Investigations into the effect of humidity on stator winding partial discharges

On-line partial discharge (PD) testing has become a powerful tool to plan the maintenance of stator windings of high voltage motors and generators. Interpretation of PD data is best done by monitoring the trend in PD over time. Unfortunately the trend in PD is sometimes difficult to ascertain, especially if the humidity within the stator is variable over time. This paper shows several examples of how PD is affected by humidity in operating machines. Laboratory experiments were also performed to duplicate this phenomenon. In most practical situations, it appears that the PD activity decreases as the humidity increases.