The Laboratory of High Voltage (LHV) was established in 1967 and it is within the frame of the Institute of Power Systems. Its first Head was Professor Aleksandar Velickovski Ph.D, as well as Professor Risto Minovski Ph.D ( 1972-2006), Professor Risto Ackovski Ph.D. ( 2006-2017), and Professor Mirko Todorovski Ph.D. (2017-present).
The educational, scientific, and research activities are taking place at the Institute in parallel. To this end, the main goal of the LHV is as follows: to provide quality educational and scientific curriculum for students of electrical engineering streams at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies ( FEEIT) in Skopje, to execute scientific and research projects in the field of strong electric fields i.e. high voltage. The students are thus presented with the opportunity to use LHV equipment, to perform a number of experiments which will be in line with their theoretical know-how gained in the educational process. As a result, a high volume of undergraduate, Master, and Ph.D. theses are prepared at this Laboratory.
The teaching staff provides its own contribution in the process as they are authors or co-authors in a significant number of scientific thesis which have been published in high impact journals (HIJ), and have also participated in numerous international and national consulting activities in the following fields: lightning and switching overvoltages, insulation coordination, high-voltage measurement equipment, knowledge from the exploitation of high-voltage equipment in power systems, high voltage insulation systems, etc.
In parallel to the educational process of the future engineers in the field of high voltage both at the undergraduate and graduate studies at the Faculty but also for the needs of the economy a significant number of scientific and research projects have been undertaken. At the LHV, laboratory research has been conducted in the field of high-voltage insulation structures for various power system elements, the purpose of which is the improvement of production performance and of materials in the production process of local manufacturers dealing with power engineering equipment.
Furthermore, applied activity is also taking place at the LHV. A significant number of projects have been executed over the past period. They are largely concerned with the assessment of insulation systems of big synchronous generators, power and current/voltage transformers, capacitor banks, cables, overhead lines, and surge arresters. This in practice, following a predefined checking schedule, results in developing plans for timely equipment revitalizations, which in turn prevents outages and damages on power system elements. In this process, the main partners of LVH are the big power engineering companies in Macedonia dealing with production, transmission, and distribution of electricity.
It should be noted that due to its high-quality performance, the LHV is also part of the accredited Inspection Body, which is within the frame of FEEIT, and it also has a license from the Ministry of Economy. Also, due to the equipment of the LHV, many projects from the applied activity have been concluded successfully. In order to maintain its quality, the LHV is permanently equipped with new measuring equipment.
The high-voltage testing equipment is selected in such a way that it fulfills all criteria defined in international standards, such as IEC 71-1, and it is adequate for tests of power system elements with rated voltage up to 123 kV.
