Abstract
The environmental pollution caused by green-house gases such as $CO_2$ and $SF_6$ has been becoming the main issue of industrial society. Many developed countries are making efforts to minimize the amount of $CO_2$ emission come from the operation of high voltage electrical apparatuses. As a part of these efforts, 180 countries signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 to cut back on their green-house gas emissions. Nowadays, the study on the development of dry air insulated switchgear (DAIS) which is known as an eco-friendly electrical apparatus is in progress. A DAIS is advantageous for minimizing the effect of impurities and enhancing the dielectric characteristics over an air insulated switchgear (AIS) by applying constant pressure to an enclosed cubicle. Therefore, a study on the electrical insulation performance of dry air as a gaseous insulation medium is conducted in this paper to substitute a gas insulated switchgear (GIS) for DAIS. As results, it is verified that the AC dielectric characteristics of dry air are similar to those of air and the lightning impulse dielectric characteristics of dry air are superior to those of air at 1bar pressure condition. However, dry air is of inferior dielectric characteristics to $SF_6$ at 4bar pressure condition. Finally, it is suggested that the internal pressure of DAIS should be over 4bar pressure to develop a high voltage switchgear which has similar electrical performance to a conventional GIS. Also, the empirical formulae on calculating the maximum electric field intensity at sparkover of dry air are deduced by experiments according to pressures. It is expected that these results are helpful to design and develop a high voltage electrical apparatus.