A Summary of KEPCOs 765 kV Substation Design

Seung-Do Baik, Jong-Hwa Kim*, Young-Sung Choi*, Seong-Min Han

Abstract KEPCOs 765 kV substations have been operating commercially since 2002 as a bulk
power transmission system in Korea. To meet a rapidly increasing power demand and to supply stable bulk power from generating sites to heavy load areas, KEPCO decided to upgrade the highest system voltage from 345 kV to 765 kV. This paper briefly describes KEPCOs overall design philosophies relating to the 765 kV full GIS substations dealing with the particular aspects of reliability and the environment in order for these substations to transmit stable bulk power with no interruption in any case and to harmonize with the surroundings.

Keywords: full GIS, substation, substation design, system, transmission.

1. Introduction
Until the 1970s when KEPCO (the Korea Electric Power Corporation) first constructed the 345 kV transmission system, the substations were built with the conventional types because the GIS (Gas Insulated Switchgear) technology which uses SF6 gas as an insulation medium had not yet been developed; there were also no difficulties in land acquisition. In the early 1980s, GIS technology was first introduced to indoor type 154 kV substations and several years later construction of outdoor type 345 kV substations began. In the 1990s, at the time of construction of the 765 kV substation, it was more difficult to acquire the land required and to meet environmental requirements. To solve such problems, instead of the conventional airinsulated substation, KEPCO decided to construction 765 kV substations of the full GIS type that have live exposed parts only at the outlet section and no live exposed parts on its premises. As a first stage of the 765 kV project in order to meet a rapidly increasing power demand and to supply stable bulk power from generating sites to heavy load areas, KEPCO constructed two (2) 765 kV transmission routes including three (3) 765 kV substations to transmit bulk power generated on the west coast to metropolitan areas and one (1) 765 kV transmission route including two (2) 765 kV substations to transmit bulk power from the east coast.

Fig. 1

765 kV system network

2. Design Outline
The final scale of the 765 kV substation was decided to play a major role as a main bulk power transmission system in the future power system. Eight (8) 765 kV transmission lines, twelve (12) 345 kV transmission lines and five (5) 765/345 kV transformer banks can be potentially accommodated. Table Type Final scale The scale of 765 kV substation Outdoor full GIS 5 banks of 765 kV Tr. 8 circuits of 765 kV transmission line 12 circuits of 345 kV transmission line 7 banks of 345 kV shunt reactor 107,500

Dept. of Transmission and Substation Construction, Korea Electric Power Corporation, Korea.([email protected])

Site area

As major equipment, 765 kV power transformers with 2,000 MVA per bank whose single phase is divided into two tanks not to exceed the transportation limit, up-to-date 50 kA, 8,000 A GIS with a double bus and breaker and a half bus scheme, and dual digital protective relay system with a self-diagnosis function were adopted in designing the substation. HSGS, high speed grounding switch, was used to make it possible to achieve multiphase re-closing for rapid elimination of secondary arc induced from other phases or circuits in the ground fault of a high voltage transmission line within a second. A computer aided distributed supervisory control system with fiber optic LAN (Local Area Network) cables was used for the purpose of blocking surge-interference fundamentally and reducing the number of control cables. To be environmentally friendly, the switchyard was paved with color seepage concrete instead of gravel, the pipe type gantry tower was adopted to harmonize with outgoing towers, and so on. Visual design through 3 D graphic simulation using virtual reality was carried out in advance before construction for the most effective layout and harmony of colors.

However, the 765 kV substation uses a GIB (Gas Insulated Bus) and oil-gas bushings to connect the GIS and other equipment. This can minimize the required area and provide safety and environmental harmony without live exposed parts on the premises. 3.2 Bus Scheme A breaker and a half bus scheme was adopted to the 765 kV side as well as the 345 kV side, considering the system flexibility, economical efficiency, and reliability necessary to meet bulk power transmission requirements without interruption. Also, this bus scheme is convenient for maintenance and familiar to the operators because it is the same as the existing 345 kV substations. As twelve (12) 345 kV transmission lines can be accommodated in final scale, the bus section circuit breakers are arranged in the middle of 345 kV buses in order to separate buses if necessary and minimize the fault spreading.

4. Insulation Design 3. Substation Type and Bus Scheme

3.1 Substation Type There are not many options when deciding substation type because Korea has a highly dense population in a small land area and 70 % of the land consists of mountainous territory. Therefore, the 765 kV substation was selected as an outdoor full GIS type to reduce the required area instead of conventional AIS type which requires about 330,000 m2 of the land which is impossible to acquire. The existing 345 kV substations have been constructed as a hybrid GIS types which connects the GIS to other equipment by overhead conductors. As a goal of insulation design, it was considered that the equipment would have to be protected from the surge coming from outside with an appropriate arrangement of surge arresters, and to protect insulation breakdown from the surge generated in the internal system. 4.1 Overvoltage Ratio of insulation design The overvoltage ratio of internal abnormal voltage was decided as in the following table. Table Overvoltage ratio of insulation design Overvoltage Item Standard of P.U ratio Phase Neutral Phase to ground Phase to phase 1.2 0.3 1.8 3.5
1 P .U = 800 kV 3

Power frequency overvoltage Switching overvoltage

1 P .U = 800

2 kV 3

4.2 Rated Insulation Strength The rated insulation strength of equipment was selected as shown in the following table to give an appropriate margin against internal and external abnormal voltage. Fig. 2 A view of 765 kV substation

Table Item Transformer GIS

Rated insulation strength [kVpeak] Lightning Switching Temporary impulse impulse overvoltage 2,050 1,500 800 2,250 1,425 830

Also the divided single tanks of each phase can be operated at 1,000 MVA capacity at the initial stage with a light load or in the case of the fault of a certain tank of transformer bank. The ratings of the 765 kV transformer are in the following table. Table Item Type Rated voltage Rated capacity On load tap changer % impedance Cooling method 5.2 GIS One of the most important factors when designing the 765 kV full GIS substation was the assurance of a high quality GIS. The ratings of 765 kV transformer Ratings Single phase auto transformer (divided into 2 tanks)
765 345 / / 23 kV 3 3

4.3 Surge Arrester Surge arresters were installed at the outlet of the transmission line, the connection point between tie bus and outgoing GIB to transmission line, at each end of main bus and in front of the transformer. The ratings of surge arresters were selected as 580 kV class of the rated voltage and 20 kA of the rated discharge current. As a 4 class of discharging class, below 1,600 kV of very fast wave residual voltage, below 1,500 kV of lightning impulse residual voltage, below 1,400 kV of switching impulse residual voltage, over 5 MJ of discharging energy was selected. 4.4 Clearance Standard The clearance standard is applied to decide the structures for the outgoing gantry in the full GIS substation, and directly influences the total required area of switchyard. The applied clearance was as in the following table. Table Item Phase to phase Phase to ground Clearance standard Standard Minimum clearance clearance 11 m 8.5 m 7m 5m

2,000 MVA 7 % (23 Tap) 18 % FOA

Fig. 4

800 kV GIS

5. Specifications of Major Equipment

5.1 Power Transformer The capacity of the 765 kV power transformer was selected as 2,000 MVA per bank and a phase was divided into two tanks in order to meet transportation limit.

The 800 kV GIS adopted high performance switchgears such as a 2 breaks per phase circuit breaker with 2 cycles of breaking time, disconnecting switches with resistors, etc. The ratings of the 800 kV GIS are in the following table. Table The ratings of 800 kV GIS Item Ratings Rated voltage 800 kV Rated current 8,000 A Rated breaking current 50 kA Rated short time current 50 kA / 2 second 2 breaks per phase Circuit breaker 2 cycles breaking time With pre-insertion resistor Disconnecting switch With resistor High speed grounding 8 kA breaking current switch 700 kV TRV Current transformer 1 A secondary current

Fig. 3

765 kV power transformer

Potential transformer Surge arrestor Bushing 5.3 Protection System

Prevention of ferro-resonance 580 kV, 20 kA Porcelain of Composite

5.4 Supervision and Control System A computer aided distributed supervisory control system was adopted to supervise and effectively control equipment distributed into large areas. The LCUs, local control units, were distributed to each local house and connected to CCU (Central Control Unit) and the MPU (Main Processing Unit) installed in the main control building. Also fiber optic LAN cables were used to connect the CCU to each LCU for the purpose of fundamentally blocking surge-interference and reducing the number of control cables.

In order to operate the 765 kV bulk power transmission system stably, it is important to assure high performance of protective relays, minimization of transmission route outage and high speed fault elimination. The dual digital protection system was adopted, and the signal transmission route was also composed in dual, to meet those requirements. The operating time of main protective relay was selected within 1 ~ 2 cycles for the fault elimination at high speed.

Fig. 5 Digital protective relays A multi phase re-closing method was applied to minimize the outage of transmission route. The re-closing time was limited to within 1 second considering the system stability and the time coordination with back-up protection. In a high voltage transmission line, the secondary arc is induced from other phases in the case of a ground fault even when the circuit breaker disconnects the fault phase. This can cause difficulties when applying high speed reclosing within a second because the required time to eliminate the secondary arc increases, and can cause a route outage due to the reduced stability. Therefore, HSGS was used to make it possible to achieve multi phase re-closing for rapid elimination of secondary arc.

Fig. 7 Distributed supervisory and control system The distance between the main control building and outside equipment is very long, and requires many long control cables that could generate communication errors. To solve these problems, the local houses were installed beside outside equipment and accommodated protective relay panels and LCUs. This decreased the required length of control cables and minimized communication errors caused by surge-interference. 765 kV local houses were installed at every second 800 kV GIS bay and 345 kV local houses were installed at every fourth 345 kV GIS bay as a standard. 5.5 Preventive Diagnosis System To reduce the possibilities of faults and forecast any possible faults being generated in major equipment, the preventive diagnosis system was adopted. This acquires and analyzes the equipment data from sensors installed at equipment on-line, and provides the present and future state of equipment in order to prevent possible faults in advance by means of timely maintenance. The diagnosis items and system configuration are as follows:

Fig. 6 765 kV HSGS

respectively.

Fig. 8 5.6 Station Power

Preventive diagnosis system Fig. 9 Ground potential rise after grounding design

7. Environmental Harmony
The three station transformer banks with a capacity of 2,000 kVA per bank for AC station power were installed considering their importance in providing an operating power source for fans and pumps of the 765 kV transformers which have no self cooling capacity with the 3 stage FOA cooling method. Two banks receive the power source from the tertiary windings of 765 kV transformers, and one bank for stand by receives the power source from the distribution line in the use of a fault of all transformers. Also, UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) was installed for each dual distributed supervisory control system to prevent cases of full system blackout. For the DC station power, batteries were installed in each local house in duplicate at the 765 kV side and the 345 kV side as well. Applying the full GIS type, the 765 kV substations are basically environmentally friendly. To be more environmentally friendly, the switchyard was paved with color seepage concrete instead of gravel as adopted in existing outdoor substations, the pipe type gantry tower was adopted to harmonize with outgoing towers and meet the required tensile strength about 10 tons per phase, trees were planted along the border of substations, and so on.

6. Grounding Design
The grounding design was very difficult because the maximum ground fault current of 765 kV substation is 63 kA and the substations were located in mountainous areas with high soil resistivity. The design was carried out individually for each substation, using recent international standard and commercialized grounding design software. Looking at the major parameters applied in grounding design, the maximum one line ground fault current was 63 kA applying 40 GVA of the maximum three phase short circuit capacity of the 345 kV bus, and 50 % of the ground current distribution rate was applied. The grounding resistance was lowered as much as possible, but not limited, while the GPR, ground potential rise, was limited to within 10,000 V. The power system neighboring the substation was analyzed by computer program to select the ground current distribution rate, and a 4,000 shoe resistance was newly applied. Also several methods, such as the grounding rod, the grounding rod with needles and the auxiliary grounding net, were applied to reduce the transient impedance according to the conditions of soil resistivity and design criteria after analyzing its effect on each substation

Fig. 10

The pipe type gantry tower

Also, a 3 D graphic simulation using virtual reality was applied to carry out visual design for the most effective layout and harmony of colors in advance before construction.

Fig. 11

3D graphic simulation

8. Conclusion
One of the characteristics of the power system in Korea is a regional imbalance between heavy demands concentrated in metropolitan areas which consume over 40 % of load and supplies located at the coast. KEPCOs 765 kV transmission system solved this regional imbalance by transmitting bulk power and improving system stability. Applied up-to-date technologies and new systems in design and construction have influenced related industry, such as manufacture, engineering and construction, spurring the development of new technology and equipment. Also, the environmentally friendly design philosophies can set an example for other counties who consider the environment as an important design factor.

References
Books: 765 kV Project Team, Korea Electric Power Corporation, 765 kV Substation Design Standard, 2001 765 kV Project Team, Korea Electric Power Corporation, Guidelines of 765 kV Substation Insulation Design, 1995 Technical Reports: Korea Electric Power Research Institute, Korea Electric Power Corporation, Design Report of 765 kV Sinseosan Substation Grounding Design, 1998