•Electric utilities have numerous sources of insulator
contamination including
steel mills, freeway salts, diesel fumes, etc.
•It is important to quantify the amount of contamination
to determine the severity
posed by each kind (variations in conductivity and solubility).
•The critical level of contamination build-up that can be
withstood could be different
depending on the location.
•In particular, flashovers at fairly low levels of
contamination (<0.05 mg/cm2)
under ice and melting snow conditions can cause flashovers across insulators and result in customer
outages.
•Flashover can result in an arc that starts the pole
ablaze.
•A simple method of predicting such events before it is
too late is needed
•We propose a combination of field monitoring and
laboratory experiments so that more
intelligent decisions can be made on preventative
maintenance