21, rue d’Artois, F-75008 PARIS UHV Colloquium

http : //www.cigre.org Session 2.3 Substations New Delhi 2013

Engineering Design aspects for Reconfiguration of Three Phase

and Spare Banks in UHV Sub-station

D.MAHESWARAN, S.SANKARAVEL, G.SOMASUNDRAM

Larsen & Toubro Limited, Power Transmission & Distribution- EDRC, Chennai.
India

SUMMARY

In 2007, Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) announced the 1200kV testing station
at Bina to add significant UHV (Ultra-high-voltage) transmission paths to the nation
interconnected grid. One of the stated goals of 1200 kV was to apply advanced technology to
the design of the next generation UHV transmission systems. The systems must be designed
to maximize service continuity because loss of any new transmission assets would have a
severe impact on power transfer limits and stability margins throughout the system. This
paper focuses on layout aspects & protection considerations involved during On Line
Exchange or Transfer of Spare Unit with faulty one.

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 of how
layout engineering, modern protection and control technology that made it possible to design
an installation so that a critical bulk power system asset can be restored in hours 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 three-phase and spare configuration, which
can have an impact on system planning for all levels of the bulk power system – not just
UHV.

KEYWORDS

UHV – Autotransformer – Reactor – Spare unit – Switching – Changeover – Interlock –

Clearances

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I. INTRODUCTION

Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) operates the largest 765 kV transmission
network in India. In order to add significant UHV (Ultra-high-voltage) transmission paths to
the nation interconnected grid, 1200kV testing station at Bina was initiated. The planned
projects will remove transmission bottlenecks and improve the robustness of the synchronous
network. L&T had taken up the challenge in developing next generation layouts and
associated switching equipment, protection and control systems.

Many of the concepts and technologies developed for UHV application will find their way
into standards for layout engineering and protection & control at all levels of the bulk electric
power system. Next generation of standards now under development must anticipate and
exceed regulatory requirements for operation, maintenance, and reliability.

One of the critical aspects in layout engineering is to improve the overall availability of major
assets such as transformers & shunt reactor banks. These equipment represent significant cost
of the total project with longer lead times. The size of the equipment required for UHV
applications means that repair or replacement projects take a great deal of planning and time.
For this reason, system planning engineers must often consider overbuilding facilities to deal
with extended outages. If the expected outage times can be reduced to hours instead of weeks,
months, or years, the cost of building new bulk power system facilities can be significantly
reduced.

To achieve the desired reduction in outage times, it was proposed to build future UHV
transformer and reactor banks with in-place spare units that include switching apparatus to
allow easy substitution of a spare. This plan requires the protection and control systems be
designed so that they can automatically reconfigure the zones of protection for any possible
configuration, without requiring wiring changes and testing prior to restoring a bank to
service. Further, if the protection and control systems can provide positive identification of
the faulted equipment in the zone without requiring time-consuming testing of the apparatus,
repair or reconfiguration times can be significantly reduced.

One of the suggestion is to switch the bank configuration in periodic interval (i.e., the spare is
idle for n months, substituted to R-phase for next n months, etc.). With regular operational
practice, restoration of a critical bank after a failure could be accomplished within hours. This
paper describes how modern protection technology and layout engineering can be used to
automatically reconfigure the protection system zones for transformer and reactor banks,
making these plans possible.

II. BACKGROUND

The UHV grid system in India was primarily built in the late 2005s through the late 2010s.
Single-phase transformer & reactor units were used at this voltage level because of the large
size of the equipment. A common spare unit is often available to replace a failed unit. But the
following problems are faced while making the replacement arrangement:

 Exhaustive physical modifications in the HV / IV / LV bus works

 Total re-configuration of secondary circuits including wiring of CT’s / PT’s / Relays
 Modifications in auxiliary systems like cooling & tap changer mechanisms
 Switching arrangements to ensure proper neutral & system grounding

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Due to these modification works, system integration checks & trip-testing of relay schemes
are mandatory before charging the station. It takes almost a month’s time in this manner to
substitute a spare unit of transformer or reactor into a bank, resulting in huge dead-time of
assets & significant revenue losses. Further, normally spare unit would be kept out of service
for prolonged duration, in which case it may not pass all the necessary tests for being utilized.
Polarisation index (PI) and oil testing are two examples of critical tests required on a spare
before utilizing it in a three-phase bank.

In this background, development of high capacity transmission corridors of 1200kV /765kV

AC and 800kV HVDC systems within and across various regions are being planned to
strengthen national capacity in order to meet the growing power demands. Hence, it becomes
inevitable to design the systems with maximum availability & least outage timings.

III. STRUCTURED APPROACH FOR THE OPTIMAL SOLUTION

While ensuring the maximum availability & reducing the outage timings remain the primary
objective, the following system intricacies need to be carefully addressed for arriving optimal
solution:

i. In case of transformers & shunt reactors, total switching of HV/IV/LV (as applicable)
of primary system
ii. Long transmission lines operate with single-pole tripping / reclosing (SPT/ SPR)
mode. Hence, in order to suppress the secondary arc, neutral of associated shunt
reactors are earthed through impedances instead of solid grounding – this poses
additional challenge in switching of neutral earthing arrangement in shunt reactors
associated with lines, in addition to switching of HV & LV primary systems
iii. Defining clear zones of protection while making the switching arrangement
iv. Ensuring the sensitivity & reliability in the protection system
v. Addressing the needs of statutory clearances
vi. Overall economy of the total operating system

A critical component for an effective use of a spare transformer tank is the design of a
protective system that supports the substitution of the spare transformer tank in either one of
the two three-phase transformer banks with only operator switching time delay. The three-
legged bus reactor and spare will be protected so that from initial installation any three out of
the four tanks can be utilized to configure a three-phase reactor bank with only operator
switching time delay. Finally, the line reactor bank supporting SPT/SPR, referred to as the
four-legged reactor, will have the same protection system requirements as above for the bus
reactors. The protection system will support utilization of either the neutral or spare neutral
reactor in the four-legged reactor bank with only operator switching time delay.

The motivations for developing protection systems that can maximize the utilization of spare
equipment are as follows:
i. Increased system reliability requires fast spare equipment substitution or replacement
of failed equipment to maintain continuous power supply.
ii. The line reactor bank, which is integral to successful secondary arc extinction, must be
re-established quickly so the line can be operated in SPT/SPR mode.
iii. The transformer banks are critical to the power transfer from the 1200kv or 765 kV to
the 400 kV grid backbones. It is paramount to re-establish the three-phase banks
following a failure with only operator switching time delay.

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All new 1200kV or 765 kV lines will be constructed to include fibre optic communications
and utilize SPT/SPR. This style of construction takes advantage of the flexibility provided in
today’s modern microprocessor-based numerical protection systems.

Taking all the above factors into consideration, the optimal solution for layout engineering
and protection systems are achieved by:

i. Using isolator based switching logic for the primary system

ii. Adopting secondary switching logic with Intelligent Electronic Devices (IED’s)

a) Monitoring & control process

The bay control units (BCU) are able to control all switching devices within the respective
bays. All status & control related wirings shall be done from the UHV / EHV equipment to
the respective BCU. Other auxiliary signals like cooling system, tap changer mechanism,
mechanical alarms / status of transformers & reactors shall also be wired to the BCU of
respective bays. The selection the spare unit of where it will be connected is made at BCU
level.

b) Interlocking

In order to ensure fail safe operation, interlocking philosophy is done at two levels – Hard
wired interlocks at yard level, between various switching devices (like isolators / switching
isolators / associated breakers); Soft logics are enabled at the BCU level so that common
mode failures can be avoided.

IV. SPARE AUTOTRANSFORMER CHANGEOVER

The typical methodology successfully followed with 2 sets of 3-phase transformer banks
(formed using 3 numbers of 1-phase transformer units each) with one 1-phase spare
transformer unit is explained here. For the sake of simplicity, the following terminologies will
be used in further sections of this paper:

 Bay isolator – Isolator, associated with the main equipment bay

 Switching isolator – Isolator, which is connected in parallel with bay isolator &
auxiliary bus of respective voltage level
 Auxiliary bus – Extension of HV/LV/IV/Neutral (as applicable) of the spare unit in the
form of physical bus arrangement, spanning over the entire transformer / reactor bay

The primary system consists of 7 numbers of 1-Ph Autotransformers. Out of these, 3 numbers
of 1-phase units each are connected externally to form a single 3 phase entity thereby
resulting in 2 sets of 3 phase UHV transformer banks. Each phase of this unit is possible to be
disconnected from the circuit using isolators on high, medium & low voltage sides, as
represented in Fig.1.

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 TO UHV TO UHV
TRANSFORMER BANK-II TRANSFORMER BANK-I

B Y R B Y R

UHV-B-89-B-S UHV-B-89-Y-S UHV-B-89-R-S UHV-A-89-B-S UHV-A-89-Y-S UHV-A-89-R-S

E/S E/S
SPARE UNIT
UHV CHANGE OVER BUS

LA-TB LA-TY LA-TR LA-TB LA-TY LA-TR LA-TS

1Ø AUTO TR (SPARE)
1Ø AUTO TR-2

1Ø AUTO TR-2

1Ø AUTO TR-2

1Ø AUTO TR-1

1Ø AUTO TR-1

1Ø AUTO TR-1
B B

Y Y

R TERTIARY BUS R TERTIARY BUS

IV2-F IV2-E IV2-D IV2-C IV2-B IV2-A IV1-F IV1-E IV1-D IV1-C IV1-B IV1-A

TERTIARY CHANGE OVER BUS TERTIARY CHANGE OVER BUS

NEUTRAL CT NEUTRAL CT
2N 1N
2N 1N

NEUTRAL CHANGE OVER BUS

N
LA-TB LA-TY LA-TR LA-TB LA-TY LA-TR LA-TS
EHV CHANGE OVER BUS

E/S E/S

EHV-B-89-B-S EHV-B-89-Y-S EHV-B-89-R-S EHV-A-89-B-S EHV-A-89-Y-S EHV-A-89-R-S

B Y R B Y R

TO EHV TO EHV

Fig.1: Single line diagram

a) Normal operation:

Under normal operating conditions, the respective bay isolators will be closed. Switching
isolators will be kept in open condition. Additionally, both hard & soft logics are provided for
avoiding any accidental closing of switching isolators either due to operator negligence or as a
result of any common mode failures.

b) Outage & spare selection:

In case of fault, the 3-phase bank with faulty unit is immediately isolated by means of
protection trip logic. Or in case of scheduled maintenance, 3-phase manual trip is initiated for
the bank containing the unit to be taken out. Then the following sequence of operation is
carried out:
i. “Spare select” logic is initiated in the BCU, indicating which transformer bank
among the 2 banks requires spare utilisation. While enabling this logic, the other
transformer bank is automatically given “Deselect” instruction, which would
prohibit the operation of switching isolator in the “deselected” bank
ii. After selecting the transformer bank, “Phase select” logic is initiated in the BCU,
indicating which phase of the selected transformer bank requires spare utilisation.
While enabling this logic, the other phases of the same bank are given “Deselect”
instruction, which would prohibit the operation of switching isolator in the
“deselected” phases.
iii. Secondary circuits & spare transformer common / auxiliary signals are wired to
both the common marshalling boxes and hence to both the BCU’s. The above 2
steps make or achieve automatic CT switching of spare unit in place of “out”
phase in the relay logics
iv. Concurrently, “Interlock Permissive” signal is issued for the HV/LV/IV/Neutral
switching isolators associated with the particular phase.

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 v. Then, sequential closing operation is carried out the isolators, which would bring
the spare unit fully in place of “out” phase in both primary & secondary systems.

Switching Isolator “Interlock Permissive”

No. Outage unit
UHV EHV IV Neutral
1 AT-1 “R” phase UHV-A-89-R-S EHV-A-89-R-S IV1-A,IV1-B 1N
2 AT-1 “Y” phase UHV-A-89-Y-S EHV-A-89-Y-S IV1-C, IV1-D 1N
3 AT-1 “B” phase UHV-A-89-B-S EHV-A-89-B-S IV1-E, IV1-F 1N
4 AT-2 “R” phase UHV-B-89-R-S EHV-B-89-R-S IV2-A,IV2-B 2N
5 AT-2 “Y” phase UHV-B-89-Y-S EHV-B-89-Y-S IV2-C, IV2-D 2N
6 AT-2 “B” phase UHV-B-89-B-S EHV-B-89-B-S IV2-E, IV2-F 2N
Table 1: Isolator switching matrix

It is to be noted that, while one set of isolators are given “permissive” signal, the BCU logics
are inherently made in such a way that other isolator operation is not possible. In order to
avoid common mode failures, manual hard wiring on the interlock coils of all isolators are
done with conventional ladder logic concept, to avoid any multiple closing of switching
isolators.

c) Statutory Clearances

It is to noted that there are various voltage levels are involved and also layout comprises of
both rigid & flexible bus bar arrangements, hence it is very critical to maintain the electrical
clearances, which are generally to be followed in line with IEC/IS/CBIP guidelines, summary
of which is given in Table 2.

d) Switching isolators:

With the present discussions so far, we would have noticed one interesting phenomenon:
whenever the auxiliary bus is live with the spare unit under charged condition, the switching
isolators of other phases will experience potential difference between the respective phase &
the phase which spare unit is catering across the open contacts. Hence, it becomes inevitable
to design the switching isolators with isolating arm distances greater than the minimum
phase-to-phase clearance requirements.

For lower voltage ranges, this may easily be possible. However in case of UHV systems,
additional challenges are encountered in the mechanical design of the isolators. With the
present manufacturing limitations & proven practices, it is not possible to come with a single
solution on a switching isolator design having isolating distance more than the phase-to-phase
clearance. Hence, 2 numbers of single pole isolators are series connected in master-slave
configuration, which would serve as one single entity of isolator having higher isolating arm
spacing. Fig.3 represents the layout arrangement in this fashion. The authors believe with
evolving technologies & trends in manufacturing industry, a much simpler solution could be
possible in the near future with single isolator instead of current arrangement.

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 Fig. 3: Layout Plan of Three Auto Transformers bank with Spare unit

Description 1200kV 765kV 400kV 33kV

Min. Phase to Phase Clearance (mm) 12300 7600 4200 320
Min. Phase to Earth Clearance (mm) 8300 4900 3500 320
Sectional Clearance (mm) 10500 10300 6500 3000
Ground Clearance (mm) 18000 12000 8000 3600
Table 2: Substation Layout Clearances at different voltage levels.

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V. SPARE REACTOR CHANGEOVER

Online Reactor change over scheme is similar to that of transformer change over philosophy.
Fig.4 depicts the single line diagram of six reactors forming two 3-phase banks with one
common spare reactor unit & Fig.5 represents the layout arrangement. Operation, spare
selection logic, clearance requirements & hence the switching isolator design challenges
remain intact in Reactor switching also. Further detailing & isolator matrix are not explained
avoid redundancy.

Fig.4: Single Line diagram of 765kV Reactor banks with spare Reactor

Fig.5: Layout Plan of 765kV Reactor banks with spare Reactor

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VI. CONCLUSION

This paper elaborates the investigation of how spare single-phase transformers and reactors
can be utilized for rapid restoration after a failure of any of transformer/reactor in there phase
banks at UHV/EHV substations. The ability to have a readily available spare cut into any
phase of three-phase banks provides system planners with a new concept in reducing time
span in the replacement of faulty one. This paper has provided sufficient guidance on how to
use the versatility available in microprocessor-based numerical relays to build logics based on
overall system operating philosophy.

Even though the spare unit is traditionally considered as “contingency” arrangement, in order
to improve the availability & system readiness, one of the suggestion is to switch the bank
configuration at periodic intervals (i.e., the spare which is idle for n months, substituted to R-
phase for next n months, etc.). With regular operational practice, restoration of power supply
to a transformer bank after a failure could be accomplished within hours.

This paper also addresses the layout difficulties related with manufacturing constraints of
switching isolators, which gives further scope of research in both manufacturing & layout
optimisation perspectives.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] IEC 60071: Insulation coordination

[2] IEEE Std 1313.2-1999: IEEE Guide for the Application of Insulation Coordination.
[3] IEEE-1427-2006: IEEE Guide for Recommended Electrical Clearances and Insulation
Levels in Air-Insulated Electrical Power Substations
[4] IEEE-605: IEEE Guide for Design of Substation Rigid-Bus Structures
[5] Modem Power Station Practice on EHV Transmission by British Electricity International.
[6] PGCIL Technical specifications: Section-GTR & Section-765kV Switchgear