The world’s first radiometric technology camera platform in both the UV and IR spectrums to quantify power line faults

Abstract

Polluted or broken insulators and faulty connections on power lines induce corona and thermal (heat) radiation. The corona and heat build-up causes long term degradation of the high voltage electrical components, which leads to voltage drops, tripping, mechanical failure and eventually a complete power line outage. These power outages have disastrous consequences for the local industry and the economy. Eskom incurs power line outages at a cost of approximately R1,000,000.00 per hour for faults on a 400kV line. In more critical power lines outages, the losses to the economy can run into the billions. Power lines are regularly inspected by electrical utilities or contracted service companies, once or twice a year, in order to locate and report on potential insulator and structural/component failures. These inspections are by no means an easy task due to the location, height, design and the number of components which make up the power line network. There are two inspection parameters which indicate symptoms of degradation in the integrity of power line components, one is the presence of corona (suggesting that there is an emerging surface insulation problem); the other is the presence of thermal radiation (heat) which indicates an internal defect or poor connection. Corona radiation is a function of voltage induced ionization of the air and usually occurs before the build-up of heat. Heat build-up is a result of leakage current through a resistance to earth (i.e. I2R losses), indicating a more advanced fault or fault propagation. It is difficult for utilities or service companies to determine the severity of these faults, which can easily lead to excessive maintenance actions or worse, an incorrect service response, with disastrous power outage consequences. The current state of the art power line fault detection equipment, as developed by the CSIR and other international companies(as manufactured by UVIRCO (RSA) and OFIL (USA)), can only locate a fault by detecting corona and heat radiated by the faults. This equipment cannot quantify the thermal (IR) and ultraviolet (UV) radiation of the fault in radiometric dimensions (i.e. watts per square centimetres W/cm2). The CSIR has over the past 10 years become the leading corona research and development group in the world and has set the pace for new detection technology and camera products. The CSIR intends to develop the world’s first radiometric technology camera platform in both the UV and IR spectrums (“QUVIR”) in order to quantify power line faults. The underlying radiometric technology was recently patented by CSIR. This paper will provide a brief description on the new UV quantification algorithm.