Sharing Knowledge: Four New Technical Papers Now Available on Our Website

At Sediver, sharing knowledge is a core value and a long‑term commitment to our customers, partners, and the global transmission community. In 2025, our engineering teams contributed four major technical papers to leading industry events, addressing critical topics such as pollution performance, ageing, asset management, and system resilience.

These papers are now available on our website, providing utilities, engineers, and asset managers with actionable insights drawn from decades of field experience, laboratory testing, and collaborative work with international expert groups.

Smart Insulators: Technical Update Since the Introduction in 2018

2025 INMR World Congress, Panama City, Panama
https://www.sediver.com/wp-content/uploads/19302-SMART-INSULATORS.pdf
summary: During CIGRE 2018, SEDIVER introduced its proprietary so called “Smart insulator” which core target is to measure in real time the leakage current on a string of insulators on a line located in a polluted environment. The capacity to engage into this field is based on more than 30 years of experience in test stations (SEDIVER owned a test station in Dunkirk located on the shore of the channel north of France between a steel factory and an oil refinery and participated in numerous other stations around the world) and laboratory pollution testing. The needs to better understand and control leakage currents in polluted environments has led SEDIVER to continuously adapt and develop tools aimed at the monitoring of this critical component in the operation of overhead transmission lines or substations. Here is the summary of all these improvements.

Silicone Coated Insulators: FAQ Between Field Experience and Testing

2025 INMR World Congress, Panama City, Panama
https://www.sediver.com/wp-content/uploads/19303-SILICONE-COATED-INSULATORS.pdf
summary: a lot has been said and written about silicone coated insulators and their performance. SEDIVER has extensively published on the topic either through INMR, IEEE, CIGRE or other technical expert communities. Currently IEC is working on an important new standard (future IEC 63432) to establish a consensus for formal procedures and testing protocols based on a large, accumulated mass of testing and field experience gained over decades. This paper intends to cover a few topics some of them corresponding to frequently asked questions less obvious than those covered in previous communications. It also comes as an addition to the previous INMR publication focusing on ageing and end of life of coatings.

Asset Management: Evaluation of Old Insulators

2025 INMR World Congress, Panama City, Panama
https://www.sediver.com/wp-content/uploads/19325-Asset-Management.pdf
summary: This article presents a technical approach to asset management in transmission lines, focusing on the evaluation of the longevity of toughened glass insulators withdrawn from service after more than 40 years of operation in humid tropical environments in Brazil.
This publication complements several previous studies conducted in non-tropical regions [1]. As is well known, tropical regions, characterized by high humidity and elevated temperatures, are particularly aggressive toward materials, especially when these are subjected to high electrical stress.
All insulators tested had been in service for more than 40. Among them 75% were installed in 500kV systems.
The document also includes results from analysis reports on porcelain and composite insulators.
Due to the specific characteristics of Brazil’s transmission network, the document focuses on the SIN (National Interconnected System), which is the system adopted throughout the country.

High Voltage Suspension Insulator String Designs for Extreme Weather Events

CIGRE 2025 International Symposium, Montréal, Canada
https://www.sediver.com/wp-content/uploads/19306-String-Designs-for-Extreme-Weather-Events.pdf
summary: As extreme weather events become more frequent with climate change, utilities are rethinking traditional transmission system design, which relied on historic data with n-1 reliability criterion; ensuring systems can withstand the limited unexpected failures. However, the growing impact of hurricanes, wildfires, ice storms, and other climate-driven events is prompting a shift toward n-x reliability, which address larger-scale, simultaneous failures through more resilient design approaches.
For high-voltage suspension insulators, traditional selection has focused on capital (CAPEX) and operating expenses (OPEX) to determine total cost (TOTEX) over the asset’s lifespan. Today, many utilities are prioritizing performance under extreme conditions over cost alone. In-line with this, novel insulator string designs feature enhanced dielectric profiles, heat resistance, and modularity; enabling adaptability to evolving environmental and operational demands.
This paper examines design innovations addressing specific challenges like ice bridging, wildfires, and pollution. It advocates moving beyond traditional configurations toward more resilient designs and explores how certain insulator types can be used in emergency restoration, improving responsiveness to both n-1 [1] and n-x events [2]. Included are performance data from heat and pollution tests, and feedback from utilities. The aim is to help engineers and asset managers make informed choices to enhance the reliability, resilience, and adaptability of transmission systems in the face of a changing climate.

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