Introduction: SHETL as a transmission line owner has little experience in the use of composite insulators, there are currently only a couple of lines with any composite technology on them. As a result there is little knowledge as to their long term effectiveness and their aging profiles.

As SHETL has little experience in the field of composite insulators and their ageing effects in the field, this research project is seen as essential knowledge transfer to allow better informed choices about insulator specification in future.

Objectives: To gain an insight into the aging and degrading patterns of this technology it is proposed to have a number of different insulators tested for their chemical and electrical characteristics. The aim is to identify possible degradation of the insulators and as a result enable an informed decision towards future deployment of similar technologies on the SHETL network