Temporary Transmission System Overvoltage

Raj Aggarwal

Introduction
Electrical Transmission systems are designed to withstand overvoltage's that may may occur for a limited period and limited frequency without sustaining damage to equipment Over voltages typically occur due to the following reasons:Naturally occurring lightning strikes (in presentation) Switchgear operation under particular circumstance (in presentation) Operational errors and control equipment faults (discussion only) Poor or faulty Earthing arrangements (discussion only) Resonance (discussion only) All transmission equipment will have a normal operational voltage and a maximum overvoltage rating which will be defined by the Basic Impulse Level (BIL) of the equipment. This is well below the voltage typically caused by lightning strike so mitigating measures must be taken to limit the impact of lightning It is impractical to design insulating systems to withstand lightning voltage impulse levels of typically 6MV. The BIL is typically 1MV for 400KV systems.

Insulation Rating
It is useful to consider system insulation under two categories:External insulation, air and solid insulation exposed to the atmosphere Internal insulation, typically Oil, or Gas, or Vacuum not exposed to to atmosphere. In practice the highest voltages imposed will be as a result of lightning strikes and switching surges, the first being by far the most common and severe as all national electricity supply systems will have extensive amounts of overheard lines, naturally exposed to the atmosphere The use of an earth wire strung above the main conductors is the most commonly used method of mitigating the effects of lightning strikes. This technique is also used over air insulted sub stations if they are in exposed locations This effectively creates a Earth Plain above the conductors causing any lightning to strike to earth wire, or the top of a transmission tower, rather than the conductors

lightning Strikes
A strike on the earth wire will result in a travelling wave along all conduction paths from the point of strike, which, if at or near a tower will include the tower itself to its earthed footings as well as in both directions along the earth wire. The magnitude and character of the wave moving at a little less than C will be defined by the characteristic impedance of the various conducting paths. There will be an induced wave in the main conductors running parallel with the earth wire but at a much reduce magnitude. If the tower earthing is sound and the strike is not two large and there are no severe discontinuities in the impedance of the earth wires or conductors the main external insulating system (the conductor insulating strings) will withstand the impulse which will dissipate as as it travels The quality of the tower earthing is of significant importance. If the earthing is poor the reflected wave will significantly increase the level of the impulse that sets of down the earth wire, this together with the existing power frequency voltage at that instant can cause a flashover between the conductor and earth, a failure of the insulating strings known as a back flash.

lightning Strikes
The various local characteristic impedances will define the amplitude and wave shape of the travelling wave at the time it stets off. As the wave meets other towers and particularly line terminations into open isolators and onto cables transformers and busbars there will be instantaneous change in the characteristic impedance. 1. In the case of open isolators or overhead line configurations that increase the characteristic impedance there is a likelihood of voltage increase. 2. In the case of plant with internal insulating systems much of the voltage wave energy will be dissipated into this insulation causing permanent damage. In order to get an appreciation of the effects of lightning strikes it is useful to consider the timescales of events. A lightning surge will travel at nearly the speed of light so its direct effects in terms of stressing the insulation around all the parts of the system connected to the point of strike can be considered instantaneous from a power frequency point of view. As the wave hits various discontinuities and the associated insulation is stressed then if multiple flashovers occur due to the travelling wave they appear to occur simultaneously on the fault recorder records. And in the worst case scenarios multiple circuit tripping can take place with a resulting disruption to the system

Effects of lightning Strikes on Power Networks

Hopefully a lightning strike will not result in the failure of the external insulation however a poorly earthed tower or super strike as they are sometimes called can cause such a failure and the transmission line will be tripped out of service If the failure is such that no damage has occurred to the insulation then as soon a the line is de-energies the dielectric strength will return and it would be safe to return the line, all effects of the lightning having long gone. This is normally done automatically via an auto reclose system Auto reclose systems are usually categorised as high Speed or Low Speed and within these categories either single phase or three phase tripping . The number of reclose attempts will normally be limed to two following a fault and 3 Phase reclose not attempted at all at a Generator Substation due to risk if out of synch closure. Most external insulation systems have arcing horns fitted with the aim of diverting the power arc fro the surface on the insulator and avoiding damage to the porcelain Where an external insulating system interfaces with an internal one, the risk of plant damage that is irreparable is high and special measure are required.

Protection of electrical equipment against voltage surges

As mentioned in the previous slide there is a very high likelihood of voltage surge increases at the connection points between overhead line system with external insulation and other equipment such as transformers, switchgear, cables and bus bars with predominately internal insulation systems. Often at these points there will be open isolators when the extreme increase in characteristic impedance will case a flashover Plant components with internal insulating systems will have very high capacitance to earth relative of overhead lines and a travelling wave incident at these point with steep wave front will disperse much of its its energy into this insulating system with potentially damaging effects. In order to mitigate these effects the use of voltage surge arrestors at strategic points on the system are employed. Typically they will be located very close to transformers or cables connected directly overhead line circuits. When fitted to HV air insulated (AI) substations these devices typically look like CVT s but contain stacks of metal oxide disks designed to conduct at a curtain voltage and absorb the impulse energy.

AC Switchgear performance and transient overvoltage

Arc quenching and insulation media Oil, Air, Vacuum (up to 12kV), SF6 Design types: Metal-clad up to 66kV Metal-clad GIS 66kV -750kV Open terminal 66KV 750KV Specialised (Generator circuit breakers)

Switch gear typical rating (break)

11kV:- up to 50KA (952MVA). Typical for industry 13KA (250MVA). Make rating is 2.55 times break. 33kV:- up to 31.5KA (1800MVA) 66kV:-up to 31.5KA (3600MVA) 132kV:-up to 40KA (9145MVA) 275kV:- up to 50KA (23816MVA) 400kV:- up to 63KA (43648MVA) All types are subject to the same basic principles of fault current interruption Fundamentally alternating current interruption in an inductive circuit will draw an arc until the current falls to zero and for a successful clearance the resulting voltage rise across the gap must not break down the establishing dielectric strength The only way to interrupt a DC arc is to force a current zero by developing a sufficiently high arc voltage

Switching Voltage Transients

When a breaker opens whilst carrying alternating fault current an arc in the primary dialectic medium (air or gas) will be dawn in order for the current flow to continue until a current zero is reached At this point due to intensive cooling of the arc plasma there is an opportunity for the dielectric media to strengthen, the arc not to establish and the current flow to cease hence interrupting the circuit. During the arcing stage there is a voltage formed by the arcing across the contacts. Following a current zero and successful arc extinction this voltage must fall into step with the system voltage. In order to do this there is a rapid migration of charge. This process causes high voltage transients across the contacts known as the Transient Recovery Voltage (TRV) The shape and characteristic of this TRV dependent on the phase of the system voltage at the point of arc extinction and the system characterises in general, Inductance and capacitance of the lines and other components that define the natural system frequency response to impulses. If there was a delayed current zero due to high X/R system impedance such as a generator and the beaker was not designed for it, the heat due to an extended arcing time may cause failure, as would a voltage re-strike post arc extinction.

Fundamental Requirements:
Fundamental Requirements:
1. The quenching media must be able to remove the energy during the TRV. This is the critical function and the cooling of the power arc pre current zero is of secondary importance. 2. The insulation strength of the gap post arc extinction must be able to withstand this attempt to re-strike the arc.

Design issues
1. Air Blast and most SF6 breakers have a period of time during its opening phase when the effect of arc extinction is at a maximum. If there is no current zeros occurring within this time the breaker will fail 2. If high current starts to flow on the breakers closing then the breakers must have sufficient closing force to overcome the magnetic forces trying to open the contacts

Beaker operation under typical fault conditions

Fault Inception System Voltage Collapse of system voltage local to fault

Load Current

Arc extinction

Arc Voltage

Fault Current in phase with arc voltage

Line inductance

Re-establishment of dielectric between breaker contacts with system voltage established across breaker, the faulted side of the circuit being isolated and effectively earthed Transient recovery voltage across breaker contacts

List of Slide Titles

14 33KV dead tank 33KV SF6 insulated Vacuum breaker 15 132KV dead tank SF6 insulated SF6 breaker 16 500KV GIS Substation 17 500KV AI Substation 24 275KV OHL Suspension tower trident design 25 400KV Double circuit tension tower 26 500KV Single circuit tension tower 27 / 28 / 29 500KV AI substation 30 Voltage surge test on post insulation to failure 31/32 400 KV conventional AI substation 33 High Voltage AI Live tank two break SF6 circuit breaker 36 Generator transformer core 37 Generator transformer LV winding 38 Generator transformer HV and Tapping windings 39 Generator transformer following catastrophic failure and fire due to over heating internal flux shields

Cables
Technology
As with transformers the only practical insulation system that could be flexible and cope with complicated shapes was paper impregnated with oil or some other compound. The development of void free polyethylene which has displaced paper at most commercially available voltages. Moisture ingress into polyethylene caused significant failure rates at higher voltages (>300kV). This makes the jointing process very difficult and has restricted the option of XLPE cable at super grid voltages.

Cables (contd)
Advantages/disadvantages over O/H line
Construction and installation costs of cable at distribution voltages about 3-6 times equivalent O/H line costs and about 5-10 times in the case of super grid voltages High capacitance of cables requires shunt reactance to be fitted every 20KM or so to reduce the reactive current required from the system A typical 1000MVA 400kV cable takes 17MVA per KM on open circuit, so 58KM cable without shunt reactors will run a full load on open circuit A 104MVA 132kV cable only takes 0.5MVA per KM (208KM). So lower voltage medium runs do not require shunt compensation. Termination of cable is expensive as cable sealing ends must be used to transfer insulation system from solid (paper or plastic) to air

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Overhead Lines
The main method of power distribution Relatively cheap mainly because air is the insulating media and this has a very low dielectric loss (unlike cables). Problem: Visual impact. Perceived EM radiation causing health problems.

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Overhead Lines Contd

Advantages: Very long line can be installed up to 150KM without compensation. However O/H lines do have inductance so for lines over 150Km series capacitance may added to enable high power transfers without stability issues. This can be see by inspection of the basic formula below. An alternative and usually the more common approach for line compensation is the use of the phase shifting transformer which by means of winding arrangements reduces the natural transmission angle for a given power transfer and system voltage. Power delivery along any circuit is: Power(MW)=((V(sending)*V(receiving))/line Impedance)*Sin (Angle between the voltages)

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Transformers
Basis of operation is similar to generator but no rotating parts are required as the magnetic field formed by the primary winding magnetising current induces a voltage directly into the secondary winding. The flux due to Current flowing in the secondary winding opposes the primary flux resulting in power flow through the transformer No air gap means that the magnetising force (H) to produce then magnetising flux (B) required is very low compared to a rotating machine, so the flux produced by the windings of a transformer must balance or saturation will occur Insulation of most transformers above 10MVA is by paper immersed in oil. Oil also provides the cooling with air or watre proving the oil cooling For smaller transformers epoxy resin is often used to provide insulation (dry transformer). Air provides the cooling in this case.

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Transformers Contd
The impedance of a transformer is formed by the magnetic flux that does not link the two windings. The leakage flux has a much smaller effect than the synchronous reactance on a generator. A transformer can be designed with leakage reactance less than 10% whereas a typical rotating machine (Synchronous reactance ) is greater than 100% The impedance is tuned by using flux shunts with the transformer casings 10%(on rating) reactance means that at full load current 10% of voltage is dropped across the transformer.

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