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GRIDTECH 2013 New Delhi, India

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UHV COLLOQUIUM
SPECIAL REPORT FOR SESSION 2.3 - SUBSTATIONS
Substation and Insulation Coordination
Terry Krieg (Chairman) and S. Victor (Special Reporter)
Rising demand for electricity, a need to improve transmission efficiency and energy security, are
issues translating into growth in the electric power transmission and distribution market worldwide
including the introduction of UHV transmission solutions.
National electric power transmission & distribution equipment requirements in China and Brazil,
together with India is predicted to drive worldwide growth in the UHV product market as these
economies invest in electricity generation, transmission and distribution networks in order to adapt
them to the changing grid demands. Growth in other national and regional markets is expected to
increase sharply, as national, regional and continental electricity grids are interconnected.
Installed capacity of the Indian Power System is presently 210 GW and the system is growing rapidly
to meet consumer demand. Peak demand is expected to increase to more than 500 GW by 2027 for
which installed capacity of about 700 GW is required. To meet the long-term power transfer
requirements, a large transmission network is being built in India interconnecting existing and planned
generating resources in Eastern, North-eastern Regions with bulk load centres. This development
poses challenges such as Right-of-Way (ROW), environmental aspects.
These challenges together with the need to significantly increase power transfer capability to meet
energy demand growth and to maintain grid security necessitate a quantum leap in transmission
voltage level. The existing 400 kV lines can transfer about 600 MW power whereas 800 kV lines have
a loading capacity of 1200 MW-2400 MW. The transmission capacity of 1200 kV lines is between
6000 MW to 8000 MW and hence they are considered as a much needed solution for meeting these
challenges.
1200 kV UHV transmission technology has been developed for the first time in India. Insulation
coordination was one of the biggest challenges for selection and specification of plant such as surge
arresters, transformers, circuit breakers, insulators, conductor hardware and instrument transformers. It
is understood that POWERGRID, India acted as catalyst for the development of the 1200kV
equipment requirements locally including the transformers and also providing support through
international consultants when required.
In this Colloquium, a range of issues related to insulation coordination, selection of technical
parameters, development and testing of various equipment by manufacturers will be discussed. The
Colloquium enables sharing of experience in aspects of design of UHV technology and the learnings
from the development of UHV will have implication for other (lower) voltage levels and for future
development.
Substations are the backbone of the power supply worldwide regardless of the country or region where
they are located. Criteria to satisfy the basic design needs are reliability, affordability, sustainability
and acceptability from technical, economic and environmental perspectives.

victor@powergridindia.com
tkrieg@globalskm.com

This session relates specifically to Substations and Insulation Coordination aspects of UHV
experience. A total of 6 papers were selected for the session. These interesting papers and
contributions make a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge worldwide in the field of
substations. The significant efforts of all authors in producing these papers is appreciated and
recognised.

B3.01 The design considerations for UHV substation in Japan - M. Ono, T. Kobayashi, K.
Uehara, K. Sasamori, Japan
The paper describes the design considerations, the transport and construction issues for UHV
Substations in Japan to achieve both an economic design in terms of physical size and also
high levels of reliability.
Improving required levels of reliability is achieved by adopting various design techniques
such as using metal oxide surge arrestors with lower residual voltages, suppression of
switching over-voltages by adopting closing and opening resistors on circuit breakers and
incorporating resistors while opening disconnectors to suppress very fast transient
overvoltages.
The majority of UHV Substations in Japan are reported to be constructed in remote
mountainous regions due to right-of-way issues for the transmission lines, TEPCO prefers use
of GIS for its 1100kV Substations. The paper also gives comparisons of AIS, Hybrid and GIS
UHV Substations. As transformers are the heaviest plant item to be transported, on-site
assembly of transformers is being practiced successfully in Japan to reduce transportation
issues.
Questions:
1.1 What is the experience of UHV equipment failures in comparison to EHV components
and the impact on the grid reliability and stability?
1.2 What are the challenges being faced during site assembly of transformers and the
requirement of special tools and special environmental protection?
1.3 What special or additional site tests are suggested after assembly of the transformers at
site?
1.4 What other construction issues have been evident and solutions implemented in the
introduction of UHV substations?

B3.02 Recent UHV projects and the necessity of on-site acceptance test standardization - K.
Uehara, T. Kobayashi, G. Li, J. Fan, S.K. Agrawal, Japan/ India
This paper relates to the work of CIGRE Working Group WG B3.29 which was constituted to
investigate on-site acceptance tests, commissioning tests, maintenance tests and special
verification tests of UHV substations.
The paper discusses the use of on-site assembly and installation work, and the impact of
failures on the reliability of UHV equipment. Failures in UHV systems often have high
consequences in terms of the impact on electricity supply. On-site testing is crucial for UHV
substations to secure the reliability of its equipment and system after transportation and
assembly.
Presently, there is little UHV substation operating experience. CIGRE WG B3.29 was
constituted to investigate on-site acceptance tests, commissioning tests, maintenance tests and

special verification tests of UHV substations. In this WG B3.29, through the experiences in
various countries, technical requirements on onsite tests for UHV equipment are studied. In
parallel, a survey of the on-site acceptance tests, commissioning tests, maintenance, tests and
test procedures adopted in various countries was conducted. The recommendations for on-site
acceptance test on UHV equipment were prepared after summarizing these results. B3.29 WG
would like propose to add some standards for on-site acceptance test in each equipment
standard or add some guideline for maintenance.
The paper discusses:

Current status of UHV substations worldwide

Definition of on-site acceptance, commissioning and maintenance tests

On-site acceptance tests of UHV substation equipment

Some proposals concerning on-site acceptance tests

There is industry concern that the failure rate of UHV equipment especially Circuit Breakers
and transformers may be higher than other voltage classes. The paper elaborates on the
required site acceptance tests for UHV equipment and explains the ACLD test for
transformers.
Questions:
2.1 What has been the practical experience with on-site test equipment for UHV plant
testing?
2.2 Are there industry (utilities or manufacturer) concerns in relation to current standards for
UHV testing and are changes required?
2.3 What practical measures can be taken to mitigate the risks associated with UHV
substation plant, given the high consequences of failure and the reportedly higher failure
rates?
B3.03 Development of New Generation Compact EHV Station for Indian Mega Cities - K. Jain,,
P.K. Tiwari, R.V. Vadangekar, M. Ambardekar , M.S.Rao Reliance, India
This paper is from Reliance Infrastructures limited, Mumbai, India. The paper describes the
modification in conventional practices leading to the design of compact layouts adopted for
establishing 220/33kV compact Substations in the Mumbai area. Substations with 375MVA
capacity can be constructed with a plot size of 4000m2. Narrow towers, cable termination and
the installation of surge arresters on transmission towers, multi-floor civil construction are
used to reduce the required area. The authors suggest that the same concept can be used for
UHV stations where space is a deciding factor.
Question:
3.1 Compact substations are intended for construction in urban areas and require installation
of transformers. What preventive measures have been undertaken to reduce transformer
noise and other aspects of the substation environmental footprint such as EMF?
3.2 The use of compact substations in urban areas may increase the risk of fire to adjacent
properties in the event of a catastrophic failure. What measures have been taken so that
this risk is mitigated?

B3.04 Insulation Coordination for UHV AC Systems - Eiichi Zaima on behalf of CIGR WG
C4.306, Japan
This paper presents the study results of the CIGR Working Group C4.306 insulation
Coordination for UHV AC systems. WG C4.306 has reviewed and discussed insulation
coordination practice in the UHV AC range (1100 kV and 1200 kV) taking into account the
state-of-the-art technology, with special reference to higher performance surge arresters.
When planning a new power system, particularly at a new voltage levels, insulation
coordination is one of the most important design aspects to be considered. The general
procedure of insulation coordination is described in IEC 60071-1 (2010) but this standard does
not give precise advice regarding new voltage levels although it provides insulation levels for
Um values of both 1100 kV and 1200 kV.
The paper describes the various over voltage phenomena of the UHV stations such as,
temporary over-voltage, switching over-voltage, lightning over-voltage and very fast transient
over-voltage and the mitigation techniques that are used for each. The paper also gives
guidelines for selection of basic insulation levels.
Questions:
4.1 Are there any implications for the design of earthing systems and additional measures or
practices in UHV substations to suppress or limit over-voltages?

B3.05 Insulation Co-ordination for Very Fast Transients in Gas-Insulated UHV Substations - U.
RIECHERT, H. ITO, E. ZAIMA, K. UEHARA, W. CHEN Switzerland /Japan/China
The paper describes the source, the measurement, estimation and mitigation techniques for
very fast transient over-voltages (VFTO) in gas insulated switchgear (GIS) substations. VFTO
in GIS is of great concern at the highest rated voltages, for which the ratio of the lightning
impulse withstand voltage to the system voltage is lower. As the rated voltage increases, the
difference between the rated lightning impulse withstand voltage and the VFTO decreases.
Hence, VFTO can become the limiting dielectric stress which defines the dimensions in
certain cases. Different CIGR working groups (WG D1.36, WG A3.22, WG C4.306, WG
B3.29) have studied the phenomena occurring in UHV AC substations, which are considered
to behave differently from HV Substations.
The paper provides a general three step insulation coordination approach consisting of
calculation of VFTO, Calculation of different VFTO voltage for different equipment and
comparison of calculated VFTO voltage with LIWV level
Questions:
5.1 Given the reported importance of insertion resistors for the suppression of VFTOs, what
is the expected reliability of insertion resistors given that the energy absorption is based
on number and rate of open-close operations?
5.2 What methods may be used to confirm the integrity or monitoring of damping resistors
and what are the expected issues with replacement if necessary?
B3.06 Engineering Design aspects for Reconfiguration of Three Phase and Spare Banks in UHV
Sub-station - D. Maheswaran, S. Sankaravel, G. Somasundram, C. Manivannan - Larsen &
Toubro, India

UHV transformer and reactor installations use single-phase units because of the large size and
weight of the equipment. To improve the availability of the bulk power system, a common
spare unit is often installed. However, in the past, the spare could only be utilized after the
physical reconfiguration of bus work, protection, control, alarm & measurement functions
resulting in prolonged outage of the bank. Further, the spare unit often sat idle for many years
before being called upon for service, which results in questioning the reliability & availability
of the spare unit.
This paper reports on the Larsen & Toubro (L&T) EDRC experience in layout engineering,
modern protection and control technology to enable a critical bulk power system asset to be
restored rapidly instead of weeks, months, or years after a failure. The results of this
investigation prompted the authors to share the learnings using single-phase units in a threephase and spare configuration, which can have an impact on system planning for all levels of
the bulk power system not just UHV. The problems related to isolator clearance limitations
solved in the UHV system is also interesting to note in this paper.
The authors report that the ease of changeover to the spare unit enables rotation of the spare
unit to assist in maintaining unit health.
Questions:
6.1 What are the likely issues for commissioning such an arrangement as described in this
paper, given the number of potential combinations of yard arrangement?
6.2 Could the changeover sequence be automated to perform a self-healing function within
the substation in the event of transformer failure?