TSINGHUA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

ISSNll1007-0214ll12/17llpp325-328
Volume 15, Number 3, June 2010

Effect of Different Arresters on Switching Overvoltages in UHV

Transmission Lines*

YANG Pengcheng (), CHEN Shuiming ()**, HE Jinliang ()

State Key Laboratory of Control and Simulation of Power Systems and Generation Equipment
Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Abstract: The amplitude of switching overvoltages is a key factor for designing the insulation of UHV
equipment. The effect of different arresters needs to be studied, since installing arresters is an important way
to suppress switching overvoltages in UHV transmission lines. Switching overvoltages on the 1000 kV
Huainan-Huxi double-circuit transmission line were simulated for different operating modes and different ar-
rester designs using the electromagnetic transient program PSCAD/EMTDC. With parallel resistors, the
switching overvoltages are less than 1.70 p.u. (1.0 p.u.=1100 2 / 3 kV). If the arrestors are better, the
switching overvoltages can be reduced even lower to 1.55 p.u. Without parallel resistors, the arresters can
reduce three-phase energizing overvoltages to 1.70 p.u, while the single-phase reclosing overvoltages still
exceed the limit. The results show that the parallel resistors cannot be eliminated if the arresters are only in-
stalled at each end of the transmission line. Also, better quality arresters significantly lower the switching
overvoltages.

Key words: UHV; double-circuit transmission line; switching overvoltages; arresters

are long-distance lines with large transmission capaci-

Introduction ties on different power grids, overvoltage is one key
problem to UHV[1-7].
Chinese power grids are characterized by widely dis-
The two basic methods used to restrict UHV over-
tributed energy resources and economically developed
voltage levels are metal oxide surge arresters and par-
areas. Hydroelectric power is very common in South-
allel resistors. In some countries, parallel resistors are
west and Northwest China, while coal is mainly con-
used as an important or even the primary measure to
centrated in North China. However, the load centers
restrain switching overvoltages in UHV lines. However,
are concentrated in eastern and south-eastern coastal
arresters can also reduce the switching overvoltages
areas. As a result, long-distance high-capacity power
effectively. This present paper analyses various meth-
transmission lines are necessary to send power from
ods to reduce the switching overvoltages in the
the west to the east and from the north to the south.
1000 kV Huainan-Huxi double-circuit transmission
UHV transmission lines can not only bring enormous
line.
economic benefits, but are also necessary for a unified
national power grid. Since UHV transmission systems 1 Calculation of UHV Switching
Received: 2009-05-25; revised: 2010-03-12 Overvoltages
* Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(No. 50737001) 1.1 System conditions
** To whom correspondence should be addressed.
E-mail: chensm@tsinghua.edu.cn; Tel: 86-10-62772197 The 1000 kV Huainan-Huxi project will construct a
 326 Tsinghua Science and Technology, June 2010, 15(3): 325-328

Huainan-Wannan-Zhebei-Huxi double-circuit trans- working conditions for the double-circuit mode and the
mission line. The total length of the line is 642.5 km, single-circuit mode.
in which the Huainan-Wannan (HW line) line is 326.5 The rated voltage of the surge arresters used in this
km, the Wannan-Zhebei line (WZ line) is 151 km, and project is 828 kV. The arrester design parameters are
the Zhebei-Huxi line (ZH line) is 165 km. This study listed in Table 1.
focuses on the switching overvoltages for different
Table 1 UHV arrester design parameters
Rated voltage Continuous running voltage Voltage with switching current (kV) Voltage with lighting current (kV)
(kV) (kV) I = 1 kA I = 2 kA I = 10 kA I = 20 kA
828 636 1430 1460 1553 1620
simulations concentrate on the HW line.
1.2 Calculation conditions
Table 2 Switching overvoltaged on different lines
The calculations are based on: (1) Double-circuit and Parallel Switching overvoltage (p.u.)
Type of overvoltage
single-circuit operating modes; (2) Circuit breakers resistors HW line WZ line ZH line
with and without parallel resistors; (3) The variation of Three-phase energizing 1.59 1.25 1.18
Yes
the phase closing time is less than 5 ms; (4) Parallel Single-phase reclosing 1.30 1.25 1.15
resistor is 500 with the bypassing time of 8 ms; (5) Three-phase energizing 1.74 1.63 1.59
No
Reclosing time delay is 0.8 s; and (6) Bus voltage is Single-phase reclosing 1.80 1.63 1.64
1080-1100 kV, 1.0 p.u.=1100 2 / 3 kV.
1.4 Overvoltages for different operating modes
1.3 Overvoltages on different sections
The three operating modes for UHV lines are dou-
The 98% probability switching overvoltages on each ble-circuit, one-circuit ungrounded, and one-circuit
section of the UHV line are listed in Table 2. grounded. The 98% probability switching overvoltages
The results in Table 2 indicate that without parallel for different operating modes are listed in Table 3.
resistors, the most severe switching overvoltage is 1.80 The results in Table 3 demonstrate that the most se-
p.u, which exceeds the limit (1.70 p.u). With parallel vere overvoltage is 1.64 p.u. Among these three oper-
resistors, the overvoltages can be reduced to less than ating modes, the overvoltages for the one-circuit un-
1.59 p.u. Therefore, the parallel resistor is an effective grounded mode are higher than for the other two
way to reduce the switching overvoltages. Since the modes. Since double-circuit is the most common mode,
HW line is much longer than the other lines, the both double-circuit and one-circuit ungrounded are
switching overvoltages are larger. Thus the following considered below.
Table 3 Switching overvoltages for different operation modes
Switching overvoltage (p.u.)
Line Type of overvoltage
Double-circuits One-circuit ungrounded One-circuit grounded
Three-phase energizing 1.59 1.64 1.64
HW
Single-phase reclosing 1.30 1.43 1.37
Three-phase energizing 1.25 1.25 1.25
WZ
Single-phase reclosing 1.25 1.18 1.16
Three-phase energizing 1.18 1.24 1.24
ZH
Single-phase reclosing 1.15 1.12 1.18
strongly affect the switching overvoltages. This section
2 Effect of Arresters on Switching considers the UHV arresters used in China (#1), UHV
Overvoltages arresters with the residual voltage decreased by 5% or
10% (#2 and #3), and controllable arresters (#4)[8]. I-V
Many researchers have pointed out that arresters characteristics of these arresters are shown in Fig. 1.
 YANG Pengcheng () et al.Effect of Different Arresters on Switching Overvoltages in UHV 327

Fig. 1 I-V characteristic of arresters during switching surge

Fig. 2 Three-phase energizing overvoltages without
The switching overvoltages on the HW line with arresters

different arresters are listed in Table 4.

Table 4 Effect of arresters on switching overvoltages
Switching overvoltage (p.u.)
Type of
Arrester One-circuit
overvoltage Double-circuit
ungrounded
#1 1.59 1.64
Three-phase #2 1.54 1.60
energizing #3 1.49 1.56
#4 1.48 1.55
#1 1.30 1.43
Single- Fig. 3 Single-phase reclosing overvoltages without arresters
#2 1.29 1.39
phase
#3 1.27 1.33
reclosing As shown in Fig. 2, the arresters significantly affect
#4 1.30 1.33
the three-phase energizing overvoltages. Without the
The results in Table 4 show that the arresters work parallel resistors, arresters #2 - #4 can reduce the
better with lower residual voltages. Overvoltages are overvoltages to the limit (1.70 p.u.). With arrester #4,
reduced by a maximum of 7%. The arresters #2 - #4 the maximum three-phase energizing overvoltage is
reduce the overvoltages to 1.6 p.u. Arrester #4 which is 1.53 p.u. However, the amplitude of the single-phase
the best arrester reduces the overvoltages to even less reclosing overvoltages is not reduced much. Figure 3
than 1.55 p.u. indicates that the maximum overvoltage occurs in the
Since the parallel resistors consume most energy of middle of the line while arresters installed at the end of
the single-phase reclosing switching overvoltages, the the line have little effect on the overvoltages in the
overvoltages are close to the temporary overvoltage middle of the line. No matter which type of arrester is
(1.3 p.u.). In this case, the arresters hardly work and installed, without the parallel resistors, the sin-
the overvoltages change little. The residual voltage gle-phase reclosing overvoltages are larger than 1.8 p.u.
with arrester #4 is higher than arrester #3 for the tem- Thus, installing arresters at only each end of the line is
porary overvoltages, thus the single-phase reclosing not effective. Other methods should be used to reduce
overvoltages with arrester #4 is not less than those with the overvoltages without the parallel resistors.
arrester #3.
Since the circuit breaker design becomes more com- 3 Conclusions
plicated with parallel resistors. Damage due to mal-
function in parallel resistors has occurred several (1) For the 1000 kV Huainan-Huxi double-circuit
times[8-10]. Many researchers are studying how to re- transmission line, the most severe overvoltages occur
duce overvoltages without parallel resistors. For this in the HW line for the single-circuit ungrounded mode.
reason, the simulations were also done without parallel (2) The switching overvoltages exceed the limit
resistors with the results shown in Figs. 2 and 3. without parallel resistors, since parallel resistors
 328
greatly reduce the overvoltages.
(3) If better capability arrestors are used, the
switching overvoltages can be reduced to less than
1.55 p.u.
(4) Without parallel resistors, the better arrestors can
reduce three-phase energizing overvoltages to 1.55 p.u,
but these arresters have little effect on reducing the
single-phase reclosing overvoltages.
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