One of the methods currently being investigated as a possible non-intrusive diagnostic tool for condition monitoring of power transformer and cable is the recovery voltage measurement, which will be improving the ability to detect the content of water concentration and the ageing process in the insulation system and may thus be an indicator of insulation quality and its ageing status. The polarization phenomenon was studied using RVM with oil-paper samples. In order to interpret its mechanism, the Extended Debye model was introduced. With different circuit parameters, various simulation results were gotten. Furthermore, with the test samples of different ageing condition, measurements are accomplished in the lab. On the basis of this experiment as well as theoretical analysis, correlations between polarizations and ageing were analyzed.