RESUMEN
Composite insulators for high-voltage overhead lines have better performances and are lighter than traditional designs, especially in heavily polluted areas. However, since it is a relatively recent technology, reliable methods to perform live-line diagnostics are still under development, especially with regard to internal defects, which provide few external symptoms. Thermal cameras can be employed, but their use is not always straightforward as the sun radiation can hide the thermal footprint of internal degenerative effects. In this work, an optical E-field sensor has been used to diagnose the internal defects of a set of composite insulators (bandwidth 200 mHz-50 MHz, min. detectable E-field 100 V/m). Moreover, a modelling activity using finite elements has been carried out to identify the possible nature of the defects by comparing experimental E-field profiles with those simulated assuming a specific defect geometry. The results show that the sensor can detect the presence of an internal defect, since its presence distorts the E-field profile when compared to the profile of a sound insulator. Moreover, the measured E-field profiles are compatible with the corresponding simulated ones when a conductive defect is considered. However, it was observed that a defect whose conductivity is not at least two orders of magnitude greater than the conductivity of the surroundings remains undetected.
RESUMEN
The integration of renewable energy sources on a large scale in the electrical energy distribution systems, as well as the widespread of non-linear loads, has led to a significant increase in power quality (PQ) disturbances. For this reason, PQ monitoring is also becoming a key task in medium voltage (MV) grids. The measurement of PQ at MV levels can only be performed using instrument transformers (ITs) to scale down the level of voltage and current to levels suitable for the input stage of PQ instruments. However, no international standards currently require the verification of the errors introduced by ITs in the measurement of PQ phenomena. Moreover, this issue is only partially addressed in the scientific literature, where papers dealing with specific and limited aspects of the problem can be found. For this reason, this paper aims to comprehensively assess the issue, proposing IT accuracy verification tests for different PQ parameters. First, a set of PQ phenomena relevant for IT testing is chosen, as well as the associated ranges of variation, based on a review of the enforced standards and the scientific literature. For each selected PQ phenomenon, possible performance indices and test waveforms are proposed. Finally, the proposed procedure is validated by applying it to the characterization of two different types of commercial voltage transformers.