A comparative study on partial discharge emulators

Partial Discharge (PD) detection plays a vital role in electrical power stations, it can help protecting the high voltage equipment, it can prevent explosion of these equipment and hence preventing a catastrophic failure. PD detection can be performed in two modes, i.e. frequency domain and time domain. The characteristics of PD signal varies due to size and type of equipment it arises from. Wireless emerging technologies such as Software Defined Radio (SDR) can be used for PD detection. In this paper two PD source were employed to generate PD signals, a floating-electrode PD emulator was used and PD signals were detected using SDR system, and, a floating-electrode PD emulator is replaced by a HVPD pC calibrator, while the detection system is kept the same. A comparison shows that afloating-electrode PD emulator generates stronger PD signals than HVPD pC calibrator. Furthermore, although a HVPD pC calibrator is commercial and more sophisticated and expensive than floating-electrode PD emulator, a floating-electrode PD emulator generates stronger signals and overall better results.