This paper presents the work to support studies of the behavior of insulators in air exposed to environmental and anthropogenic contamination. In this area, the possibility of knowing and predicting the actual dielectric tightness conditions of the insulators allows an increase in the reliability of the network with respect to these phenomena. To this end, it is necessary to monitor the condition of the installations, possibly extend their life without interruptions, and implement appropriate intervention strategies with scheduled cleaning operations. The Report addresses the issue of research aimed at the development of methodologies and technological solutions with a view to detecting the condition of air insulations and improving their dielectric tightness, so as to increase the resilience of the power grid in a context of critical conditions of environmental contamination levels.
In this regard, the activities consisted of the following:
• Continued testing of four different types of insulators (composite, plain glass hood and pin, and glass hood and pin with RTV silicone coating, both complete and partial) at the LANPRIS station with evaluation and comparison of the different statistical distributions after 42 months of testing. In particular, statistical methods are provided to analyze, compare, and study complete data sets in which samples are not broken. The section includes methods (provided with graphical examples) for determining the goodness of fit of theoretical and empirical distributions.
• Development of the final prototype of the MCMEL device for monitoring the contamination level of insulators, with completion of the device and its field testing at RSE.
• Analysis of AMICO DC detections and comparison with LANPRIS natural laboratory ILCMS device measurements downstream of the return of field installation at TERNA’s Portoscuso station.
• Initiation of the first feasibility study of a prototype contamination level monitoring device that is more compact, easy to manage, and based on IoT technology.
• Laboratory characterization of isolators in a context of total and partial RTV overlays through multi-stress aging tests and comparisons with field experiments.