A novel icing thickness monitoring method for overhead power transmission line is proposed and an icing monitoring capacitance sensor is designed. A design scheme of power transmission line icing thickness monitoring system with a capacitance sensor is presented. The relationship curve between capacitance value of the sensor and ice thickness of transmission lines is calculated based on capacitive effect. Then in practical applications, the icing thickness is obtained by comparison between the capacitance values and the preset relationship curves. The effectiveness of the proposed icing thickness monitoring method is verified by testing results.