Taiwan Power Company extends maintenance intervals from weeks to years with silicone

The Taiwan Power Company’s Din-Hu substation, which is located near the coast in the Lin Co Industry Park in Taipei County, is constantly exposed to a combination of salt air and industrial and chemical pollution from the other plants in the park.

Pollutants and high-saline environments contaminate high-voltage insulators and bushings. This contamination can lead to costly power interruptions caused by electrical arcing and flashovers. Consequently power companies spend a lot of time, effort, and money battling contamination build-up.

At first, the Din-Hu substation water-washed its insulators and bushings to prevent flashovers. But this involved shutting down the power once every two weeks in winter and once a week in summer.

To reduce these costly shutdowns, management decided to apply a silicone grease compound instead. The silicone grease extended the maintenance interval to a full two years.

To reduce maintenance requirements even further, the company began coating its bushings with a silicone high-voltage insulator coating (HVIC). The silicone HVIC performed even better than the grease. Three years after it was applied, the company inspected the bushings and water washed them. They found the coating still had good hydrophobicity and continued to provide a high level of protection.

It was a full six years before a new layer of coating needed to be applied. In all that time, there were no flashovers and the only maintenance required was that single water-washing at the three-year mark.

Thanks to silicone, the substation has significantly reduced both maintenance-related shutdowns and maintenance costs.

Learn about silicones for power and utilities from Dow Corning.