness and water conductivity.
The main focus of this first part of the paper is on the physics
and chemistry of important aspects of insulation flashover under
icing conditions.
II. SCIENTIFIC BASIS AND TECHNICAL CONTEXT
A. Contaminated Ice and Snow Deposits
Several ice parameters, including type and density, amount,
and distribution, and the eventual electrical conductivity of
water on the ice surface, have a significant influence on the
flashover performance of iced insulators [28].
1) Type and Density of Ice: Laboratory tests and field experience both show that the most dangerous type of ice is glaze
with icicles, having a density of about 0.87 g/cm [4], [30], [31].
In the case of glaze, the water film on the ice surface during the
accretion and melting periods creates the most critical flashover
condition.
In the case of low-density rime, water can penetrate the ice
during the melting period and the surface of the insulator may
FARZANEH et al.: SELECTION OF STATION INSULATORS WITH RESPECT TO ICE AND SNOWPART I
Fig. 1.
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(2)
266
Fig. 3.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 5.
[33].
<0
FARZANEH et al.: SELECTION OF STATION INSULATORS WITH RESPECT TO ICE AND SNOWPART I
B. Environment
Insulator pollution standards, such as IEC 60 815 [56],
currently under revision, provide some guidance in Table I regarding the leakage distance needed for reliable long-term use
as a function of insulator pollution level. The present IEEE TF
recommends the use of four pollution levels in Table I as ranges
of equivalent salt deposit density (ESDD). A revised standard
IEC 60 815 will also take into account another important
pollution parameter, i.e., nonsoluble deposit density (NSDD).
Equivalent advice is given below for icing and cold-fog conditions. However, there is little guidance for establishing the
anticipated ESDD level, except for test values near the sea [13].
Winter exposure is somewhat similar to desert exposure in
the sense that the top surfaces are not exposed to rain for extended periods of weeks or months, depending on the local ambient temperature. Short-term exposure of several weeks tends
to have a linear relationship between ESDD and duration, while
the ESDD levels off for long-term exposure of 6 to 18 months.
Under winter conditions, top-surface ESDD values increase to
levels higher than bottom surfaces. The rate of increase of ESDD
with time must be established from the local pollution environment, and used in conjunction with climate records for the median or extreme duration of dry periods.
A model for pollution exposure at substations can be derived from the mass flux of nearby point, line, or area pollution
sources. An example of a point source would be a chimney located several kilometers upwind of the station. Road salting on
metric tons of NaCl per lane km is
expressways at a level of
a common line source, and generating stations located near the
sea are exposed to a half-plane source whenever the wind blows
in from the ocean. The source strength of the half-plane formed
by the sea is strongly influenced by wind speeds and wave action [13].
The wind rosette, a polar plot of wind speed and direction
over the exposure period, is used in common surface deposition models. The probability of being directly downwind from
a point source is fairly low, so the exposures from line and area
sources usually dominate the calculation. When such models are
applied on a sea surface area, it is important to consider the differences in surface winds and the wind direction at 5001000 m
levels, where the main transportation of the pollution, as well
as the release of precipitation, takes place. Due to the veering
of wind with height, the local surface wind direction may be as
much as 90 (anticlockwise on the northern hemisphere) off the
transport direction of sea salt aloft, depending on the roughness
of the terrain.
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ditions that lead to slow melting, (3) and (4) have approximated
the insulation strength [60]:
kV m dry arc
kV m dry arc
for ice
for snow.
(3)
(4)
ISP is the product of the ice layer weight (g/cm of dry arcing
distance) and the ice layer conductivity ( S/cm). Reference [8]
also notes a nonlinear relationship for EHV insulators.
B. Diameter
North American experience during heavy ice storms suggests
that station insulators of greater diameter are more prone to
ice flashover than neighboring post insulators of smaller diameter [34]. The relationship between ice accretion diameter and
flashover strength for a fixed shed profile was recently studied
[35] and can be expressed as:
V kV m dry arc
(5)
Thickness
(6)
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icing exposure, but this effect is less important than insulator diameter. Alternating diameters of sheds and multi-cone profiles
can improve ice and snow flashover performance in some conditions by delaying the onset of ice bridging, compared to designs with uniform shed profile [1], [18], [21], [24], [36], [42].
Booster sheds of various designs have also been evaluated for
this function.
Tests on a wide range of shed profiles are reported for 24-kV
class insulators [10]. These results suggest that the influence of
shed profile on flashover voltage is relatively limited compared
to the parameters of the ice deposit.
E. Leakage Distance
Leakage distance and the so-called protected leakage distance play an important role in pollution flashover strength for
very light levels of freezing rain, drizzle, and fog accumulation,
but are less important when ice or snow bridging of insulator
shed spacing occurs. In the worst case, the effective leakage distance is reduced to the dry arcing distance.
Generally, there is a reasonable agreement between the results
of cold-fog tests versus clean-fog tests, according to IEC 60507,
with cold-fog giving strengths that are 1020% lower than clean
fog results [40]. Empirically the electrical flashover strength of
leakage distance in cold-fog conditions, as a function of ESDD,
is given by (7).
V kV/m leakage
ESDD
(7)
ESDD in g/cm .
Fig. 6 shows the strength predicted by (7), superimposed on
a summary of conventional clean-fog strength, replotted from
data in [40] using a rough conversion factor of 2.5x for the relation between leakage and arcing distance.
F. Orientation
Testing experience for iced station insulators has generally
been for vertical orientations, since these are most common.
Results for V-strings of suspension insulators [37] suggest an
improvement in strength for oblique angles, compared to vertical. Operational and testing experience with wet flashover of
wall bushings [41] suggest that horizontal orientation may perform in unexpected ways compared to vertical post insulators.
Ice or snow accretion on the top of the horizontal insulator will
bridge the dry arcing distance at a lower precipitation amount.
However, overall ice thickness will not build up as fast because
icicles will develop vertically downward, not across the shed
spacings, see example in Fig. 7.
The placement of two station insulators in close proximity
will tend to degrade the performance, compared to the single
insulator. This is true for both heavy snow and ice accretion and
was previously noted for line insulators [38].
A special question for orientation concerns the ice performance of T-shaped circuit-breakers, or disconnecting circuitbreakers. To simulate the service case, it was decided to perform
ice accretion on both chambers (horizontal part) and support insulator (vertical part). The Ice Progressive Stress Method (IPS)
was used for testing [20], [21]. The test results of the breaker
shown in Fig. 7 demonstrated a drastic difference in ice distribution at the breaker in open and closed operating positions (see
examples). This also resulted in different flashover voltages in
open and closed positions.
G. Surface Material and Finish
The ice accretion onset and rate tend to be relatively unaffected by insulator surface materials, whether ceramic or nonceramic. However, the electrical performance of nonceramic
or silicone-coated ceramic insulators is somewhat better, especially under conditions of partial ice bridging [2], [39]. Another surface that improves performance under icing conditions
is a semi-conductive glaze with a surface resistivity of about
1030 M [63]. This surface suppresses the onset of arcing
[39], [42][46], [59] and is more effective under heavy ice conditions than silicone.
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