Advantages of Bundled Conductors in Transmission

Lines

For transmission of more power for long distances to load centers Extra High Voltage (EHV)
transmission is employed. Implementing Extra High Voltage has advantage of reduction in
the copper losses and improves efficiency. However transmission of voltage beyond 300kV
will poses some problems such as Corona effect which causes significant power loss and
interference with communication circuits if round single conductor per phase is used. In order
to reduce corona effect hollow round conductors are used. Keeping economical constraints
other option is instead of using hallow round conductor it is preferable to use more than one
conductor per phase which is called Bundled Conductors. For transmission of power beyond
400kV bundled conductors are employed.

Advantages of Bundled Conductors:

Bundled conductors are primarily employed to reduce the corona loss and radio interference.
However they have several advantages:

Bundled conductors per phase reduces the voltage gradient in the vicinity of the line.
Thus reduces the possibility of the corona discharge. (Corona effect will be observed
when the air medium present between the phases charged up and start to ionize and
acts as a conducting medium. This is avoided by employing bundled conductors)

Improvement in the transmission efficiency as loss due to corona effect is countered.

Bundled conductor lines will have higher capacitance to neutral in comparison with
single lines. Thus they will have higher charging currents which helps in improving
the power factor.

Bundled conductor lines will have higher capacitance and lower inductance than
ordinary lines they will have higher Surge Impedance Loading (Z=(L/C)1/2). Higher
Surge Impedance loading (SIL) will have higher maximum power transfer ability.

With increase in self GMD or GMR inductance per phase will be reduced compared
to single conductor line. This results in lesser reactance per phase compared to
ordinary single line. Hence lesser loss due to reactance drop.

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