21, rue d’Artois, F-75008 PARIS B2_107_2016 CIGRE 2016

http : //www.cigre.org B2-PS1

A 500 kV HVAC circuit conversion into a +/-500 kV HVDC bipole line in the
Central Interconnected System (Chile)

A. ALEGRIA* G. CHAVEZ J. ESCUTI

Transelec S.A. Transelec S.A. Transelec S.A.
Chile

SUMMARY

The increasing difficulty to build new transmission lines represents a serious risk to the
electrical supply of the big cities and heavy industry. In the Central Interconnected System in
Chile, this difficulty has derived in severe delay (more than 2 years) in the commissioning of a
very important line – 2x500 kV HVAC circuits in a common tower- connecting the
hydroelectric generation resources of the center-south of the country (injected in Ancoa and
Charrua substations) with the load center (Alto Jahuel Substation). After the commissioning of
these lines, it is very likely that the feasibility of build more parallel corridors could be restricted
due to social opposition and/or environmental issues, resulting in cost and time-prohibitive
solutions to solve the supply needs in the long-term.

The final topology of the 500 kV system between Alto Jahuel – Ancoa and Ancoa – Charrua
will consider 4 circuits, two of which had a one circuit-per tower configuration and their unique
Right of Way (RoW). These lines could transport up to 3,300 MW which wouldn’t be enough
to bring to the load center most of the hydroelectric generation potential from the south of Chile
if this is developed in the next decade.

In this paper, a technical analysis of the conversion of one of the 500 kV independent tower-
circuits into a ±500 kV or ±600 kV HVDC bipole is perform, considering aspects such as
reinforcements or modification of structures, increase of the width of RoW, replacements of the
insulation and the use of new conductors. Even though this alternative doesn’t require a new
RoW, the resulting combined capacity of the 3 HVAC circuits + 1 HVDC bipole is compared
to the conventional alternative of using new 2x500 kV lines in parallel.

KEYWORDS

Overhead Line – HVDC – AC-DC Line Conversion – Right of Way – Minimization of Social
Impact – Transmission Capacity

* aalegria@transelec.cl
1. INTRODUCTION

The Central Interconnected System (SIC) is one of the two biggest electrical system in Chile,
soon to be interconnected with the Great North Interconnected System (SING) in the first
quarter of 2018 through a 500 kV system which will extend for about 2,000 km from Nueva
Encuentro-Crucero 500kV up to Charrua 500 kV in the south. From all the segment that
constitutes the line, the most important is the one between Alto Jahuel 500 kV and Charrua 500
kV, connecting the load center (near Santiago) with the hydroelectric resources injecting in
Ancoa and Charrua.

Nowadays, there are 4x500 kV circuits operating in Alto Jahuel – Ancoa (256 km), with the
last two commissioned only in the fourth quarter of 2015 after a delay of two years [1], and two
in Ancoa – Charrua (196 km) with other 2 under construction with a projected commissioned
of one of them in 2018 [2] as shown in Fig.1. The narrowness of Chile in conjunction with the
density of population and industrial activities in the zone make increasingly difficult to build
new parallel lines, therefore, the alternative of upgrading or reutilization of existing
transmission lines with their associated right of way becomes critical.

ALTO JAHUEL

ANCOA

CHARRUA

ANCOA

Fig.1 Alto Jahuel – Ancoa – Charrua 500 kV circuits in SIC [3]

Even considering the huge renewables resources located in the north of Chile, there is an
increasing consensus [4] about the need of develop also the hydroelectric resources located in
the basin of the rivers of the center and south of the country and eventually –even considering
the social opposition- in the Aysen Region (Chilean Patagonia). The existing and projected
transmission system [1][2][5][6][7][8] should not be enough to evacuate such amount of
resources in the case of the north [9] and especially in the south, therefore some alternatives
must be analyzed in order of have a transmission system adapted which can provide a long-
term solution.

2. ALTO JAHUEL – ANCOA - CHARRUA 500 kV SYSTEM

As stated above, this corridor was compound by two 1x500 kV circuits in their individual
towers (that we will call C1 and C2) and the new 2x500 kV circuits per tower up to Ancoa with
the same configuration in the future Ancoa – Charrua segment. The nature of C1 and C2 implies
a low utilization of the total “power transferred per area intervened” in comparison with the

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other circuits, therefore, is logical to think about alternatives of reutilization of one (or both) of
these circuits to uprate the total capacity of the entire corridor.

The Table 1 summarize a voltage stability analysis performed in Digsilent Power Factory (PV
Curves), considering the actual configuration of the Alto Jahuel – Ancoa segment and the
addition of new AC parallel circuits.

Table 1 – Transfer capacity in the Alto Jahuel – Ancoa corridor with parallel circuits
Q line Pmax
N° x-total, Thermal Q losses, Pmax PV
reactors, theoretical,
Circuits Ω/km Capacity, MVA MVAr Curve, MW
MVAr MW

2 0.120 3571.5 255.1 300.0 3351.0 3381.7

3 0.080 5357.2 382.7 450.0 5026.4 3701.6
4 0.060 7143.0 510.2 600.0 6702.0 3805.3
5 0.048 8928.7 637.8 750.0 8377.4 3892.3
6 0.040 10714.5 765.3 900.0 10052.9 3950.4
7 0.034 12500.2 892.9 1050.0 11728.3 3991.0
8 0.030 14286.0 1020.4 1200.0 13403.9 4020.8

There is a huge gap between what could be achieve theoretically in terms of capacity and the
result of the real power allowed through the lines as shown in the Fig 2. Moreover, the power
incremental derived of the addition of parallel AC circuits is decreasing as show in Fig 3.

Power transfer - Alto Jahuel to Ancoa 500kV Power incremental with parallel 500 kV AC
MVA MW
16000
circuits
350

14000 300

12000 250

10000 200

8000 150

6000 100

4000 50

2000 0
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 3 4 5 6 7 8
N circuits N circuits
Thermal Capacity, MVA Pmax theorical, MW Pmax real system, MW Pmax incremental, MW

Fig.2 Total transfer capacity as a function of Fig.3 Power incremental as a function of

parallel 500 kV AC circuits parallel 500 kV AC circuits

The addition of more parallel AC circuits doesn’t produce a significant increase in the transfer
capacity unless a huge and impractical amount of reactive power is connected in the receiving
end; in the following section a different approach is taken: convert C1 into a HVDC bipole,
trying to reuse as much as possible the existing infrastructure.

3. AC TO DC CONVERSION OF A 500 kV CIRCUIT

Between the two circuits with a single structure configuration, C1 includes less structures that
requires intervention and present slightly less length so it should be choose to be reconverted
into a HVDC bipole. The basic design criteria for the reconversion in terms of security
distances, clearances and electrical field constrains are based on [9]. The activities required to
accomplish the reconversion are the following:

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  Modification of type V and type A structures to adequate the new distances required
 Entire replacement of the insulation of the line for longer DC-type insulator chains
 Withdrawal of the central phase and its existing insulator chains to leave only two
conductors per structure (pole + and pole -)
 Replacement of the existing ACC conductors for low-sag type conductor with the same
section

3.1 Structure modifications

The C1 circuit has 1,108 lattice type galvanized steel towers, with three typified heights: 25 m
(192 towers), 29.5 m (288 towers) and 34.0 m (628 towers). Considering that the 34.0 m towers
doesn’t require any modification, only a 46% of the total towers must be intervened in order to
increase the height (security distance) according to the design criteria for ground-level electric
fields using 40 kV/m as admissible value [9][10].

In the practice, the way to increase the height of the type V structures consists in the addition
of metal bodies inserted in the existing structures and the modification of the suspenders as
shown schematically in Fig. 4. In the case of the type A structures, additionally to the inserted
metal bodies, the crossbar sections could be shortened in order to reduce the weight in the
foundations [10] as shown in Fig. 5.

Type V structure
∆h

h h Additional
metal bodies

∆d/2 d ∆d/2
d
Fig.4 Required modifications in type V towers

Type A structure
∆h

Additional
metal bodies
h h

Fig.5 Required modifications in type A towers

Depending in the increase in height that those modifications could produce it is feasible to
convert C1 into a ±500 kV or ±600 kV HVDC bipole line. In Fig.6 and Fig.7 those
modifications are shown for type V and type A structures. It is important to mention that most
of the structures doesn’t require any modifications allowing its use in any of the two DC
voltages analyzed.

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 Fig.6 Modifications of type V structures for ±500 Fig.7 Modifications of type A structures for ±500
kV and ±600 kV HVDC kV and ±600 kV HVDC

3.2 Insulation replacement

The existing insulators are made of glass specified for AC operation with a “v” configuration
of the chain connected to the conductor which could be kept in order of simplify the works. The
reconversion from AC to DC requires the complete replacement of the AC glass insulators for
new ones specify for DC with higher requirements in terms of creepage distance attending to
the pollution levels of the zone. In this case, 300 kN DC glass insulators with 690 mm of
creepage distance are recommended, resulting in 29 insulators per chain (6 meters) for ±500
kV and 35 insulators per chain (7 meters) for ±600 kV.

3.3 Right of Way

The span of the existing Right of Way of the C1 circuit is 80 m (40 m on each side of the tower).
It is possible to use a narrow or equal RoW if a proper conductor is selected attending to the
radio interference (RI) or audible noise (AN) requirements [9] for ±500 kV or ±600 kV. In this
case, the selected conductor bundle must have a similar weight in comparison with the existing
2x1400 MCM ACAR conductors considered an additional room for extra weight coming from
the withdrawal of the central phase. It is important to mention that if there is an additional
requirement of a broader right of way, it shouldn’t be more difficult to increase the width span
of the existing one than looking for another.

3.4 Conductor replacement

As stated above, the existing conductor of the C1 circuit is a 2x1400 MCM ACAR bundle with
an ampacity of nearly 2 kA. In order to maximize the transfer capacity of the conductor a 3 kA
ampacity bundle could be chosen to have a 3,000 MW HVDC bipole line considering a voltage
of ±500 kV. This could be achieve using a bundle with 3 sub conductors of the same 1400
MCM section -taking advantage of the disassemble of the central phase- without stressing too
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much the structures or using low sag type conductors. The final selection must take into
consideration the restrictions of the conductor surface gradient and the effect of the radio
interference and audible noise in the final Right of Way required for the resulting HVDC bipole
line [9] being this analysis out of the scope of this paper although the low-sag conductor
potentialities are considered in the future sections.

3.5 Electrode and metallic return considerations

For this analysis the use of a ring type electrode is considered, although the central phase could
be used as a metallic return. The latter alternative was discarded in this analysis for simplicity
because of the additional weight stresses on the structures if a 3x1400 MCM or superior caliber
bundle is chosen.

4. TRANSFER CAPACITY INCREASE AFTER CONVERSION

The criterion used to designed the HVDC bipole in ± 500 kV and ± 600 kV was to utilize as
much as possible the existing structures intervening only the ones that required a higher
clearance, using steel bodies and modifying accordingly the suspenders and crossbars; there
wasn’t any optimization of the current capacity of the line poles further than replace the existing
ones of nearly 2 kA of ampacity for low-sag type conductors or a new bundle with 3 or more
sub conductors, increasing it up to 4 kA. In the following analysis a 3,000 MW ± 500 kV HVDC
bipole was considered (which implies a nominal current of 3 kA) even if there is some room to
growth in power or aiming for higher overload capabilities.

Considering a 2024 operational scenario with SIC and SING already interconnected with an
increase in load located in Alto Jahuel with a 0.98 power factor, the analysis performed in
Digsilent Power Factory shows the results for the N-1 configuration in the corridor under study
with the projected 4x500 kV AC and the potential 3x500 kV + 3,000 MW ± 500 kV HVDC
bipole.

3,356.4 MW ALTO 6,040.7 MW ALTO

JAHUEL 500kV JAHUEL 500kV

3,356.4 MW 3,253.7 MW

from from
ANCOA 220kV 500 kVdc ANCOA 220kV
458.1 MW 401.4 MW

ANCOA 500kV ANCOA 500kV

2,129.2 MW 1,662.0 MW

3,000 MW

NUEVA NUEVA
CHARRUA 500kV CHARRUA 500kV

969.8 MW 860.5 MW 509.1 MW 1,322.8 MW

CHARRUA 500kV CHARRUA 500 kV

Fig.8 Maximum transfers 4x500 kV AC Fig.9 Maximum transfers 3x500 kV AC + 3,000 MW

with N-1 criterion ± 500 kV HVDC bipole with N-1 criterion

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The conversion of one circuit allows the transmission of nearly of 1.8 times what could be
achieve with the projected configuration in AC. If we compare this result to the ones shown in
Table 1, it is easy to conclude how effective the conversion from AC to DC is even if the
minimization of the social and environmental impact that this project could bring is not taken
in consideration. Moreover, it is possible to achieve up to 4,800 MW if the bipole line is
operated at 4 kA and ± 600 kV.

It is important to mention that this conversion not necessarily could configure a point-to-point
HVDC link between Charrua and Alto Jahuel, because also it could be used as a part of a longer
HVDC bipole line coming from Aysen as shown in Fig. 10 [11][12]. As an extreme case, the
complete circuit C1 could be disassemble to build a new double bipole in the same structure
HVDC considering only the use of the RoW (probably extended some meters) as shown in Fig.
11 [11][12] allowing that all the hydroelectric resources of Aysen could be injected directly in
Alto Jahuel or another substation surrounding the Santiago Area.

AJah Anc NChar Char Cir PMo

1,000 MW

C1 Right of Way
Aysen
500 kVdc New HVDC bipole line 500 kV
3,000 MW

Fig.10 AC circuit reconverted as a part of a HVDC bipole line coming from Aysen

AJah Anc NChar Char Cir PMo

Aysen

New HVDC double bipole line 500 kV

500 kVdc 2,000 MW
in the same structure

500 kVdc 2,000 MW

C1 Right of Way

Fig.11 – Disassemble of C1 and reutilization of its RoW to build a double bipole in the same structure
HVDC line

5. ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

The Table 2 shows the referential cost of the conversion of C1 based on internal estimation for
the reconversion of the line [10] and the CIGRE literature [9].

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 Table 2 – Total cost of conversion of C1 into a 3,000 MW ± 500 kV HVDC bipole
ITEM DESCRIPTION COST, MUSD
Equipment 432.7
HVDC Stations
Construction and installation (50% of Equipment) 216.4
Electrodes Supply and construction 6.6
Studies and Administration 2.8
Supply 45.0
Reconversion Construction and installation 29.4
Transport 2.5
Commissioning 0.1
TOTAL Reconversion C1 circuit 735.5

It is important to mention that the reutilization of electrical equipment such as breakers, series
compensation and reactors in not considered as a potential benefit of the conversion, hence is
not discounted of the cost shown in Table 2. Meanwhile, the cost of an additional AC circuit
with the same features than C1 is detailed in Table 3 which is based on [13].

Table 3 – Total cost of a 2x500 kV line

SEGMENT ITEM COST, MUSD
Substation equipment 86.3
Alto Jahuel - Ancoa
Overhead line 112.3
Substation equipment 76.1
Ancoa - Charrua
Overhead line 89.6
TOTAL 2x500 kV Alto Jahuel - Ancoa -
364.3
Charrua line

According to the results, it is simple to conclude than the alternative of convert one circuit into
HVDC is the best solution to increase significantly the transfer capacity if the electrical results
condensed in Table 1 are taken into consideration (comparison of the transfer capacity of 8x500
kV AC circuits with a ±500 kV HVDC bipole), even considering that the cost of a point-to-
point HVDC link is twice as costly than a 2x500 kV new transmission line. Moreover, the
difficulty of finding available land to establish a new RoW should make even more convenient
the conversion of C1. The economics of the disassemble of C1 to use the RoW to build a double
bipole HVDC line are analyzed in [11] and [12], where similar conclusions could be made
comparing an AC versus DC transmission development in the entire span from Alto Jahuel to
Puerto Montt substation (southern extreme of SIC).

6. CONCLUSIONS

The conversion of a 1x500 kV circuit of the Alto Jahuel – Ancoa – Charrua corridor into a
HVDC line could solve the future needs of transmission capacity from the south up to the load
centers of Chile through an electrically efficient alternative based of the use of the existing
infrastructure which can also minimize the social and environmental impact in a densely
populated and industrialized zone of the country. The complete disassemble of the entire circuit
could also be a viable alternative if its right of way is used to build a double bipole in single
structure HVDC line, bringing directly to Santiago the energy from the Aysen Region if those
hydroelectric projects are approved developed in the future years.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] Ministry of Economy of Chile “Decreto Supremo N°642 de 2009” (May 9th of 2009).
[2] Ministry of Energy of Chile “Decreto Supremo N°115 de 2011” (May 2nd of 2011).
[3] http://www.transelec.cl
[4] Ministry of Energy of Chile “Decreto Supremo N°82 de 2012” (March 24th of 2012).
[5] Ministry of Energy of Chile “Decreto Supremo N°310 de 2013” (August 8th of 2013).
[6] Ministry of Energy of Chile “Decreto Supremo N °201 de 2014” (June 12th of 2014).
[7] Ministry of Energy of Chile “Decreto Supremo N°158 de 2015” (April 12th of 2015).
[8] Planning and Development Direction CDEC-SIC “Propuesta Plan de Expansión del Sistema de Transmisión
Troncal 2015 Informe Final” (September 11th of 2015).
[9] CIGRE Joint Working Group B2/B4/C1.17 “Impact of HVDC Lines on the Economics of HVDC Projects”
(CIGRE Brochure 288, August 2009).
[10] Germán Chávez O. “Reconversión línea 500 kV HVAC en HVDC Corredor Charrúa – Alto Jahuel” (Energy
Engineering Master Degree Thesis, PUC, October 2014).
[11] Sebastián Medina M. “Estudio de la integración de los proyectos hidroeléctricos en la Región de Aysén al
Sistema Interconectado Central” (Electrical Engineer Degree Thesis, UTFSM Valparaíso, April 2015).
[12] Fernanda Vera B. “Evaluación Económica de las Alternativas de Interconexión de Proyectos
Hidroeléctricos de la Región de Aysén” (Electrical Engineer Degree Thesis, USACH, due to April 2016).
[13] National Energy Commission CNE Chile “Informe Técnico para la Determinación del Valor Anual y
Expansión de los Sistemas de Transmisión Troncal, Cuadrienio 2016-2019” (June 2015).