1

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Gas insulated substations (GIS) have been used in power systems
over the last three decades because of their high reliability, easy
maintenance, small ground space requirement etc. In India also, a few
GIS units are under various stages of installation.
The basic insulation level (BIL) required for a gas insulated substation
(GIS) is different from that of the conventional substation because of
certain unique properties of the former. Gas insulated bus has a surge
impedance (70) more than that of the conventional oil filled cables, but
much less than that of an over head line (300 - 400). Further, the
average bus run for a compact GIS is much less than that for the
conventional station. In addition, the GIS is totally enclosed and
therefore is free from any atmospheric contamination. Hence, in general
the GIS permit lower BIL rating than the conventional one. However the
life of GIS is affected by several factors such as: conductive particles,
particle

discharges

and

contamination

(decomposition

products,

moisture, etc.). Conductive particles inside the enclosure are known to

reduce the breakdown level of Gas insulated systems. Partial discharges
can develop from conductive particles, contamination, and defects during
the manufacturing process, etc.

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The GIS require less number of lightning arresters than a
conventional one. This is mainly because of its compactness. The basic
consideration for insulation coordination is V-T characteristic. The V-T
characteristic of SF6 is considerably flat compared to that of air. Air can
withstand to very high voltages for very short time. However, as the
duration of voltage increases, the withstand voltage falls off considerably.
On the other hand, SF6 exhibits a flat characteristic, thus the ratio of
basic lightning impulse level is close to unity for GIS, whereas for the
conventional substations this ratio varies between 0.6 and 0.86.
Although GIS has been in operation for several years, a lot of
problems encountered in practice need further understanding. Some of
the problems studied are:
a. Switching operations generate very fast transient over
voltages (VFTOS)
b. VFTOS may cause secondary breakdowns inside a GIS and
Transient Enclosure Voltages (TEV) outside the GIS
c. Prolonged arcing may produce corrosive / toxic by products
d. Support spacers can be weak points when arc by products
and metallic particles are present
e. From the reliability point of view, partial discharge detection
is important. The methods of detection are of acoustic
system and electric systems etc. These methods lack quality
control.

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For these reasons, VFTOS generated in a GIS should be considered as
an important factor in the insulation design. In a GIS, Very Fast
Transient Overvoltages (VFTOS) are caused by two ways:
a. Due to switching operations and
b. Line to enclosure faults.
The switching operations may be dis-connector switch, circuit breaker
or earth switch. Since, the contact speed of disconnector switches are
low, restriking occurs many times before the interruption is completed.
Each restrike generates very fast transient over voltages with different
levels of magnitude. Further, disconnector switches are used primarily to
isolate the operating sections of an HV installation from each other as a
safety measure. Beyond this, they must also be able to perform certain
switching duties, such as load transferred from one bus bar to another
or disconnection of bus sections, circuit breakers etc.
During switching operations, voltage collapse across the contacts take
place within 3 to 20 nanoseconds depending on the system voltage, gas
pressure, field intensity etc. Once this short time rise pulse starts at
switching contacts, it travels along gas bus duct in either direction and
gets reflected at different terminations. The superimposition of system
with reflected pulse develops over voltages in GIS. These over voltages
have been called as Very Fast Transient Over voltages (VFTOS), because
of their very high frequency components in the range of MHz. The main
problems associated with the VFTOS are as follows:

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1. Flash over to ground at the disconnector switch contacts
2. Failure of electronic control circuits connected to GIS due to
electro magnetic interference of VFTOS
3. Di-electric strength is reduced under VFTOS, if non-uniform
electric field is formed by the particles (mainly metallic)
4. Effect on equipments such as bushing, power transformer
and instrument transformers
5. Transient Enclosure Voltage (TEV) on external surface of the
sheath. This may cause flashovers to nearby grounded
objects
For the above reasons, VFTOS generated in GIS should be considered
as an important factor in the insulation design of not only gas-insulated
components, but also for the entire substation. The levels and waveforms
of VFTOS are determined by the design of the substation. To calculate
the levels and waveforms of VFTOS, the Pspice/MATLAB is used. In
Pspice/MATLAB simulation, a suitable equivalent circuit is necessary for
each component of the substation.
1.1 GAS INSULATED SUBSTATIONS
SF6 gas insulated high voltage switchgear has been in commercial
operation for more than 30 years. Continuous technological and design
improvements of all the components during the course of the time are
characterized by appreciable savings in area and volume occupied by the
substation. Gas insulated substations are in service up to the highest

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voltage of 800 kV, meeting almost all the requirements in urban,
industrial as well as rural areas. In the initial stages, the new SF 6 gas
insulated substations were almost exclusively used where space
limitations, site restrictions or exponential ambient conditions made it
difficult to use conventional air insulated substations. However, over the
last 30 years, GIS at voltage up to 800 kV in various station
configurations and with various performance requirements, have been
installed in increasing numbers worldwide.
The modular of design of GIS offers a high degree of flexibility to meet
layout requirements of both substations, as well as power station
switchgear, making efficient use of available space. GIS technology has
reached a stage of application and a wide range of GIS equipment up to
highest voltage of 800 kV is available with many unique features. They
are:
1. Wide spread application of aluminum enclosure materials for
standardized component models for all voltage ranges
2. The light weight enclosures have good conductivity, low
eddy-current losses and a high resistance to corrosion
3. Easy handling, as well as reduced stresses on foundation
and support structure are additional features
4. Standard arrangements can be easily modified and extended
with good co-ordination between the manufacturer and the
user.

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5. A gas- tight barrier insulator in switchgear serve for the
separation of gas compartments and prevents neighbouring
switchgear parts from being affected during maintenance.
A typical Gas insulated substation is shown in Fig.1.1.

Fig.1.1 Gas Insulated Substation

The Gas insulated substation shown in above figure comprises the
following components:
1 Circuit breaker
2 Disconnector switch
3 Earthing switch
4 Current transformer
5 Voltage transformer
6 Bus bar & connectors

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7 Power transformer
8 Surge arrester
9 Cable termination
10

SF6 / air or SF6 / oil bushing

1.1.1 Advantages of GIS over the conventional open air substation

The application of GIS during the last fifteen years has been very
rapid. The rapid growth in GIS application is due to the following special
advantages:
1. Area and volume saving in construction for over or underground
applications.

Therefore

they

offer

saving

in

land

area

and

construction costs.
2. Insensitivity to external influences because of grounded metal
enclosures.
3. Greatly improved safety and reliability due to earthed metal housing
of all high voltage parts and much higher intrinsic strength of SF 6 gas
as insulation.
4. Short on site erection times, based on large factory assembled and
tested shipping units
5. Fulfillment of aesthetic requirements with indoor applications
6. High service reliability due to non-exposure of the use of high voltage
parts to atmosphere influences
7. Reduction in radio interference with the use of earthed metal
enclosures

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8. Use as mobile substations for transportation to load centers on
standard tracks. These substations can be located closer to load
centers thereby reducing transmission losses and expenditure in the
distribution network.
9. More optimal life cycle costs because of lesser maintenance, down
time and repair costs.
10. It is not necessary that high voltage or extra high voltage
switchgear has to be installed out doors.
1.1.2 Disadvantages of GIS
Although GIS has been in operation for several years, a lot of
problems encountered in practice need fuller understanding. Some of the
problems being studied are:
1. Switching operation generate Very Fast Transients Over Voltages
(VFTOS).
2. VFTOS may cause secondary breakdown inside a GIS and Transient
Enclosure Voltages (TEV) outside the GIS.
3. Field non-uniformities reduce withstanding levels of a GIS.
4. Prolonged arcing may produce corrosive/toxic by-products.
5. Support spacers can be weak points when arc by-products and
metallic particles are present.
1.2

GENERATION OF VERY FAST TRANSIENT OVER VOLTAGES

(VFTOS) IN A GIS
Fast transient over voltages in GIS are mainly due to two reasons

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1. Disconnector switch operation
2. Faults between bus bar and enclosure
In case of line-to-earth faults, the voltage collapse at the fault location
occurs in a similar way as in disconnector gap during restriking. By this
event,

step

shape-travelling

surges

are

injected.

When

SF 6 gas

breakdown occurs, it extinguishes very quickly, since it has a high

electro-negative property. Breakdown in SF 6 starts initially by avalanche,
starting with an initiatory electron due to cosmic radiation, field emission
or several other phenomenon producing electrons. These electrons are
accelerated by electric field, thereby increasing its kinetic energy. As a
result, number of electrons increase due to collisions. According to
streamer criteria, first avalanche occurs followed by chain of avalanches
bridging the gap between the electrodes and thus forming the streamer.
Thus, to have the breakdown there should be sufficient electric field to
produce sequence of avalanches and there should be at least one
primary electron to initiate first avalanche. In the above sequence of
events, there exits a time lag for initiating electron to be available in the
gap after the voltage is applied. This time lag is termed as statistical time
lag. Similarly, the formation of spark channel takes definite time known
as formative time lag (t r) and is defined below,
Rise time tr = 4.4 (S. Kr / U)

nano seconds

U = Ignition voltage in kV

(1.1)

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S = spark length in mm
Kr = Toeplers constant
This time lag is of order of nanoseconds for SF 6 gas. The above
phenomenon suggests that the VFTOS are generated due to the voltage
collapse, which occurs in few nano seconds.
1.3 TRAPPED CHARGE
Several authors have described the effects of trapped charge on
occurrence of VFTOS. When a disconnector switch is opened on a
floating section of switchgear, a trapped charge may be left on the
floating section. The potential caused by this charge will decay very
slowly as a result of leakage through spacers. Particle motion under d.c
conditions is much more severe than that for a.c excitation and may lead
to scattering of particles onto insulating surfaces. However, such particle
motion leads to appreciable (A) d.c currents which will discharge the
normally floating section in a relatively short time.
The asymmetry in breakdown voltages leads to the falling pattern
near the end of Disconnector Switch operation which continues until the
potential is low enough that breakdown cannot occur during the rising
portion of a power frequency cycle as shown in Fig.1.2.

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V(p.u)

t (micro seconds)
Fig.1.2 Load side voltage waveform during opening of Disconnector
switch.
The end point is inevitably a transition from a large negative potential
to a slightly positive potential at a gap distance for which the positive
breakdown potential is 1.1 p.u (peak) and the negative breakdown
potential is 1.2 p.u (peak). At this point, another positive and negative
breakdown cannot occur, as a result 0.1-0.2 p.u (peak) is left on the
floating switchgear.
The salient features, which lead to this small trapped charge, are the
asymmetry in breakdown potential and relatively long arcing time. This
trapped charge can be controlled through careful design of contact
geometry.
The concept of using compressed SF6 gas, as the principal insulating
media in metal clad substations was first implemented in the early
1970s.

The

overall

techno-economic

advantages

such

as

higher

reliability, personal safety, compactness, ease of maintenance, improved

aesthetics etc. over air insulated substations have led to an increased

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demand for Gas Insulated Metal Enclosed Switchgear (GIMES) or gas
insulated substations (GIS) over the last three decades. They are now
available worldwide up to a voltage of 800kV. In our country too, in order
to fulfill the needs of technological up gradation, a few GIS units have
already gone into operation or are in various stages of installation.
In a GIMES system, all energized or live parts are enclosed inside a
grounded

metallic

encapsulation,

which

shields

them

from

the

environment. Compressed SF6 gas, which has excellent dielectric

properties, is used as the insulating medium between the live parts and
the enclosure. Early designs of GIMES followed a cautions approach and
complete segregation of the three phases i.e. separate chambers were
provided for each functional component such as circuit breakers, current
transformers etc., of each phase.
However, after gaining sufficient service experience and ability to
maintain dielectric integrity three phases in one or phase integrated
modules are now available. The three phases construction has the added
advantage of having only a reduced number of gas and moving parts.
Gas insulated substations occupy only about ten percent of the space
required by conventional substations. They also offer saving in land area
and construction costs. Their modular design provides higher degree of
flexibility in the substation layout and efficient use of space. These
substations can be located closer to load centers thereby reducing
transmission losses and expenditure in the distribution network. Since

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they are hermetically sealed units and hence are not affected by
atmospheric contamination. As associated costs are reduced, when
designing typical cases for which GIMES offers a more economic solution
are following:
a. Urban and industrial areas (space, pollution)
b. Mountain areas (site preparation, altitude)
c. Coastal areas (salt associated problems)
d. Underground substations.
e. Areas where aesthetics are of major concern.
However, a transition from air insulated to gas insulated technology
should require recognition of certain aspects with respect to design. The
bus scheme, for example, used for GIMES is quite different from what is
used for AIS. In GIMES, enclosure is the nearest earth surface with
respect to the conductor. Therefore switching devices in metal enclosed
systems have to fulfill their duties under conditions, which are different
from those prevailing in conventional systems.

More clearly, they are

influenced by their close spatial neighborhood in the form of electrostatic

interactions.
The switching device considered under the current study is an
Isolator or disconnecting switch (DS). Several of which are generally
present in a GIMES.
High frequency surges are generated in GIS during the operation of
dis-connectors. These are steep fronted oscillatory over voltages in the

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frequency ranges of several Mega hertz and known as Very Fast over
Voltages (VFO). It is necessary to investigate the level of over voltages in
order to assess their effect on the insulation characteristics of GIS. Even
though the dielectric strength of a clean GIS may be adequate under
clean conditions, under particle contaminated conditions, the dielectric
strength for over voltages may become lower resulting in bus-bar to
enclosure flashovers.
1.4 VFTOSS ACROSS TRANSFORMER
Very fast transient over voltages (VFTOS) occur in Gas Insulated
Substation (GIS) due to the operation of the disconnector switch. It has
very short rise time of less than 5 nano seconds, and an oscillatory
component of several MHz lasting for few microseconds. There are
concerns about a possibility that the VFTOS sets of a resonance in the
winding of the transformer in the system, particularly if the transformer
is connected to the GIS through a gas insulated bus.
The voltage oscillations in transformer winding have always been
troublesome. Using the concept of on-resonance or surge-proof
transformer, it is intended to suppress the oscillations by controlling the
initial voltage distribution or capacitive voltage distribution. The device
works against ordinary lighting impulses, but it may not necessarily be
effective for oscillatory pulses such as VFTOS originated in GIS. It is of
prime importance to investigate the underlying mechanism of VFTOS

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phenomena in the transformer and to provide a means to accurately
predict the over voltages in the winding.
Two kinds of induced voltages are reported in transformers, one is
high frequency component induced electro statically and the other is
lower frequency component traveling along the winding. Initially this
phenomenon was analyzed using simple ladder circuit network model.
They have showed that the inter turn voltage can be explained by a
simple transmission line model. They have developed a generalized
analytical method applying the single transmission line model.
They have successfully applied this model to the VFTOS phenomena in
transformer

winding.

Since

the

analysis

requires

large

scale

computation, they have limited the computation area by the use of a

terminal admittance representing the rest of the winding. Most of the
time overvoltages cause a flashover from the winding to core or between
the turns. The inter turn voltage is particularly vulnerable to the high
frequency oscillation and therefore the study of over voltages is of
interest. The VFTOS produced by switching in GIS depend not only on
connection between the GIS and transformer, but also on the
transformer parameters and type of the winding.
1.5 VFTOSS ACROSS BUSHING
The distribution of voltage across the layers of SF 6 / air
capacitively graded bushing is not uniform under these fast transients,
particularly the voltage across the first few layers. Further, the voltage

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distribution across the layers depends on frequency components of the
VFTOS. Hence work has been carried out, to estimate the effect of
different rise time step pulse on SF 6 / air capacitively graded bushing
connected to GIS.
1.6 VFTOSS ACROSS DISCONNECTOR SWITCH
The basic function of disconnecting switches is to isolate sections
of a GIS for ensuring safety of the operations. In the process of isolations,
trapped charges may be left on certain sections of the GIS on the
capacitance to ground sections, resulting in large differential voltages
across the disconnecting switches and also in the presence of AC-DC
conditions across the poles of the switches. A switching operation such
as re-energisation under such condition leads to switching charging
current results

in steeper oscillations which travel through the

components of the system and suffer multiple reflections. These surges

may cause internal flashovers to nearby grounded objects.

Therefore

overvoltages generated in GIS is a major parameter to be considered in

insulation designs as it has bearing on many vital components of the
installation such as insulating spacers, bushings, transformers etc. The
electromagnetic interference (EMI) caused by overvoltages in electronic
control circuitry is another problem to reckon with.
Discussed under the present scope is a study of switching overvoltages
under trapped charge or AC-DC conditions across the disconnector, the

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magnitude and rise time of overvoltages generated and a method of
controlling them.
For the above reasons, VFTOS generated in a GIS should be
considered as an important factor in the insulation design. For designing
a substation it is essential to know the maximum value of VFTOS.
Moreover, this VFTOS in turn generates Transient Enclosure Voltages
(TEV) outside the GIS, hence studies are carried out on estimation of the
VFTOS and TEV levels. Since the contact speed of disconnect switches is
low, re-striking occurs many times before the interruption is completed.
Each re-strike generates VFTOS with different levels of magnitude.
Disconnect switches are used primarily to isolate the opening sections of
an HV installation from each other as a safety measure. Beyond this,
they must also be able to perform certain switching duties, such as load
transfer from one busbar to another or disconnection of bus bar, circuit
breaker etc., step shaped traveling wave generated between the
disconnect switch contacts propagates in the both directions, reflecting
at the components of GIS, thus resulting in a complex waveform.
1.7 SUPPRESSION OF VFTOSS ACROSS FLANGE
Discussed under the present scope is a study of transient enclosure
voltages across insulating flange and enclosure using MATLAB. The
magnitudes of over voltages across flange and enclosure are suppressed
by various techniques such as by the use of capacitors, shunting bars
(copper strips) etc.