Building Insulator Resiliency – The Need for Site Pollution Severity (SPS) Measurements

Topography, meteorology and immediate environment play a significant role in insulators’ performance. Contamination flashover on insulator surfaces, specifically during foggy weather conditions poses a substantial threat to the reliability and resilience of electrical systems. This phenomenon cannot be mitigated just by employing control & protection systems alone; rather, the system remains compromised until the pollution causing the issue is cleared or there is a substantial upgrade to the system’s insulation. Such incidents often lead to major grid disturbances and loss of load.

To address this, utilities are moving towards assessing site pollution severity levels and countries are increasingly developing pollution maps in relation to their transmission systems along power corridors. This paper provides a review of the Indian power system, critically analyzing the available pollution maps. It aims to elaborate on the need for a detailed pollution mapping, the impact of Equivalent Salt Deposit Density (ESDD) and Non-Soluble Deposit Density (NSDD), the need for and scope of system strengthening, the methodologies employed, and the processes to be adopted in developing environment change resilient insulators.