High Voltage SF6 Circuit Breaker Modeling for Capacitor Bank Controlled Switching Simulation

Yotaka Chompusri*, Srawut Kleesuwan**, Noppadol Charbkaew **, Teratam Bunyagul **

* Department of Instrumentation and Electronics Engineering, ** Department of Electrical Engineering Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkuts University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok, 1518 Piboon-songkarm Rd. Bangsui Bangkok 10800, Thailand Email: ycps@kmutnb.ac.th, srw@kmutnb.ac.th, noppadolc@kmutnb.ac.th, teratam@kmutnb.ac.th
Abstract-The controlled switching technology gives the best performance for capacitor bank energization. The development of its adaptive algorithm requires circuit breaker modeling in computer simulation. A normal circuit breaker in EMTP simulation program does not concern with the pre-arcing of circuit breaker. The pre-arcing is a phenomenon which causes the circuit breaker to conduct current before touching of its contacts. This pays important role in capacitor bank energizing control. The model is designed with the adjust ability of Rate of Decrease of Dielectric Strength (RDDS). Moreover the closing time is also the adjustable parameter. The designed model is verified by RDDS testing process in computer simulation. Then the result is compared with the RDDS testing of the real circuit breaker. The testing indicates that the pre-arcing voltage of the real and simulated circuit breakers give the consistent result.
Current (kA) 2 1 0 -1 -2 2 1 0 -1 -2 2 1 0 -1 -2 20 40 60 80 100 120 Time (ms) 140 160 180

(a)

Direct switching

Current (kA)

Current (kA)

(b)

Pre-insertion switching

(c)

Controlled switching

I.

INTRODUCTION

Capacitor bank is a component in substation which is used for controlling of transmission line voltage. If voltage level is too low, capacitor bank is connected to electrical power system by closing its circuit breaker. This switching may cause of very high inrush current as be shown in Fig. 1(a) The peak of inrush current is higher than 2,000 A, while the steady current is only 200 A. This high inrush current may cause of damages of capacitor bank. This high inrush current composes of harmonic component. Non-50Hz signals may lead to maloperation of protection and control devices in substation. There are two technologies for reducing these problems. First one is the pre-insertion impedance technique. This method applies temporally insertion of impedance during closing operation of circuit breaker. Using this method, the inrush current is decreased to be 547 A as be shown in Fig. 1(b) The second technology is named Controlled Switching. This method gives the best performance. Fig. 1(c) shows the result of capacitor bank energization; the inrush current is significantly reduced. This technology is a result of development in circuit breaker design, higher Rate of Decrease of Dielectric Strength (RDDS), predicable of closing time. The closing instant of circuit breaker can be controlled. Controlled switching method uses the fact that the severity of inrush current depends directly on the instant of current conducting of circuit breaker.

Figure 1. Inrush current of capacitor bank switching

When the closing command arrives, controlled switching controller will seek for the referent point (the zero crossing as in Fig.2). After the reference point is found, the controller waits for awhile then trigs circuit breaker to close. This wait time is determined by controllers adaptive algorithm[1]. During closing operation, the moving contact moves to reach the fix contact. This moving causes of the dielectric strength decreasing. The proper wait time causes the zero dielectric strength happens at the same instant of zero voltage stress.
600 Dielectric Strength between CB's contact 550 500

Voltage ( kV )

150 100 50

Closing command receiving point

wait time

closing time

0 -50 -100 -150

Target point Reference point Trigger point

10

15

20

Figure 2. Capacitor bank synchronous controlled switching timing

time (ms)

25

130

135

140

145

150

II.

CIRCUIT BREAKER MODELING

As concerning in previous section, the proper wait time is determined by adaptive algorithm. To develop this adaptive algorithm, computer simulation is required for evaluation of algorithm design. In the case of closing operation, current conducting instant arises before the touching of contacts [2-6]. That means the SF6 gas inside the arcing chamber loses the insulation property. This is because of the gap between contacts is shorten while the dielectric stress is increasing. The normal circuit breaker model which acts as a normal switch cannot be applied for this application. The circuit breaker model must simulate the dielectric characteristic such as breaking down of SF6 gas and the RDDS also has to be concerned. Therefore the proposed circuit breaker model with dielectric strength simulator as in Fig.3 was designed.
Close Command Offset Delay

can be defined as any value which is higher than twice of the rated voltage of circuit breaker.
1500

Closing time RDDS = Slope = 150 kV/ ms

Dielectric Strength (kV) 1000

Maximum Strength
500

Approximated Strength Curve

Touching Point
0 0 120 125 Time (ms) 130 135 140 145

RDDS

Figure 4. Approximated of Dielectric strength

Closing Operation Gas CB Model

Dielectric Strength Simulator

Strength

Comparator

Stress

+
LATCH

- |Vcb| +

Terminal 1

Terminal 2

Vcb

Figure 3. Capacitor bank synchronous controlled switching timing

B. Breakdown Decision Making As mention before, the circuit breaker may conduct current before the touching of contacts. In simulation model as in Fig. 3, there is a comparator which compares the voltage across the circuit breaker, Vcb. If the stress is higher than the strength, comparators output will change to be the active state. This active signal means the SF6 gas is already in breakdown state. The breakdown signal will be held by latching. And then forces the switch to close. Fig. 5 shows the dielectric strength which is compared with the dielectric stress. The moving contact starts to move at 6 ms. The dielectric strength also decreases at the same instant. At 14 ms, the stress is higher than the dielectric strength. This causes the current is conducted and the dielectric strength sudden down to be zero. This is because the SF6 gas loses its insulation property.
450 400 350 Dielectric Strength

A. Dielectric Strength Simulation The dielectric strength simulator is a module that simulates the strength of SF6 gas between the contacts. While the moving contact moves to close, the reduction of gap distance leads to the lower of dielectric strength. If the dielectric strength characteristic of circuit breaker is known, the dielectric strength simulator simply works with lookup table method. Even though the dielectric strength curve is not available, only RDDS and closing time values can be used for the dielectric strength approximation. Generally, the dielectric strength during the making period can be approximated as linearly decreasing characteristic [3, 4, 6, 7] as be shown in Fig. 4. (RDDS and closing time are normally tested by circuit break manufacturer). The approximate dielectric strength curve can be easily drawn. First, define the distance between closing command arriving point to the touching point as the closing time. Then draw a straight line with RDDS slope from touching point to the maximum strength level. The maximum strength level is not an important parameter for control switching application. It

Stress across CB ( kV)

300 250 200 150 100 75 50 0 0 2 Stress across CB

time ( ms )

10 11 12

14

16 17 18

20

Figure 5. Closing of different RDDS CBs

III.

MODEL VERIFICATION

| Breakdown Voltage |(kV)

To verify the circuit breaker model, it was tested by following the testing process as presented in [7]. Then the testing result of this model is compared with the result of the real circuit breaker testing in [3] and [7]. The SF6 circuit breaker model was tested with 50Hz 342.9 kV peak voltage as be shown in Fig. 6. The maximum dielectric strength is set as 1000 kV. The decreasing of dielectric strength is simplified by linear decreasing and the RDDS is set as 150kV/ms.

is reported in Ref. [3] and [7]. The result shows that the zero pre-arcing voltage switching is possible.
350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 -10

-8

-6

-4

-2

0 2 Time (ms)

10

Figure 8. Relation target shifting and the breakdown voltage Figure 6. Relation target shifting and the breakdown voltage

IV.

SIMULATION RESULT

A. Pre-arcing time and Breakdown voltage The circuit breaker model was controlled to close with variation of pre-arcing time. Fig. 7 illustrates the result of closing switching. The pre-arcing time and breakdown voltage are ploted. It indicates that the breakdown voltage linearly relates with the pre-arcing time. The plotting result is a straight line. The slope of this line is equal to the RDDS value, 150 kV/ms. This is the consistently result with the experiment which is reported in [3] and [7].
350 300 | Breakdown Voltage |(kV) 250 200 150 100 50 0 -2.5

A. Adaptive Capacitor Bank Controlled Switching The designed circuit breaker model is applied in the adaptive capacitor bank controlled switching. The adaptive algorithm which is proposed in [1] is used. Fig. 9 shows the simulation result. The closing error is lower than 0.5 ms after the third switching. So the controlled switching system can lower the inrush current even though there is some changing of closing time.
4.5 4 3.5 3

Switching Error ( ms )

2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 - 0.5 - 11 2 3 4 5 6 7 Number of operation cycle 8 9 10

-2

-1.5 -1 -0.5 Pre-arcing Time(ms)

Figure 9. Relation between pre-arcing time and the breakdown voltage

Figure 7. Relation between pre-arcing time and the breakdown voltage

B. Shifting of contact touching point and pre-arcing voltage The contacts of circuit breaker model were controlled to close at different of phase angle. The pre-arcing voltage of each switching was recorded. Fig. 8 shows the relation between pre-arcing voltage and the touching point. The shape of plotting is the consistency with the experiment result which

B. Effect of Inadequate RDDS Circuit Breaker Switching Controlled switching technology requires fast closing circuit breaker. The RDDS must be higher than the maximum rate of change of stress voltage. The maximum slope locates at the zero voltage point. For this experiment, the peak voltage is set as 342.9 kV. So the maximum slope is the peak voltage multiplied with the angular frequency. That means the

minimum requirement of RDDS is 107.73 kV/ms. This simulation studies what will happen if inadequate RDDS circuit breaker is used. The RDDS is set as 50 kV/ms. Then the testing process was perform as in the Shifting of contact touching point and pre-arcing voltage section. Then pre-arcing voltage of each switching was recorded and plotted as in Fig. 10. It indicates that the arcing voltage is never reach the zero point, the minimum pre-arcing voltage is 95.16 kV. This result confirms that the controlled switching technology cannot be applied with low RDDS circuit breaker.
400 350 | Breakdown Voltage |(kV) 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 -10

REFERENCES [1] N. Charbkaew and T. Bunyagul, "Wavelet based Capacitor Bank Adaptive Controlled Switching and its Application to RDDS Approximation for already installed Circuit Breaker," in Power System Technology, 2006. PowerCon 2006. International Conference on, 2006, pp. 1-6. [2] ABB, "Controlled Switchig, Buyer's Guide, Application Guide," 2004. [3] H. Ito, "Controlled switching technologies, state-of-theart," in Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exhibition 2002: Asia Pacific. IEEE/PES, 2002, pp. 1455-1460 vol.2. [4] H. Kohyama, K. Wada, H. Ito, M. Hidaka, S. Billings, T. Sugiyama, and H. Yamamoto, "Development of 550 kV and 362 kV synchronous switching gas circuit breakers," in Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition, 2001 IEEE/PES, 2001, pp. 597-602 vol.1. [5] L. Liuling and Y. Qiu, "Controlled switching of circuit breaker and its site measurement in power distribution system," in Electrical Insulating Materials, 2001. (ISEIM 2001). Proceedings of 2001 International Symposium on, 2001, pp. 777-780. [6] H. Tsutada, T. Hirai, H. Kohyarna, H. Ito, and K. Sasaki, "Development of synchronous switching controller for gas circuit breakers," in Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exhibition 2002: Asia Pacific. IEEE/PES, 2002, pp. 807-812 vol.2. [7] H. Hamada, H. Hamada, A. Eto, T. Maekawa, T. A. K. T. Koshizuka, S. A. N. S. Nishiwaki, N. A. M. N. Miyake, K. A. A. K. Arai, and M. A. K. M. Kosakada, "RDDS (rate of decrease of dielectric strength) measurement for gas circuit breaker," in Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exhibition 2002: Asia Pacific. IEEE/PES, 2002, pp. 1755-1759 vol.3.

-8

-6

-4

-2

0 2 Time (ms)

10

Figure 10. Relation between pre-arcing time and the breakdown voltage

V.

CONCLUSION

This paper proposes the gas circuit breaker modeling which is designed especially for capacitor bank controlled switching. The breakdown phenomenon of SF6 gas is concerned during the closing operation. If the stress across the contacts is higher than its dielectric strength, the circuit breaker conducts current even though there is no touching of its contacts. The proposed model is verified by perform a circuit breaker testing as be proposed in [7]. The results of real circuit breaker testing in [3] and [7] are the consistent result with the experiment in computer simulation. After the model is verified, the simulation of controlled switching was done. The adapting algorithm leads to the higher precision of closing instant, lower the inrush current. For the simulation of very low RDDS circuit breaker, the reaching of zero pre-arcing voltage is not possible. So the controlled switching should use only the fast closing circuit breaker. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank the Coordinating Center for Thai Government Science and Technology Scholarship Students (CSTS) and the National Science and Technology Development Agency for providing and support in this research study. (A New Researcher Scholarship of CSTS, MOST)