Recent Trends in Power Plant Bus Transfer

Systems & Philosophies

Randhir Kumar Misra
Rajasthan Atomic Power Station 5&6, Rawatbhata
Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd
E Mail: [email protected]

Abstract: - The field of live bus transfer has undergone matter of analysis. The influx of new technology
rapid changes in the past two decades due to rapid based on intelligent computer algorithms has also
integration of computer based systems in relaying & given the system engineers & designers the insight &
power system protection. Bus transfer system is of confidence to adopt more non conventional logics in
critical importance for process continuity in thermal & order to further improve bus transfer success rates in
nuclear power plants. This paper discusses various extremely challenging circumstances.
common auxiliary bus configurations used in thermal &
nuclear power plants. A section is devoted to the
different bus transfer modes available with critical II. BUS TRANSFER CONFIGURATIONS
evaluation of advantages & disadvantages. In the last
section an overview of latest digital technology for bus Bus transfer configurations vary with industrial
transfer is presented.
process requirements & on site availability of
different electric power sources. Normally in almost
Keywords: Algorithms, CANada Deuterium Uranium
all major process industries, thermal power plants &
(CANDU), Digital signal processing (DSP), Intelligent
Electronic Devices (IEDs), Pressurised Water Reactors
nuclear power plants at least two independent sources
(PWRs), Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs), from power grid are available for energizing the
Standardized Indian Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors auxiliaries. The primary concern for making available
(SPHWRs) two independent sources for auxiliaries may be either
to safeguard process continuity or to ensure
I. INTRODUCTION industrial/public safety but never the less they can be
& are used as backup to one another in the event of
one of the sources becoming unavailable. It is here
UNINTERRUPTED power supply for auxiliaries
has been a paramount requirement for process
that the bus transfer scheme comes into picture. In
this section of the paper the various commonly used
system continuity in Nuclear & thermal power plants.
bus configurations in thermal power plants & nuclear
The advancements in electrical technology over the
power plants are presented.
years & particularly in the area of protection &
relaying have had tremendous impact on bus transfer
system philosophies & its implementation hardware. A. The Main-Main Bus Configuration
What was earlier forbidden & unthinkable has now
become acceptable. All this has contributed in The Main-Main bus configuration is most commonly
development of a robust & extremely reliable bus adopted in thermal power plants. In this configuration
transfer systems with extremely high success rates in the station bus is normally energized from in house
different bus transfer scenarios. generation & in the event of loss of potential in
The bus transfer philosophy has also evolved over a station bus (which may be due to a variety of reasons
period of time with advancement of technology. The such as turbine unavailability/ source fault/ source
earlier bus transfer systems or more commonly unavailability) it is transferred to & energized from
known as classical systems/ vintage systems standby source which is normally taken from grid. A
employed electromechanical synchronism check conceptual diagram of this configuration is shown in
relays for supervising new source breaker closure Figure-1. When the unit is offline then the station bus
whereas the present systems employ fully integrated is energized from standby source or auxiliary source
digital signal processing based intelligent computer (AS). This power supply is utilized for operating
platforms. The impact of this technology has been auxiliary loads, station illumination, control systems
phenomenal as in earlier days a successful bus etc. It is also required during start-up when boilers
transfer used to be a very rare event & an occasion to are fired, boiler feed pumps along with a variety of
celebrate whereas today a bus transfer failure is a rare other loads are operated.
event which is taken very seriously & becomes a
 Those systems & auxiliaries which are essential for
commercial power production or power operation are
categorised as non safety related loads. Interruption
of power supply to safety loads can have safety
consequences & to avoid any such sequence of
events adequate care is taken in design, such as
provision of on site, independent dedicated standby
power supply sources.
The distribution of safety related loads & non safety
related loads are the deciding criteria for bus
configurations in NPPs. Therefore there are many
different bus configurations in vogue in NPPs. In this
paper one very common bus configuration used in
Pressurised water reactors & one configuration used
in CANDU reactors has been discussed.
Generally in PWRs, both the class 1E and balance-of-
plant (BOP) loads are normally fed from the main
Fig. 1. Bus configuration used in thermal power
generator through the unit auxiliary transformer
plants.
(UAT). When the normal power fails, the class 1E
loads and the BOP loads are transferred to an
Therefore in general when the unit is offline the
alternate source of power through a station start-up
Auxiliary source breaker (ASB) remains closed & the
transformer (SST). This bus configuration is shown
normal source breaker (NSB) remains open. Once
in Fig 2.
the unit is synchronized the station service
transformer or unit auxiliary transformer (UAT) takes
over from standby source. Normally this transfer is
done manually using check synchronizing relays
(25); however there are different schemes available
wherein this transfer is done automatically using pre
programmed logic.

B. Nuclear power plant bus

configurations

Different types of Nuclear power plants are in vogue.

These are classified universally on the basis of
reactor technology being used. The North American
countries typically employ the pressurised water
reactor (PWR) technology barring Canada which is a
pioneer in Pressurised heavy water based reactors
more commonly known as CANDU reactors. The
PWR type of reactors in one form or the other is
prevalent in Europe (barring U.K where Advanced
gas cooled reactors are more common), Japan, South Figure-2 Commonly used bus configurations in
Korea CIS Countries including Russia & Latin PWRs.
America. India has mastered the pressurised heavy
water reactor technology & standardized the design The scheme used in CANDU reactors is more
which is commonly known as standardised Indian commonly known as 3 breaker bus transfer scheme.
Pressurised heavy water reactor. A simplified diagram of this scheme is shown in
In a nuclear power plant there are two types of loads. Fig.3. In this configuration normally there are two
These are broadly classified as safety loads/safety sources which are feeding the station auxiliary loads.
related loads & non safety related loads or Each of the sources is carefully selected & is
conventional loads. Safety related loads are also normally loaded 30% to 40 % of rated nominal
known as class 1E loads in European & American capacity. In the event of one of the source failures the
NPPs. Loads & system which have been identified as tie breaker is closed after supervising appropriate
essential for safe operation / shutdown & maintaining transfer conditions in order to ensure continuous
safe shutdown state are known as safety/ safety power supply to station auxiliaries.
related/Class 1E loads. Systems & equipments that Each of the above configurations poses its own
have been designed & installed for accident complexity when the buses are to be transferred
mitigation are also categorised as safety related loads. under emergency conditions to an alternate source of
power. The important requirement of any automatic
bus transfer scheme is the reliable and faster recovery 3. The phase angle of the residual voltage with
of power to the loads keeping the dead time as low as respect to healthy bus.
possible. But the bus transfer practices are The magnitude of the residual voltage decays due to
compounded by the unique voltage decay and phase the decay of the trapped fluxes in the air gap of the
angle characteristics associated with each motor bus. induction motor. The decay time is governed by the
This is due to different motors of various ratings and rotor open circuit time constant, which can be
inertia constants, motors fed from starters and from obtained from the equivalent circuit of an induction
different grounding practices employed motor.
The phase angle of the residual voltage changes with
GRID
GRID respect to the nominal frequency of the incoming
source (50 Hz or 60 Hz). The phase angle change is
primarily dictated by two factors


GT


1. The initial load on the motor


SUT
2. Combined inertia of the motor and the


UAT
 driven load.


GCB
In a typical bus system, there may be several motors



SUTB
To Other of widely different ratings. When the bus is
UTB BUS disconnected; the large motors with high inertia loads
Auxiliary
Buses will act as induction generators supplying power to
To Other
small motors. The total bus voltage will have a
GENERATOR TIE Breaker
BUS complex average response such that the voltage will
decay faster than the voltage of the largest individual
Figure-3 Commonly used bus configurations in motor and slower than for a single small motor. An
CANDU reactors. important challenge is the estimation of the open
circuit time constant (or the decay constant) of the
III. SPIN DOWN CHARACTERISTICS motor bus terminal voltage for the combined motors.
OF MOTOR BUS Typical spin-down characteristics of a motor bus.
spin-down characteristics is shown in Fig 4.
The major chunks of loads on an auxiliary bus in a
power plant are motor loads. The various pumps/
compressors etc are powered by induction motors
varying in rating from few kilowatts to several
Megawatt. As soon as the normal power supply to the
auxiliary motor bus is lost a residual terminal voltage
appears across the motor terminals. The reason for
this terminal voltage being the trapped magnetic flux
in the rotors.
In industrial buses typically there will be a number of
motors connected to a power bus. Ratings of these
motors will depend on the process duty for which
they have been deployed. Due to difference in rating,
mechanical construction etc the cost down time once Figure-3 Typical Spin down characteristics of a
the power supply is lost is also different for these motor bus.
motors. In certain cases high inertia flywheel is also
mounted on the largest of the motor to provide high In this spin down characteristic the decaying
cost down time once the power supply is lost. characteristic of bus voltage is shown by the reducing
Once power supply is lost the bus frequency will be size of helical spiral. The phase angle variation is
dictated by the average speed of all the motors shown by the spiral clockwise rotating nature of the
connected on the bus. The largest connected load curve.
during this period has RPM (or frequency) higher
than persisting bus frequency & as a consequence IV. BUS TRANSFER MODES
becomes an induction generator.
Three important parameters are of paramount The type of transfer depends on the point on the
importance from bus transfer point of view. These are
decay curve where the motor bus is transferred to an
alternate source power.
1. Magnitude of the residual voltage,
2. Decay time of this residual voltage and
Each mode of bus transfer has its unique merits and capable of supervising the transfer process to insure
demerits and presents its own level of complexity the transient ratings of the connected bus equipment
while implementing it. are not exceeded.
A successful implementation of a bus transfer scheme If the fast or in phase transfer are not possible, due
depends on the proper analysis of the spin-down to bus decay dynamics or phase angle between the
characteristics associated with each plant for different bus and the auxiliary source at the time of the
loading conditions. transfer, some load may need to be shed before
A good practice in this context is to map the bus completing the transfer residually.
decay profile with diverse loading conditions to The fast transfer involves a rapid measurement of
suggest an appropriate bus transfer mode. For the phase angle between the previous source and the
ascertaining electrical parameter benchmarks namely: new source to the auxiliary bus. ANSI/IEEE
standard C50.41 states that the resultant volts/hertz
1. The voltage decay profile which includes between the bus and the new source shall not exceed
magnitude with respect to time curve. 1.33 volts/hertz. This value will be the resultant of
2. Phase angle variation with respect to time. the phase angle between and the volt/hertz of each of
the two sources at the instant of transfer. The Sync
Check Relay is used to detect the appropriate
In this regard one can go for what is commonly conditions for a fast transfer.
known as “hot trials”. Hot trial is the auxiliary bus
voltage decay characteristic with maximum load on V. ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA FOR BUS
the motor bus. In thermal/ nuclear power plants this TRANSFER
test is normally conducted with all motor loads
connected with auxiliary bus. The data obtained from 1. A successful bus transfer should not subject
this trial will establish the maximum time available auxiliary system components to “excessive duty”
for synch check relays to connect auxiliary bus with and should result in safe shutdown or continued
healthy source. operation of the plant.
Besides considering electrical parameters it is also 2. The majority of the electric drives used in a
important that mechanical considerations of transient power generating station are squirrel cage
torque acting on motors during new source closure & induction motors. Importance should be attached
subsequent reacceleration should also be carefully to their performance during bus transfer. Two
examined. The rotating masses of a motor/load parameters, which should be evaluated, are the
system, connected by elastic shafts, constitute a switching duty and reacceleration (When the
torsionally responsive mechanical system that is auxiliary loads are transferred from the normal
excited by the transient motor torque produced during source to the alternate source, a large current
reclosure [2]. This torque contains components at surge through the SSTs results. Care has to be
several frequencies, including power system exercised as to not to subject the station service
frequency and slip frequency. This can result in either transformer inrush more than the manufacturer
attenuation or amplification of torques at the specified limit. (Once power supply is lost to a
motor/load shafts. It is therefore, recommended that bus the Bus transfer system initiates action for
the electromechanical interactions of the motor, the extending the power supply from healthy bus
driven equipment, and the power system be studied subjected to synchronism check as per pre
for any system where fast transfer or reclosure is programmed logics. However this takes finite
used. time (say 100-200 mSec). By this time there is
Bus transfers mode can be sequential or parallel. A decay in affected bus voltage & frequency.
parallel transfer involves the paralleling of the two Therefore a difference of voltage/ Phase &
sources to the bus. The chief disadvantage is the frequency exists between the affected bus &
availability of dual source fault current, and the high healthy bus at the time of closure of new source
reactive currents that can result from angular breaker. Due to this as soon as new source
difference between the two sources. The two sources breaker is closed the motors take inrush current
may be loosely connected by a transmission system which is supplied by the healthy station
external to the plant. In addition, the plant may transformer).
become asynchronous to the external system during 3. The final criterion important in evaluating the
full load rejection. performance of a bus transfer scheme is the
Sequential transfers eliminate this problem by ability of the auxiliary system to maintain or
disconnecting one source before connecting the restore process requirements critical for safe
second. The available sequential methods are the shutdown and is the most difficult to define
fast, in phase and residual methods. Sequential quantitatively. The most important step here is
transfers address the problems that are inherent to the proper selection of the loads to transfer to the
parallel transfer, but may cause other concerns. The alternate bus.
sequential transfer system must have relaying
 VI. RELAYING REQUIREMENTS monitor the bus voltage spin down characteristic &
FOR BUS TRANSFER execute in phase transfer.
One of the most important considerations during fast
Electromechanical and most static sync check relays or fast in phase transfer is the new source breaker
introduce a delay in opening in the event a rapidly closure time. During normal source outage the
moving phase angle between the bus and the phasors of normal bus start varying with respect to
auxiliary passes out of the set limit. This is due to the alternate source phasors. Mere synchronism
physical inertia of electromechanical relays, or the between the normal source & alternate source
filtering and output relay characteristics of most phasors is not sufficient for issuing close command to
static relays. new source breaker. The reason being breaker closure
The great majority of sync check relays are designed time is in the range of 25-50 milli seconds. This
for static (network tie verification) or slow dynamic amounts to roughly 2-3 electrical cycles at 50 HZ.
(incoming generator) conditions. Plant auxiliary Therefore if only synchronism condition is taken into
transfers typically entail much faster dynamics, in account the breaker may actually close
which the posers may rotate at very fast rate with asynchronously. It is here that the beauty of modern
respect to one another. IED comes into picture. Presently predictive
Transfer schemes utilizing slow responding sync algorithm are being used to arrive at appropriate time
check relays may only respond to the steady state for issuing close command to new source breaker.
conditions present before the event that causes a The predictive algorithm takes into account following
transfer. factors:
To facilitate the accurate initiation or blocking of
sequential fast transfers, a high speed sync check 1. The spin down profile of normal source bus.
relay is required to respond to the varying and rapid (On which power supply is lost)
dynamics of the plant auxiliary bus. Sudden severe 2. The preset breaker operation time.
or, equally important, cumulative damage to the
rotating equipment and auxiliary transformer can Based on the above two the relay ascertains that in
take place when the phase angle is too great, and the event of new source breaker closure there should
slow responding sync check relay does not block the not be any a synchronism. First order & second order
transfer at values greater than the setting. predictive algorithms are used for arriving
at appropriate time for issuing close command to
Modern bus transfer relays/ IEDs normal source breaker.
The bus transfer relay has to continuously monitor
An automatic bus transfer scheme requires a lot of certain key system elements to determine the safe and
logical inter connections and electrical interlocks secure way to conduct a bus transfer [5]. The
between various relays, CBs, isolators, fuse etc. The following are some of the key elements, which need
following are some of the key elements, which need to be taken into consideration for a typical bus
to be taken into consideration for a typical bus transfer scheme;
transfer scheme; With conventional relaying technology it means a lot
of hardwiring between relays resulting in two to three
1. Trip circuit supervision of the alternate source panels to have a bus transfer scheme with all
breaker and normal source breaker controls. With the development of modern IEDs,
2. Alternate source breaker and normal source which can communicate with other IEDs through
breaker status (52aNSB, 52bNSB, 52aASB, peer-peer communication, the realization has been
52bASB) reduced to less wiring, component cost reduction,
3. Fuse failure detection of the potential increased reliability and the event and oscillographic
transformers of alternate source bus, motor bus recording facility for transfer analysis.
and main source bus. Modern IEDs offer a wide variety of facilities not
4. Alternate source and Main source over current present with conventional technology which include
detection built in programmable logic controller, timers,
5. Healthiness of the voltage and frequency of the multiple digital inputs and outputs, analog output
alternate source. facilities etc, which can help significantly in realizing
6. an automatic bus
Modern bus transfer relays are capable to ascertain Transfer scheme.
the type of bus transfer method on these logical and
electrical interconnections based on emerging VII. CONCLUSION
dynamic conditions. For example just at the point of
loss of normal source (NS) the bus transfer relay may The incorporation of intelligent electronic devices for
go for fast transfer based on favorable conditions. In execution of bus transfer has significantly reduced
case this fails or n the event that conducive the complex hardware components used in earlier
conditions for fast transfer are not available it can generation systems. These have also increased system
reliability manifold. The programmability of the [2] S. S. Mulukutla and E. M. Gulachenski, “A
devices & ability to map real time bus phasors critical survey of considerations in
coupled with ultra high speed response times has maintaining process continuity during
resulted in development of new philosophies for voltage dips while protecting motors with
carrying out bus transfer in more safe & reliable reclosing and bus transfer practices,” IEEE
manner. Trans. on Power Systems, vol. 7, pp. 1299-
1305, August 1992.
References: [3] A. Raje, and A. Chaudhary, “High speed
motor bus transfer,” Proc. of 3rd
[1] B.J Kirby, J.D Kueck, A.B Poole, Oak International R&D Conf. Sustainable
Ridge National Laboratory, USNRC Development of Water and Energy
Document ORNL/NRC/LTR/98-12 Resources, pp. 57-64, February 2000.
“Evaluation of the reliability of the offsite
power supply as a contributor to risk of
nuclear plants.”