Global Young Member Presentation Showcase

2018 Paris Session

http: //www.cigre.org

Study Committee SC C4: System Technical Performance

Preferential subject PS2: Methods and techniques for the evaluation of lightning
performance
Determination and
of Risk of insulation
Failure of a coordination
1200kV Transmission Line
to which your Paper Proposal refers
SHERI ABHISHEK REDDY
Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Technology
India
absreddy15@gmail.com

Geographically, the Indian sub-continent stretches from north to south and east to west and
largely depends on coal fired thermal plants operating under the aegis of various state
governments and public-sector undertakings which are largely concentrated in the eastern part
of the country. A fair share of power generation also depends on the hydel power plants
majorly located in the north and north-eastern parts of India. However, major demand centres
are concentrated towards the western and northern part. The polarized locations of thermal
and hydel plants make it practically difficult to transfer bulk power by overcoming hurdles
like Right of Way (ROW) and other social aspects. India has now emerged as a fastest
growing power sector and the government plans to enhance the installed capacity to 6,00,000
MW by 2025 to meet the meteoric rise in electricity demand.
Owing to the above-mentioned challenges, various power agencies operated by the
government have considered the possibility of a 1200kV AC and ±800 kV HVDC system to
facilitate large power transfer per meter of ROW. To do so, a 765kV transmission system up
to Wardha and a hybrid 1200kV and 765kV system via Aurangabad till Padhge which
includes a single circuit 1200kV system with 4 parallel 765kV lines has been planned to meet
the power requirement in the east-west transmission corridor.
With an increase in the transmission system voltages, the insulation level of EHV and
UHV systems are largely determined by the magnitude of switching overvoltages (SOVs) and
not lighting overvoltages. Exact determination of SOVs lies at the focal point while designing
a system as the cost of transmission system majorly depends on the magnitude of SOVs. In
the present system we consider the switching overvoltages whose knowledge plays a vital role
in ascertaining the design parameters for insulation levels. These overvoltages are oscillatory
and usually arise from line energization and re-energization; fault initiation and fault clearing;
load rejections; line dropping; switching of capacitive and inductive currents; switching
transformers on no load; switching reactor loaded transformer; switching of EHV reactors;
switching of capacitor banks and direct lighting strokes on overhead line conductors. Surge
diverters limit the overvoltages produced due to switching of reactors and transformers and
hence are not considered here. On the other hand, line energization and re-energization
usually accompany large overvoltages if restrike free breakers are used. Hence, we focus on
energization and re-energization; fault initiation and fault clearing without surge arrester
operation. When the overvoltages due to line energization and re-energization are controlled
to values below 2 p.u., fault initiation and fault clearing overvoltages require careful
examination if they are not controlled to the same degree, consequently this synopsis focuses
on these four events.
Statistical distributions of switching overvoltages have played an important role in
determining insulation levels and considering insulation coordination of UHV systems.
Design studies for high voltage systems frequently include the determination of the statistical

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distribution of overvoltages rather than values corresponding to single known operating times
for each breaker pole. This paper proposes the statistical distributions of energization and re-
energization, fault initiation and clearing overvoltages of the 1200kV system. The statistical
distribution of switching overvoltages is obtained from the simulated results of the circuits
modeled in PSCAD. To derive the SOV probabilistic distribution, the randomness of different
factors for different events is considered. For line energization and re-energization, the
randomness of the closing time of circuit breaker is considered and hence 200 simulations are
performed. For fault initiation, the randomness of faulted phase, fault location and fault
timing are considered and hence 504 (3×21×8) simulations are performed in the case of single
line to ground (SLG) and double line to ground (DLG) faults, whereas for triple line to
ground (TLG) and three-phase short circuit (TSC) faults, the randomness of fault location and
fault timing are considered and hence 168 (21×8) simulations are performed and the statistical
information is obtained and summarised as follows .

Event Mean Standard Deviation (σ) 2% overvoltage

Line Energization 2.55 0.08 2.71
Line re-energization 2.32 0.09 2.46
Fault Initiation 1.31 0.13 1.57
SLG 1.946 0.137 2.221
Clearing
Fault

DLG 2.007 0.174 2.356

TLG 2.077 0.210 2.498
TSC 2.056 0.236 2.529

In this work, the risk of failure is estimated by two methods, namely; semi-
probabilistic method and probabilistic method. In the semi-probabilistic method, the risk is
obtained from the curves which are the functions of statistical safety factor and statistical
withstand voltage which are given by CIGRE, IEC and ELECTRA. However, these curves
give different values for the given safety factor and statistical withstand voltage and are only
useful in the initial stages of insulation design. To overcome this drawback, we use the
Brown’s Probabilistic Method to estimate the risk of failure whose results are summarised
below.

Event Side Phase Middle Phase

Line Energization 5×10-1 5.3×10-1
Line re-energization 3.8×10-1 4.1×10-1
SLG Fault Initiation 1.5×10-4 7.6×10-4
SLG 3.2×10-1 4.01×10-1
Clearing
Fault

DLG 3.6×10-1 4.2×10-1

TLG 4.0×10-1 4.4×10-1
TSC 3.7×10-1 4.1×10-1

It can be concluded that the risk of failure for the middle phase is higher than that of
the side phase because critical flashover voltage is higher in the middle phase. Risk of failure
in the energization case is higher compared to fault clearing case. However, a higher risk of
failure in the energization case is acceptable as there is no loss of power being transmitted.
Mean value of switching over voltages increase from fault initiation overvoltages to TLG
fault clearing overvoltages and hence the risk of failure increases from fault initiation to TLG
fault clearing.