Gas Insulated Substation

Gas insulated substation (GIS) design
The metal-enclosed gas insulated switchgear inherently follows the

criteria for new substation design and offers a higher reliability and flexibility
than other solutions. Due to the gas enclosed design, GIS is the most
suitable solution for indoor and underground substations.
Gas insulated substation (GIS) design guidelines (photo credit:

siemens.com)
In outdoor and hybrid substations, the occupied area is tremendously
reduced by using GIS technology!
GIS configurations can be applied to any type of bus bar arrangements:
 Single busbar,
 Double busbar,
 Single busbar with transfer bus,
 Double busbar with double circuit breaker,
 One and a half circuit breaker scheme and
 Ring busbar.
More about switching configurations you can read here. Figure 2 shows
the layout of a GIS substation based on single line diagram in Figure 1.
Figure 1 – Single line diagram of double busbar

In Figure 2 it may be observed how the compact design of GIS reduces
substation area tremendously (at least 70%) compared to the same AIS
configuration! This fact allows GIS to become the choice of preference for
indoor and underground substation.
Figure
2 – Layout of double busbar GIS
For a better appearance, an underground GIS substation can be design with

an aesthetic view that hides its presence. The existence of a substation
could be designed so that it cannot even be recognized, such as given in
example in Figure 2.
Figure 3 – Overview of an underground GIS substation (photo credit: ABB)
GIS performs the same function as AIS. The compact and metal-enclosed
design of GIS has prominent advantages and better performance than AIS.
However, the high initial investment is a key obstacle in expanding the
application of GIS.
In remote or rural area, industrial areas or in developing countries, AIS is still the best
choice. In places where the cost of land or cost of earthworks is high or where the
sceneries cannot be disturbed by AIS, the solution is to use underground or indoor GIS.
Different type of substations has different advantages which come from its
components and design. The characteristics of GIS and AIS are given in the
following table.
Design characteristic of GIS and AIS

Characteristics Air Insulated Switchgear Gas Insulated Switchgea
AIS Dead tank HIS GIS
Type of installation Outdoor Outdoor Outdoor Indoor
Metal-encapsulated circuit breaker – x X x
Metal-encapsulated disconnector – – X x
Metal-encapsulated earthing switch – – X x
Busbar Air insulated Air insulated Air insulated Gas insula
SF6 insulated current transformer – – X x
SF6 insulated voltage transformer – – X x
Direct cable or SF6/oil termination – – X x
From the table, the difference in design characteristics may be observed.

As may be noted, the GIS designs are supposed to be applied where one or
more of the following features are desirable:
 Limited space,
 Extreme environmental conditions,
 Required low environmental impact and
 Less maintenance.
The low failure rate of GIS is also a prominent advantage. But the outage
time (56 hours), double outage time of AIS (25 hours), is one of the
disadvantages.
Economics – Life cycle cost (LCC)

comparison
Regarding economics, initial capital investmentis not enough to evaluate the
overall substation project. Life Cycle Cost (LCC) should be considered,
including primary hardware cost, maintenance cost, operation cost, outage
cost and disposal costs.
The LCC comparison of AIS and GIS is as follows:
1. Primary hardware
Primary hardware for primary equipment, GIS is more expensive than
AIS. However, the price of auxiliary equipment such as support, conductors,
land, installation, control, protection and monitoring can lead to a cost
difference between the two systems being small.
Figure 4
– GIS and AIS substation required space (photo credit: Asif Eqbal, Manager at Alstom Grid)
2. Maintenance
The failure rate of circuit breaker and disconnecting switch in GIS is one-
fourth of that of AIS and one tenth in case of busbar, thus the
maintenance cost of GIS is less than that of AIS over the lifetime.
3. Operation cost
The maintenance cost of GIS and AIS shall be equivalent. The cost
for training in GIS is higher than in AIS.
4. Outage cost
Since the failure rate of GIS is lower, the outage cost of AIS shall
be greater.
5. Disposal cost
The cost of decommissioning and disposal after use should be capitalized.
The value of future expense must be taken into account.
The general conclusion about the LCC advantages of AIS versus

GIS cannot be easily reached. Hence it can only be determined in specific
project. An example below illustrates the LCC comparison. In this example,
GIS and AIS use H-configuration with three circuit breakers.
Figure 4 shows the design of AIS and GIS solutions.
Figure 4 – GIS and AIS solutions in H-configuration

Table 2 – LCC evaluation of AIS and GIS (based on calculation conducted
by a utility)
Air insulated substation Gas insulated substatio

Life Cycle Cost
(AIS) (GIS)
Planning and Engineering 100% 80%
Real estate 100% 40%
Primary equipment 100% 120%
Secondary equipment 100% 100%
Earthwork, civil work, structures 100% 60%
Electrical assembly and erection 100% 70%
Maintenance 100% 50%
Outage 100% 50%
LCC after 10 years 100% Max 70%
The latest GIS technology has less environmental impact than previous
technology. The SF6 leakage rate is less than 1% (in experiment
<0.5%). Due the design characteristics, GIS has a better impact on
environment than AIS.
Table 3 – Environment impact comparison of AIS and GIS
AIS GIS
Primary energy consumption 100% 73%
Area requirement 100% 14%
Acidification potential 100% 81%
Greenhouse potential 100% 79%
Nitrification potential 100% 71%
As observed, GIS offers many prominent advantages over AIS. It meets

all requirements for new substation design, except high initial investment and
potential environmental risk.
This disadvantage and the ever increasing environmental awareness become the drivers for
a new generation of GIS that complies with future green field substation criteria.

Gas Insulated Substation

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Gas Insulated Substation

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Gas Insulated Substation

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Gas insulated substation (GIS) design

The metal-enclosed gas insulated switchgear inherently follows the

Gas insulated substation (GIS) design guidelines (photo credit:

Figure 1 – Single line diagram of double busbar

For a better appearance, an underground GIS substation can be design with

Design characteristic of GIS and AIS

From the table, the difference in design characteristics may be observed.

Economics – Life cycle cost (LCC)

The LCC comparison of AIS and GIS is as follows:

The general conclusion about the LCC advantages of AIS versus

Figure 4 – GIS and AIS solutions in H-configuration

Air insulated substation Gas insulated substatio

Table 3 – Environment impact comparison of AIS and GIS

As observed, GIS offers many prominent advantages over AIS. It meets

You might also like