The 20th International Symposium on High Voltage Engineering, Buenos Aires, Argentina, August 27 – September 01, 2017

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EXISTING MONITORING AND

DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES OF METAL-OXIDE SURGE ARRESTER
G. R. S. LIRA1*, V. R. N. BARBOSA1, C. R. C. AMORIM FILHO1, S. L. C. BATISTA1 e E.
G. COSTA1
1
Federal University of Campina Grande, Campina Grande, Brazil

*Email: < george@dee.ufcg.edu.br >

Abstract: Metal-oxide surge arresters are devices used in the electrical power system to
protect against switching and lightning overvoltages that reach or propagate to
transmission lines and power utility substations. Thus, they are used in order to increase
the reliability, economy, and continuity of operation of the electrical systems. Considering
the importance of surge arresters for the electrical power systems, several monitoring and
diagnostic techniques have been studied, developed and improved to estimate the surge
arrester degradation level. However, there is not consensus on the effectiveness of each
one of the existing techniques. This work introduces a comparative study of existing and
recently developed surge arrester monitoring and diagnostic techniques. Procedures
based on the measurement of partial discharges, temperature, total leakage current and
leakage current decomposition in its components were evaluated. The purpose of this study
is to provide subsidies to determine, considering technical and operational aspects, which
it is the most appropriate surge arrester monitoring and diagnostic technique. For this
purpose, the accuracy of the results obtained from the use of the techniques in the
laboratory, the results provided in the references, and the implementation/application of the
techniques, which can be online or offline, were evaluated. Monitoring and diagnostic
procedures based on leakage current measurements are commonly performed online,
which consists of measuring the current through the ground cable (connected in series with
the surge arrester) by an inductive sensor with high magnetic permeability. Some
techniques require the measurement of the voltage signal applied to the surge arrester,
which can be a limitation due to the technical-operational issues. Regarding to techniques
based on temperature measurement and thermal analysis, they are known to be non-
destructive and non-invasive, however, they measure an indirect physical propriety (the
outer temperature of the housing), that are subject to the sensitivity of the measuring
instrument and of the operator. The measurement of partial discharges is usually based on
offline methods performed in laboratory, although some studies report techniques that can
be applied in the field without requiring the surge arrester removal. For the application of
these techniques, magnetic sensors capable of detecting low amplitudes at high
frequencies are used. However, there is still not consolidated procedure or widely
employed by the power utilities, unlike techniques based on leakage current and
temperature measurements. The experimental tests performed so far indicate that the use
of surge arrester monitoring and diagnostic techniques based on the measurement of the
total leakage current are more feasible because they do not require complex arrangements
to be applied in the field, besides providing as physical parameter for diagnostic purposes,
an electric quantity connected directly to the level of degradation of the surge arrester.

1 INTRODUCTION switching surges that affect or propagate in

The operating voltage level of the Electrical Power
Systems (EPSs) equipment and devices shall not
exceed its maximum operating voltage [1]. To
guarantee the safety of substation equipment
against voltage and current surges, arresters are
used due to their capacity of absorb the energy
coming from the overvoltages and to limit the
voltage level to values supported by the substation
equipment. Thus, high voltage metal-oxide surge
arresters (MOSAs) have been widely used in power
systems for protection against atmospheric and
substations and transmission lines.
MOSAs have been used for more than 30 years in
order to increase the reliability, economy and
continuity of the electrical systems operation [2, 3].
Due to the importance of surge arresters for the
EPSs, several monitoring and diagnostic
procedures of the MOSA degradation level have
been studied, developed and improved. However,
there is not consensus on the effectiveness of each
of the existing procedures.
The monitoring procedures are generally classified
according to their operating principle. Thus, there
are procedures based on [4]: disconnectors,
discharge counters, temperature measurement and
leakage current measurement. The first two are of
low technical complexity and low implementation
cost, but they have the great disadvantage of being
based on electromechanical processes, which are
subject to a greater probability of failure. The last
two procedures are the most efficient and used by
power utilities, and are often used together [5-7].
Besides these more usual procedures, there are
those based on the partial discharges
measurements [8].
The procedures based on the measurement of
partial discharges, provided for by standard [9],
normally implemented off-line, are still subject to
uncertainties related to high sensitivity to
electromagnetic noise, appropriate measurement
arrangement, appropriate filtering techniques,
parameterization of data measured, etc. Several
researches have been developed to address these
uncertainties and to make the way of implementing
procedures based on the measurement of partial
discharges online [3, 8].
There are several procedures based on external
temperature measurement by thermographic
analysis [7, 10, 11]. These procedures are quite
attractive because they are non-invasive and non-
destructive, can be applied at the distance of the
MOSA, do not require system interventions or
special measurement arrangements. However, they
are also subject to specific characteristics of the
surge arresters or the measuring environment. And
still they are indirect procedures that do not directly
return an electrical quantity, but rather the external
effect of the warming inside the surge arrester due
to the passage of the leakage current. Another
disadvantage is the fact that monitoring is usually
performed on the night, to avoid the influence of the
sun, which makes monitoring in real time
impracticable. Finally, these procedures usually
require expensive instruments, such as, e.g., the
use of an infrared camera [3, 6, 12].
Regarding to monitoring procedures based on the
total leakage current measurement that goes
through the surge arrester during its steady state
operation, they are considered direct procedures
because they provide an electrical quantity related
to the state of operation of the device. In general,
these procedures perform the decomposition of the
total leakage current into components (resistive and
capacitive) and analyze the harmonic content of the
current, since according to several studies [1, 3, 4,
5] the resistive component and its 3rd order
harmonic have significant variations, both in shape
and amplitude, proportional to the of surge arrester
degradation level. The main disadvantage of these
procedures is the need to measure, on field, the
high voltage applied to the surge arrester. As an
alternative, some works use the total leakage
current as an indicator of the degradation level [3,
13].
This work intends to carry out a comparative study
of the existing and recently developed monitoring
and diagnostic procedures of MOSA based on the
measurement of partial discharges, temperature
and leakage current. For this purpose, this
document was structured as follows. In this section,
the introductory concepts were introduced. In
Section 2, the methodology used to study the
procedures will be presented in detail. In Section 3
will evaluate the procedures. In Section 4, results
and analyzes. In Section 5, conclusions. And in the
last two sections, acknowledgments and
references.
2 METHODOLOGY
For the development of this work, two types of
methodologies will be adopted: bibliographical and
documentary. In the first one, a bibliographical
research will be carried out concerning the studied
subject, more specifically about the monitoring and
diagnostic procedures of MOSA, in order to reach
the state of the art of the existing procedures in the
literature. In the second, the procedures will be
evaluated qualitatively to determine those that are
most promising considering technical and
operational aspects. For this purpose, the Ishikawa
diagram will be used to facilitate the evaluation of
the procedures, which is highlighted in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Diagram of the employed methodology.
The monitoring and diagnostic procedures of MOSA
based on the measurements of partial discharges,
temperature and leakage current have several
characteristics that will be used to perform the
comparison. The characteristics presented by the
analyzed procedures are these: simplifying
premises; mode of implementation (online or
offline); cost of instruments; complexity of
arrangements; hit rate; condition of monitoring and
diagnostic; and use of state classifier.
Among the mentioned characteristics, the
parameters that were adopted to carry out the
comparative study are the implementation mode
and monitoring and diagnostic condition. For the
first, the procedure implemented in online mode
stands out in relation to the offline implementation.
For the second, it is known that the procedure can
be applied continuously or needs to be interrupted,
as well as, perform the monitoring and diagnostic in
real time or not. Moreover, the feasibility of the
procedure, from a technical-economic point of view,
was another criterion of comparison adopted. The
procedures should be feasible in the field and be
cost-effective for electric power companies.
3 EVALUATED PROCEDURES
Following is presented some methods, techniques
and methodologies based on the measurements of
partial discharges, temperature and leakage
current, to highlight the evolution of the researches
about monitoring and diagnostic of surge arrester.
This sample of the state of art will be subsidize the
procedures comparative study. The procedures
were organized according to the kind of electrical
quantity to be used as an indicator of the level of
degradation. Thus, they were organized in this way:
leakage current measurement; partial discharge
measurement; temperature measurement; leakage
current and temperature measurement.
3.1 Leakage current measurement
3.1.1 Procedure A1
The procedure A1, presented by [14], aimed to
perform the monitoring and diagnostic of MOSA
based only on the measurement of the total leakage
current, avoiding the measurement of the applied
voltage to the surge arrester, and others technical
and operational constraints. This procedure, by
means of extracted characteristics from the
evaluated current signals, performs the database
construction to be used in the training and test of a
surge arrester operation status classifier. The
classifier was based on Artificial Neural Networks
called Self-Organizing Maps (SOM). The status
classifier can identify whether the surge arrester is
faulty or not. If it is defective, the type of defect is
presented, such as sealing loss, internal humidity,
superficial pollution, varistor degradation,
displacement along the active column, non-uniform
voltage distribution. Satisfactory results were
obtained in the diagnostic, since the hit rate for
identifying defective surge arresters was
approximately 98 %. The experimental arrangement
used to obtain the total leakage current follows as
shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Experimental arrangement diagram used
in the test by the procedure A1 [14].
3.1.2 Procedure A2
The procedure A2, presented by [1], consisted of
determining, on-line, the harmonic distortion of the
total current as a new operating status indicator of
the surge arrester. The author showed that the
harmonic distortion is proportional to the resistive
current, which enabled monitoring and diagnostic.
For that, it was necessary to consider that the
resistive leakage current consists predominantly of
the fundamental component and 3rd harmonic. Also,
the harmonics of the capacitive current did not vary
in proportion to the harmonic distortion variation of
the total leakage current, and also did not increase
according to the surge arrester degradation level, so
that the total harmonic distortion would be in
function, predominantly, of the harmonic content of
the resistive current. Thus, the degradation level
could be estimated only with the analysis of the
variation of the harmonic content of the leakage
current.
3.2 Partial discharge measurement
3.2.1 Procedure B1
The procedure B1, proposed by [8], is a surge
arrester monitoring and diagnostic online
methodology based on the measurement of partial
discharges. For this purpose, a high frequency
current transformer (HFCT) is used coupled to the
cable that connects the surge arrester to the
ground, as well as a modular digital oscilloscope
and a computer. By induction effect, information is
obtained on the induced voltage, and from this it
verifies that the load level (in pC) is in the allowed
range (below 50 pC). Thus, the authors adopted as
a diagnostic criterion the intensity of the voltage
signal, as well as the number of repetitions of the
signal obtained by means of the HFCT. The
arrangement used to implement the procedure is
shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: HFCT connected in the grounding cable
[8].
3.3 Temperature measurement
3.3.1 Procedure C1
The procedure C1, proposed by [11], performs the
online monitoring and diagnostic of the MOSA
degradation level using a neural network
architecture known as Self-Organizing Maps (SOM)
of Kohonen. The procedure is based on the analysis
of the thermal profile obtained from thermographs of
surge arrester under operating voltage. Through the
thermal profile, with the use of the infrared camera,
the SOM network can identify if the surge arrester is
defective, in addition to determining the type of
defect. Plausible results were achieved in
monitoring and diagnostic, since 95.83% of the
thermal images were classified correctly as
corresponding to defective and non-defective surge
arresters.
3.3.2 Procedure C2
The procedure C2, presented by [10], is intended to
perform online monitoring and diagnostic based on
the measurement of the surge arrester external
temperature. For this, an infrared camera is used to
obtain thermal images of the surge arresters, to
construct a previous database to perform the
training of the Neuro-Fuzzy Network (NFN). To
perform the diagnostic of the surge arresters, the
procedure uses a digital image processing
algorithm based on the Watershed Transform. By
applying this procedure, it is possible to identify the
operation status of the MOSAs in: defective, normal,
clean and suspect. In Figure 4 is showed the
methodology of the procedure C2, from the
acquisition of thermographic images to the
diagnostic stage. Satisfactory results were achieved
in monitoring and diagnostic, as accuracy rates for
identifying defective arresters were approximately
85% and 90% for metal-oxide and silicon carbide
surge arresters, respectively.
Figure 4: Applied proposal units by procedure C2
[10].
3.4 Leakage current and temperature
measurement
3.4.1 Procedure D1
The procedure D1, proposed by [6], consists of
performing the autonomous and online monitoring
of the MOSA degradation level based on the
leakage current and surge arrester external
temperature measurement. To do so, it is necessary
to measure the voltage applied to the surge arrester
to estimate the resistive component of the leakage
current, as well as the use of infrared camera in
order to obtain thermographs. In the estimation of
the resistive current the capacitive compensation
method is used, that is, the capacitive component is
extracted from the leakage current in order that the
total current is equal to its resistive component (𝑖𝑡 =
𝑖𝑟 ). For thermographic analysis, some parameters
that can influence the results are studied: solar
radiation, wind speed, temperature in a controlled
environment and the parameters of the infrared
camera.
3.4.2 Procedure D2
The D2 procedure, presented by [7], consists in a
MOSA monitoring and diagnostic hybrid online
technique based on leakage current measurement
and thermographic analysis. For this, a regression
model was used based on the following physical
parameters: temperature difference, total leakage
current and its resistive component. Thereby, it was
possible to determine a relation between the
maximum temperature difference and the leakage
current, which is expressed by:
𝑌𝑖 = 𝛽0 + 𝛽1 𝑋1 + 𝛽2 𝑋2 + 𝜀𝑖 , (1)
where 𝑌𝑖 is the maximum temperature difference in
the arrester, 𝑋1 corresponds to the resistive current,
𝑋2 refers to the total leakage current and 𝛽0 , 𝛽1 , 𝛽2
and 𝜀𝑖 are, respectively, the intersection of the 𝑌
axis, the coefficient of the component, the leakage
current coefficient, the total leakage current
coefficient and the random error. Those coefficients
are estimated using the Least Squares method. The
results achieved by this procedure in tests with
surge arresters installed in the Taiwan substation
were satisfactory.
4 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
Electric utilities are looking for procedures that can
be used to maintenance of protection devices (e.g.,
MOSA) in order to reduce the risk of failures, to
increase system reliability, to reduce the risk of
interruptions in power supply, to reduce operating
and maintenance costs of enterprises. It also allows
more efficient management of the active arresters,
the estimation of the MOSA lifetime and the
migration from preventive to predictive
maintenance.
The monitoring and diagnostic procedures
evaluated have some undesirable characteristics
considering technical, operational, and economic
aspects. The comparative study is carried out based
on these disadvantages and the adopted criteria.
Among the existing ones, those that characterize
the procedure as not adequate, are:
A. Requirement of the applied voltage signal
to the surge arrester;
B. Vulnerability to errors due to distorted
voltage signals;
C. Vulnerability to errors due to voltage
harmonics;
D. Based on incorrect assumptions (e.g.,
orthogonality between resistive and
capacitive components);
E. Insensitivity to faults that do not change the
𝑉 − 𝐼 curve of the non-linear resistors, such
as, sealing loss;
F. High sensitivity to electromagnetic noise;
G. Requirement of expensive instruments;
H. Results subject to specific characteristics of
the surge arresters or the measuring
environment;
I. Vulnerability to subjective interpretations of
results.
The disadvantages (A), (B), (C), (D), (E), (F), (G),
(H) and (I) are justified for the following reasons,
respectively: the applied voltage may not being
available to be measured or its measurement may
be subject to financial, technical and operational
limitations that may become the monitoring
unfeasible; current and voltage signals in
uncontrolled environments (e.g., substations) are
subject to interference, leading to distortion of the
same normally due to white noise; harmonic content
of only 1% in system voltage can bring about in
errors of up to 100% in monitoring results; the
orthogonality was refuted by [15] and demonstrated
that generally this is not true by [5]; the analysis of
the 3rd harmonic of the leakage current may not
indicate the entry of moisture, since the moisture
ingress does not affect it, but only the fundamental
component [12]; the signals of partial discharges in
the field are of low intensity and of high frequency,
so that they can be easily overlaid by the ambient
noise; high cost instruments can economically make
the procedure unfeasible; the surge arrester
thermographs are sensitive to the characteristics of
the environment; there is not clear rules established
for identifying defects in surge arresters, moreover
monitoring and diagnostic have great dependence
on the operator who is performing the
measurements.
In view of the evaluated procedures, the most
appropriate one to be used in the EPSs is the A1,
proposed by Lira et al. (2014), because it represents
an online technique, has the capacity to work
continuously, in real time, overcomes theoretical
limitations (simplifying premises). Moreover, the
procedure A1 has an electric quantity as an
indicator of the degradation level, state classifier,
does not require high cost instruments and was
validated in a high voltage laboratory (environment
likely to EPS).
5 CONCLUSIONS
This work consists of a comparative study of some
procedures applied to the MOSAs monitoring and
diagnostic. It was evaluated procedures based on
the measurements of partial discharges,
temperature, and leakage current. Among the
results presented in this study, the most important
was the systematic analysis of the procedures,
considering its main characteristics, advantages
and the disadvantages, allowing to determine the
most appropriate procedures considering technical,
operational, and economical aspects.
It was concluded that the more adequate
procedures of surge arrester monitoring are that
based on the measurement and analysis only of the
total leakage current, like procedure A1. The
employed methodology can contribute to determine
ways to future developments in this research area.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To those who do the Laboratory of High Voltage
(LAT), for having given the physical space and
technical support. To those who do the CNPq for the
financial support granted for the development of this
work. And, also, all those who directly or indirectly
contributed to this work.
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