Comparative Study of DC Breakdown and Space Charge Characteristics of Insulation Paper Impregnated with Natural Ester and Mineral Oil

Natural ester is a suitable substitute for mineral oil and has been widely used in AC transformer in many countries. In order to further application of natural ester in direct current (DC) equipment, it is needed to investigate its long term insulation property under DC condition. In this paper, a thermal ageing experiment was conducted for both mineral oil-paper and natural ester-paper insulation. The DC breakdown and space charge characteristics of insulation paper impregnated with natural ester and mineral oil was compared. Results show that the resistivity of the paper immersed in natural ester and mineral oil both increase as the ageing goes on. While insulation paper impregnated with natural ester has higher resistivity and DC breakdown voltage than the paper impregnated with mineral oil. The DC breakdown voltage for the oil impregnated insulation paper being DC prestressing is higher than that without pre-stressing. The average DC breakdown field strength difference between the test with pre-stressing and without pre-stressing clearly shows that there is an apparent enhancement effect for the homo-charge injection on the DC breakdown.