The results of the research activities relevant to the behavior of air insulators exposed to environmental and anthropic contamination are presented. The possibility of knowing and predicting the actual dielectric withstand conditions of the insulating system allows to increase the reliability and the resilience of the network. It is therefore necessary to monitor the condition of the insulators, and to implement the appropriate intervention strategies with scheduled cleaning operations to possibly extend their life without service interruption, with particular reference to the presence of critical levels of environmental pollution.

In particular, the following research activities have been performed, in the framework of a cooperation with Terna:

• the test at the LANPRIS laboratory of four different types of insulators (composite, cap and pin in simple glass, with full and partial RTV silicone coating) and the analysis of the trends of measured leakage current;
• the on-site characterization tests of the MCMEL prototype equipment for contamination level monitoring;
• the on-site testing of the reliability of MCMEL equipment IoT network interface;
• the on-site characterization, at LANPRIS laboratory, of the COILCMS IoT leakage current monitoring equipment;
• the sampling, with reference to both RSE laboratories and to 64 sites over the Italian Transmission grid, of the insulator pollution deposit and the measurement of its density, to make the relevant data available for modeling activities.

The document is available on the site in Italian