SWITCHYARD & ITS

EQUIPMENTS & HVDC

BY-ELITE GROUP
Amit joshi
UPES Dehradun
INTRODUCTION
 The switchyard is a junctionconnecting the
Transmission &Distribution system to the power
plant.


 Switchyard consists of the air insulated aluminium bus

type and of high voltage SF6 –insulated dead tank
circuit breakers arranged in a ring bus
configuration.

 Each circuit breaker are equipped with a no-load
breaker, air insulated, disconnect switch on each
side.


 An isolating disconnect switch are installed in each

generator transformer connection to the bus.
  In switchyard, a power transformer is used to step
up or step down the voltage.


 Current and Voltage transformers are located

at points within the switchyard to provide for
metering and relaying.


 Control, protection and monitoring for the

switchyard will be located in the switchyard
relay room of the electrical building.

 All protection and circuit breaker control will be
powered from the station battery-backed
220V DC system.




  A grounding grid are provided to control step
and touch potentials .


 Lightning protection are provided by shield wires

for any overhead lines- Lightning arrestors.

 Interface with SCADAsystem are provided. The
communication between the facility switchyard
and the control building is facilitated.


 Revenue metering are provided on the outgoing

lines, recording net power to or from the
switchyard.
OVERVIEW
 11 kV Bus –Bar


 Lightning Arrestor
 Isolator


 11 kV
 Circuit
 Breaker


 Current
 Transformer


 Power Transformer
 11 kV/ 400 kV


 Incoming Outgoing line Outgoing

line Line11kV 400 kV
400 kV
Equipments used in
Switchyard
1)Bus Bar
2)Insulators
3)Lightening Arrestor
4)Earthing System
5)Control Panel
6)Transformer
7)Circuit Breaker
8)Arching horns
9)SCADA Nodes
10)ROW
11)
12)
13)
BUS BAR

 Used to interconnect the loads and sources
of electrical power
 It connects incoming and outgoing
transmission lines
 Also connect generator and main
transformer in power plant
 Material used: Copper or Aluminium
 Size of bus bar to determine max. amount of
current passed
TYPES OF BUS BAR
 Rigid bus-bars:used for low,md. And high
voltages

 Strain bus bars:used for high voltages

 Insulated phase bus bars:used for mdium
voltages
 Sulphur hexaflouride bus bar:used for
medium and high voltage system
1500 ampere bus bar
Insulator
 Supported the poles and towers in such a
way that currents from conductors do not
flow to earth through these supports
Types of Insulators


 Pin type


 Suspension type:design for 11 kv



Lightning Arrestor


 Used on power system to protect the system
from damaging effect of lightning
What exactly does a Lightning
Arrestor Do?

 •It Does not Absorb the Lightning

 •It Does not Stop the Lightning

 •It Does Divert the Lightning to Ground

 •It Does Clamp (limit) the Voltage produced by
the Lightning

 •It Only protects equipment electrically in
parallel with it.

Control Panel
 Control panel mostly consists of meters and
protective relays. The meters include
ammeter, voltmeter, wattmeter, energy meter
etc. The relays include fuse failure relay, auto
reclose relay, check synchronizing relay,
auxiliary relay and transformer relays like
OLTC out of step, winding temperature alarm,
oil temperature alarm. The trip indicators
included are CB SF6 gas density low, CB Air
pressure low, VT fuse fail alarm, CB pole disc
trip, carrier signal received, back up
protection, auto reclose lock out, control DC
supply fails, distance protection inoperative,
carrier out of service, distance protection trip
etc.

Earthing Systems
 Earthing is to be provided in substations
due to following reasons:-
 To provide a means to carry electric current
into the earth under normal and fault
conditions , without exceeding any
operating and equipment limits or
adversely affecting continuity of service .
 To assure that a person in the vicinity of
grounded facilities is not exposed to the
danger of electric shock.

Circuit Breaker
 A circuit breaker is an automatically-
operated electrical switch designed to
protect an electrical circuit from damage
caused by overload or short circuit. Its
function is to interrupt continuity, to
immediately discontinue electrical flow.








 In switchyard High Capacity Circuit Breakers
are used.
 In 400/220KV substation Power Grid there is
SF6 circuit breaker system.

SulphurHexafluoride Circuit
Breakers

 The SF6 is an electro-negative gas and has a
strong tendency to absorb free electrons.
 The contacts of the breaker are opened in a
high pressure flow of SF6 gas and an arc is
struck between them.
 The conducting free electrons in the arc are
rapidly captured by the gas to form
relatively immobile negative ions.

 This loss of conducting electrons in the arc
quickly builds up enough insulation
strength to extinguish the arc.
Advantages of using SF6
Circuit breaker
 Very short arcing time.
 Can interrupt much larger currents.
 Noiseless operation due to its closed gas
circuit.
 No moisture problem.
 No risk of fire since SF6 gas is non-
inflammable
 Low maintenance cost.
 No carbon deposits so that tracking
and insulation problems are eliminated.

Disadvantages of using SF6
 SF6 breakers are costly due to high cost of
SF6.
 SF6 gas has to be reconditioned after every
operation of the breaker, so additional
equipments are required.

Instrument Transformers
 Current transformers, together with
potential transformers (PT), are known
as instrument transformers.
 It controls excess and low current
 It also helps in steping up or down the
potential.
 Since the measuring instruments and
protective devices are designed for low
voltages (generally 110V) and currents
(about 5A). Therefore, they will not work
properly if mounted directly on power
lines.

Current Transformer
 The current transformer is used to measure
the very high current passing through the
bus.
 It step downs the current and
measurements are taken in the control
room the ratings of CT is based on the
ampere
 These CTs are connected to the control room
through cables.
Voltage Transformer
 There is a step down transformer, which
step down the high voltage to a value that
can be measured using the measuring
instruments in the control room.
 This has an additional core for the carrier
communication.
 The CVT are connected between phase and
ground in parallel to the circuit.
Arcing Horns
 Arcing horns are for the protection of the
insulators in case of high voltage, which it
cannot stand.
 They are two metal rods fitted at the top
most and bottommost parts of the
insulator.
 During high voltage insulators can't resist
this and cracks may be developed. In order
to avoid these arcing horns are provided.
They conduct the high voltage to the
ground and protect the insulator.

SCADA nodes
 SCADA stands for supervisory control and
data acquisition
 It basically stores data for current and give
alarm to Power Line Communication
Carrier(PLCC) which further is transmitted
to National Load Despatch Centre(NLDC)
,RLDC.
ROW(Right of Way)
 It is the path to access devices of a
switchyard
 Physical path
 IT equipments

HVDC
Aim of Electric power
supply
 Supply of required amount of power to all
consumers over the entire geographical
area at all the time continuously.
 Supply energy at lowest cost.
 Maximum possible coverage of geographical
area.
 Maximum Security of supply and minimum
fault duration.
 Supply of power within the targeted limit of
frequency. (in case of AC supply)
 Supply within specified limits of voltages.
Why DC over AC?
 Power Transfer through an AC transmission
link is given by:
 Pac = ( |V1|.|V2|.sinδ)/X

 Reactive power comes in play.

 Power Transfer through the AC line can’t be
controlled easily, quickly and accurately.
 Losses are high as the reactive power is
high.
 Voltage drop will be more.



HVDC
 High-voltage, direct current (HVDC)
:bulk transmission of electrical power.
 For long-distance distribution, HVDC
systems are less expensive and suffer
lower electrical losses.
 For shorter distances, the higher cost of DC
conversion equipment compared to an AC
system may be warranted where other
benefits of direct current links are useful
 AC DC
Ac

Rectifier Inverter


 Synchronization of stations, as per
frequency as well as voltage.
 Interconnecting two same frequency line.
 Asynchronous DC linkage between the AC
connections.
Economic Consideration
 +Ve for HVDC:
 Lesser conductors are used as compare to
AC.
 Lesser losses so better quality.
 Long distances covered.
 Simpler design of towers.
 HV so more security.


Economic Consideration
 -Ve for HVDC:
 Not for Short distance.
 Higher Initial cost.






Economic Consideration
(for overhead lines)
HVDC
 AC DC AC


Rectifier Inverter


 Equipments used in Converter stations:



1.Shunt Capacitors.
2.Converters.(silicon controlled rectifiers,
Thyristors)
3.Smoothing Reactor.
Transmission Models
 Monopolar: The line has one energized
conductor with the return path through the
earth.

 Bipolar: A bipolar transmission gives two
circuits which are almost independent of
each other. Bipolar mode has one
conductor at a positive potential with
respect to ground and a second conductor
operating at negative potential of the
same magnitude.

 Back-to-back station is a plant in which both
static inverters and rectifiers are in the
same area, usually in the same building.
The length of the direct current line is kept
as short as possible.
 coupling of electricity mains of different
frequency.
 coupling two networks of the same nominal
frequency but no fixed phase relationship.
Advantages Of HVDC
 Economical for long distance bulk
transmission.
 Greater power per conductor and simpler
line construction.
 Ground return is possible.
 No charging current and skin effect.
 Less voltage regulation problem because
only IR drop is involved.

Advantages cont.
 Easy reversibility and controllability of power
at DC link.
 DC line is an asynchronous or flexible link it
can interconnect two rigid systems
operating at different frequencies.
 For a single DC line b/w 2 converter stations,
circuit breakers are unnecessary since
control of the converters can be used to
block current flow during faulty conditions.

Disadvantages
Installation of complicated converters and DC
switchgear is expensive.
Converters require considerable reactive

power.
Harmonics are generated which requires

filters.
Converters do not have overload capacity.

Lack of HVDC circuit breakers hampers multi

terminal or network operation.

Disadvantages Cont.
 There is nothing like DC transformer which
can change the voltage level in a simple
way.
 Reactive power required by the load is to be
supplied locally as no reactive power can
be transmitted over a DC link.
 Contamination of the insulators in polluted
areas or along the sea coast. Pollution
affects DC more then AC.
Present Scenario
 India has been a pioneer developer of HVDC
since 1990 when the 1000 MW Rihand-
Dadri line was commissioned in UP.
 Since then many 500 MW lines have come
up.
 The 2000 MW Talchar-Kolar link is the
biggest so far and spans from states ;
Orissa, AP, Tamilnadu and Karnataka.
Future Trends
 R & D work is under way to provide a better
understanding of the performance of HVDC
links to achieve more efficient and
economical designs of the thyristor valves
and related equipments .
 Controllers would be more & more
microprocessor based which can be
modified or upgraded without requiring
hardware changes.
Future Trends
 In the near future, it is expected that fibre
optics system would be used to generate
firing signals & direct light fired thyristors
would be employed for HVDC converters.
 


 THANK YOU !!
