It is very suitable to select the polymer materials for the housings of surge arresters (SAs), because the polymer materials are generally soft and light weight. Therefore, many kinds of polymer-housed SAs using various polymer materials have been developed, and expanding into many countries. Considering these backgrounds, the JEC technical report (JEC-TR) 23002-2008; polymer-housed surge arrester⁽¹⁾ has been established based on the existent relevant standards of arresters, such as JEC-2371-2003; Insulator-housed surge arresters⁽²⁾ and IEC 60099-4 Edition 2.2, Metal-oxide surge arresters (MOSAs) without gaps for a.c. systems⁽³⁾ in order to introduce the technology and provide a common guide for testing of polymer-housed SAs.
According as the JEC-TR, the various new applications of the polymer-housed SAs, which are caused by superior advantages such as compact, light weight, safe failure mode, anti-seismic performance, anti-pollution performance and cost efficiency design, have been realized recently in Japan. Therefore, this paper gives specific consideration on the superior performance of the polymer-housed SAs and the evaluation methods of the polymer-housed SAs, because there are some issues in the existent standards to be solved.