The measurement of partial discharges(PD) is a non-destructive and sensitive diagnostic tool for the condition assessment of insulating systems, and an effective method to detect the defects and avoid the breakdown failure of insulating systems. Type determination and location of the PD are amongst others tremendously important for scheduling and starting maintenance/repair actions cost and time efficiently or to perform a risk analysis. In this paper, the high frequency electromagnetic wave signal(UHF signal), radiation emitted when PD happened, was used to locate the PD: the pseudo-time of signal arrival was determined by the UHF signal after the improved energy accumulation function; algebraic solution method for static pseudo-range equation was used to solve the nonlinear equations of PD coordinates established with pseudo-time of signal arrival method, avoiding the iterative algorithm dependence on the initial value, ensure the accuracy of calculation and improved the calculation speed. Finally, the rationality and effectiveness of the proposed method were verified by site tests.