Performance of novel high voltage outdoor thermoplastic elastomeric insulators

Thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) is a third generation polymeric material expected to meet most of the requirements of the high voltage outdoor insulation, at least for the distribution class applications, especially at light contamination environments. As a thermoplastic, it has benefits such as better speed, efficiency, and economy of processing over silicone rubber or any other thermoset polymers. Additionally, it is 100% recyclable and reusable and hence environmentally friendly. Being new, there are no published results available on the performance of TPE insulators under contaminated conditions. This paper reports the performance of 28 kV distribution class dead-end TPE insulator in comparison with same kV silicone rubber (SiR) insulator under two different salt fog conditions (4000 and 16000 /spl mu/S/cm) for 1000h. Both materials showed comparable performance in general.