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Energized Insulators Washing: Contamination and Flashovers •

Article · October 2018

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 Energized Insulators Washing: Contamination and Flashovers

• Published on October 31, 2018

Everyone involved in power utilities, sees trips on its transmission and distribution lines caused by
insulator contamination.

Live Line Insulators Washing Helps Maintain Reliability, combating the insulators contamination
buildup.

Coastal and inland utilities experience salt contamination when salt fog condenses on electrical
equipment critical to delivering power. The insulator pollution builds up gradually but does not
decrease the insulation strength when the insulators are dry. When the polluted insulators become
wet, a conductive layer forms on the contaminated insulator surface, initiating leakage current. The
line voltage flashes over this contamination, causing a line outage or relay operation. In most cases,
several arcing periods may precede an actual flashover that results in an outage event. Most
flashover outages are unpredictable and take several hours to remediate.

Salt and airborne contaminates such as dust and industrial emissions build up on transmission and
distribution system equipment, increasing the potential for conductivity and arc-over at the
insulators.

A dedicated maintenance program focused on washing insulators prevent trips on transmission and
distribution lines caused by insulator contamination.

It is standard procedure wash while the system is energized with a maintenance program seasonally
adjusted.

When a contaminant-related failure takes out a line, rather than running the risk of having multiple
flashovers and repeated relay operations, which is hard on the circuit breakers and substation
equipment, the utility washes the insulators while the system is out (“cold wash”).

Linemen are trained to do this work, and they shall rotate in and out of washer assignments
depending on the overall needs of field maintenance operations.

Wilorton Holding Inc. has been supplying fixed and mobile washing systems serving transmission and
distribution lines and substations, for more than 19 years.

Wilorton Holding Inc. Customer Support Office at Wilorton Holding Inc.

www.wilorton.com css@wilorton.info

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