Invisible Vapor Substance for Insulator Contamination Protection from Birds in Substation

Abstract

This paper presents an invisible vapor substance as a bird buffer in HV substation to protect the contamination on insulator. The electrical properties of the insulators after spraying an vapor substance was observed by applying four electrical testings such as leakage current, partial discharge, impulse withstand voltage and insulation resistance tests according to international standards in HV laboratory. Three aging suspension insulators with ANSI class 52-3 were used as the test objects with the ratings of 80 kV low frequency dry flashover, 50 kV low frequency wet flashover, and 125 kV positive critical impulse flashover. The results show that small difference of leakage currents as well as partial discharges occur among the clean insulator and bird buffer contaminated insulator. The result of impulse withstand voltage and insulation resistance tests are in acceptance criteria according to the standards.