This report describes the activities, also as a collaboration between RSE and TERNA, to create the final map of the contamination levels of insulators in the Italian electricity grid.
The methodology included both experiments and modeling. The basis of the experimental data consists primarily of deposition measurements on 206 insulators of the electricity network taken between 2016 and 2018. The SMOKE-WRF-CAMx air quality modeling chain used by RSE allows for the calculation of severity indices throughout the national territory by means of numerical simulations. The harmonization between experimental and modeling data using data fusion techniques allowed for the definition of the final severity map.
The results, although satisfactory, revealed the need to make further progress in the experimental characterization of the contamination process in order to obtain an increasingly accurate reconstruction of severity levels on the Italian territory. For this reason, both field and laboratory activities continued. The former are aimed at characterizing the vertical variability of the deposition and the effects of meteorological parameters, especially precipitation, on the deposit. At the same time, in collaboration with the Department of Environmental and Earth Sciences (DISAT) of the Università degli Studi di Milano Bicocca (UNIMIB), the chemical composition of the non-soluble fraction of the insulator deposit was analyzed, to complement a similar activity carried out in previous years on the soluble fraction.
The experimental activities, all substantially new, allowed us to further deepen our knowledge of the chemical-physical processes that determine the contamination of insulators and will allow us to further fine-tune also the corresponding modeling reconstruction.