Utility Develops Under Hung

Busbar Concept As Step Toward

New Substation Design
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INMR

Q1 2011 Utility Develops UnDer HUng BUsBar ConCept as step towarD new...
UTILITY PRACTICE & EXPERIENCE
The Qtr 3, 2010 Issue of INMR featured an article about a new under
hung busbar design developed and tested jointly by Transpower, the
transmission grid operator in New Zealand, and Electropar, a local
supplier of network hardware and components. According to Transpower
engineers, this innovative concept offers signicant benets over
conventional designs, including reduced land requirements as well as
building costs, extended maintenance cycles and easier accessibility for
repairs, among others.
INMR travels to the new Drury 220 kV switching station near Auckland to
report on the rst practical implementation of this system.
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At rst glance, Drury Substation on
the outskirts of Auckland appears
a typical switching station, in this
case bussing circuits from two
220 kV lines to supply 150 MW of
power for New Zealands largest city.
However, closer inspection reveals
that this substation is anything but
ordinary. In fact, Drury is not only
New Zealands newest transmission
substation but also one where a
unique busbar scheme has just been
put into operation.
Archana Devi was Project Manager
for Drury and reports that the
substation, built at a cost of about
NZ$ 15.6 million, was commissioned
at the end of April 2010 9 months
after construction began. Says Devi,
this substation is state-of-the-art in
terms of layout, spacing and safety
distances. Its also unusually open
and relies on fewer components than
similar substations.
Andrew Renton, Transpowers
Asset Development Engineering
Manager and Cameron Wallace of
Electropar, now a subsidiary of US-
based Preformed Line Products,
were both active in the project and
closely involved in the development
and testing of the stations busbar
concept. If you look at Drury,
observes Wallace, there are a lot of
rsts not only for New Zealand
but for the rest of the world as well.
These innovations have come from
a conscious effort by management
to look for improvements based on
operating experience. This whole
process then culminated in this
revolutionary design, which will now
become the model on which future
substations will be built.
Wallace and Renton explain that
successful implementation of the
unique under hung busbar system
relied primarily on two factors: the
rst was an innovative application for
composite post insulators while the
second was development of a new
disconnect clamp. Both were seen as
key requirements in eliminating the
usual bus side disconnector one would
usually expect to nd in a switchyard.
In regard to insulators, Wallace stresses
that the whole concept relied on having
a light insulator attached to the bus.
The key advantages of polymers in
this case was reduced weight and
also the self-damping effect built into
them. Such a design would never have
been possible using porcelain since
the busbar would then have to be
dimensioned much larger in order to
withstand normal short circuit forces.
If all that additional weight in this
case 120 kg for porcelain per insulator
compared to 55 kg for composite had
to be taken into account, everything
would start to go against us and the
whole concept would quickly become
impractical.
Wallace also points out that engineers
considered various alternative
congurations for the insulators,
including a V string, but were worried
about possible swaying. Therefore
polymeric posts were selected to
support the at prole conductors.
The critical requirement in regard to
their performance was that they be
sufciently rigid to assure no secondary
faults under a short circuit event.
A second requirement, according to
Renton, was for a single-piece molded
design with as few interfaces as
possible and with a tting designed
so that water would run off and not
pool at either end.
Yet another consideration was
keeping the suspended insulators as
short as possible while still ensuring
good service performance given the
stations high pollution environment.
As you go toward longer insulators,
says Renton, the whole construction
has to be higher and this is
detrimental both for visual impact
and seismic considerations. These
insulators are actually quite special,
he adds. With a pitch circle diameter
of 5 inches (12.7 cm), they offer
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Q1 2011 Utility Develops UnDer HUng BUsBar ConCept as step towarD new...
View of under hung bus concept during
construction.
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relatively high stiffness while at the
same time sufcient specic leakage
distance (31 mm/kV) to meet our
minimum requirement for this area.
In the end, achieving this came down
to nding the optimal shed prole.
In fact, Transpower engineers were so
pleased with the composite insulators
ultimately selected that they wanted to
use the same technology for the posts
that support the tubular bus. However,
Renton reports that no insulator
supplier could be found who would
guarantee the required mechanical
withstand and therefore there was no
choice but to use porcelain.
Renton observes that application
of such phase-to-phase insulators
is quite rare at substations where
the more typical requirement is for
phase-to-earth insulation. But he
adds that Transpower has already
had experience with this concept
at another switching substation
in nearby Huapai. There, land
restrictions prevented erection of
a typical entrance gantry and led
to phase-to-phase insulation being
employed to allow conductors to drop
vertically into the station.
Explains Renton, for us, the fact
that these insulators are being used
on a bus versus on an overhead line
means that if one fails, it will take
down the station through a bus fault.
Concern over such a serious outcome
resulted in a substantial testing effort
to validate the concept, conducted
rst at Electropar on models and
then on a full-scale set-up at a high
power laboratory in Canada. The nal
Wallace (left) and Renton alongside
Drurys under hung bus.
Specially designed composite post
insulator met all the needs of this
application, including stiffness and good
pollution performance.
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conguration passed testing for
3 seconds at a fault level of 40 kA,
says Wallace, and then again at
63 kA for one second.
Apart from the custom-designed
composite post insulators used at
Drury, the second key requirement
behind the under hung busbar concept
was a means to easily disconnect
any circuit for maintenance. The
clamp developed at Electropar for this
purpose was designed to be operated
with a hot stick and to lock onto any
exible conductor, whether single,
double or quad.
According to Electropars Engineering
Manager, Greg Barclay, the
disconnect clamp quickly accesses
bolts from below the bus, utilizing
a socket tting and is so cleverly
designed and functional that it has
since been patented. Transpower
gave us the basic concept, he says,
and our task was to turn this into
a tangible product to replace the
current solution of someone standing
on an elevated platform.
Barclay goes on to state that the key
to making this solution practical was
plenty of available working space
for maintenance personnel. Indeed,
Wallace and Renton point to the fact
that one of the principal benets of
the new bus concept is that it results
in an open, uncluttered switchyard.
Says Wallace, in terms of ease of
access, its perfect since maintenance
staff can simply position their
vehicles and work directly below the
bus or, if necessary, extend a boom
Porcelain insulators used for bus supports
at Drury to assure necessary mechanical
withstand.
Huapi Substation near Auckland employs
unique phase-to-phase insulation
arrangement that allows full-scale tower
to be sited at center of switchyard.
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to work on the breaker. He also
observes that the uncluttered Drury
layout contrasts with the situation
at most large substations, where
conventional bussing usually means
a dense arrangement of station posts,
foundations and concrete pads.
Apart from the convenience that
derives from Drurys open layout,
an even more important benet
is prolonging the normal interval
between maintenance. If you look
at this HV isolator, says Wallace
pointing to the disconnector on
the breaker side, such equipment
must typically be maintained once
every 5 years to align and clean the
contacts. This means that need for
a bus outage is determined solely
by the maintenance cycle for this
apparatus and this results in less grid
availability. By omitting the isolator
entirely and relying instead on a
disconnecting circuit breaker with a
normal 14-year maintenance interval
you effectively shift the maintenance
cycle from 5 to 14 years. In effect,
its now the busbar itself that drives
the maintenance cycle and no longer
the isolator.
Wallace goes on to explain that
whenever maintenance is required,
all that needs to be done at Drury is
to drop the under hung conductors to
the ground without need for a bus side
disconnector. This is a key issue for
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Q1 2011 Utility Develops UnDer HUng BUsBar ConCept as step towarD new...
Renton demonstrates how specially
developed clamp allows maintenance
personnel to disconnect any conductor
using hot stick.
to work on the breaker. He also
observes that the uncluttered Drury
layout contrasts with the situation
at most large substations, where
conventional bussing usually means
a dense arrangement of station posts,
foundations and concrete pads.
Apart from the convenience that
derives from Drurys open layout,
an even more important benet
is prolonging the normal interval
between maintenance. If you look
at this HV isolator, says Wallace
pointing to the disconnector on
the breaker side, such equipment
must typically be maintained once
every 5 years to align and clean the
contacts. This means that need for
a bus outage is determined solely
by the maintenance cycle for this
apparatus and this results in less grid
availability. By omitting the isolator
entirely and relying instead on a
disconnecting circuit breaker with a
normal 14-year maintenance interval
you effectively shift the maintenance
cycle from 5 to 14 years. In effect,
its now the busbar itself that drives
the maintenance cycle and no longer
the isolator.
Wallace goes on to explain that
whenever maintenance is required,
all that needs to be done at Drury is
to drop the under hung conductors to
the ground without need for a bus side
disconnector. This is a key issue for
56 57 Utility Develops UnDer HUng BUsBar ConCept as step towarD new... Q1 2011 INMR

INMR

Q1 2011 Utility Develops UnDer HUng BUsBar ConCept as step towarD new...
Renton demonstrates how specially
developed clamp allows maintenance
personnel to disconnect any conductor
using hot stick.
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Q1 2011 Utility Develops UnDer HUng BUsBar ConCept as step towarD new...
power supply companies worldwide,
he emphasizes, namely how to
optimize maintenance intervals in
order to improve availability. Wallace
also sees this as a step to smart design
of power grids. The smart part here
is that you no longer need to put out
switching, isolating and temporary
earthing to make a dened work area.
All thats needed is a hot stick and the
new clamp.
As novel as Drury is in terms of
design, Renton sees it as only a step
forward in an ongoing process that
will eventually see less cluttered
substations with correspondingly less
HV equipment. The rst thing to
disappear, he predicts, will be the
disconnectors. But over time the CTs
will go as well, replaced by optical
CTs without pedestals. All that will
be left will be the disconnecting
breakers, both live and dead tank.
And everything will feature composite
insulation. I see Drury not solely as an
innovation but as a start toward this
new generation of substation design.
Finally comes the important
consideration of economics.
Clearly, the engineering and other
innovations at Drury carried with
them incremental engineering costs.
Here, Renton and Wallace point to
the direct savings, which they claim
outweigh the amount invested in this
design concept. Says Renton, while
the under hung busbar system cost
us about NZ$ 600,000 of which
about $230,00 was spent on testing
it immediately saved us six sets of
disconnectors at Drury as well as all
the normal bus support posts and
foundations of a conventional design.
These capital savings alone helped
pay for the development program.
In fact, he notes that the economics
of the solution used at Drury was
never the hard sell to Transpower
management. Rather, it was the
technical arguments that needed to
be made. But even here he says
that the risk was seen as low since
there was always the option of a
retrot. And any concern about this
never having been done before, he
points out, was eliminated by our
testing program.
Apart from the changes in terms of
switchyard layout, the control room at
Drury also features some of the latest
substation technologies. According to
Project Manager Devi, the interlock
scheme of the disconnectors is of a
smart type that uses relays and state
equations in place of mechanical
interlocks.
Says Devi, instead of many pieces of
code, we can use only 5 or 6 equations
regardless of substation conguration.
The interlock scheme is independent
of substation bus arrangement
whether single, double or any other
arrangement of the switchgear. For
us, as the operator, it offers the same
look and feel of conventional systems
but now with the benet of smart
electronics. The logical next step will
be to go to optical CTs.
Devi also points out that the
cabinets at Drury are solid state
with comparatively little wiring.
Moreover, they have been tested for
seismic performance and found to be
robust enough to stand up to most
earthquakes through their special
system of bolts and washers.
Reviewing all that has been
accomplished here, Electropars
Wallace observes that this is the start
of an entirely new look for substations
driven by a new generation of
engineers. These people are not afraid
to innovate, he says, and therefore
they are anxious to take advantage of
what the insulator industry offers in
terms of better technologies. Its really
a case of the new materials nally
catching up with the power industrys
own application goals.
Drury is the start
of an entirely new
look for substations
driven by a new
generation of engineers
anxious to take
advantage of what
the insulator industry
offers in terms of
better technologies.
AD