Detection of partial discharge (PD) in any high voltage equipment is of great importance to improve the reliability of the device and the power system. Characteristics of PDs, such as: rate of occurrence, magnitude, location and the type; gives information of the assets that must be considered. Nowadays, there are many different methods for sensing PDs in GIS (Gas Insulated Substation), however none of them can give fully information of the PD. The most important sensor is the antenna, with great advantages over other sensors, but still, with the limitation of not giving the magnitude of the discharge. The Delft University of Technology has patented a new method for measuring PDs in HVDC GIS. It is believed that this new method has great advantages over the current method, namely charge determination and improved sensibility.

The aim of this work is to find the measuring characteristics of this new method for sensing PDs in a GIS. These characteristics include resolution, attenuation and sensitivity. The most important feature of this new sensing method is the capacity of measuring the PDs magnitude. Therefore, a calibration method for charge calculation is provided. Finally, the new method and the antenna are compared with real measured PDs in a GIS.

To analyse the calibration of the new method; electrical characteristics of the sensor and GIS were simulated and compared with measurements. The results demonstrate that a PD can be calculated using the calibration method with low error values. This error value will depend in the measuring situation. The thesis also demonstrates some measuring advantages of this new method over the antenna.