SWITCHYARD What is a Switchyard? The switchyard is a junction connecting the Transmission & Distribution system to the power plant.

It means collection of electrical equipment where high voltage electricity is switched using of various component. What is a Substation? An electrical substation is a subsidiary station of an electricity generation, transmission and distribution system where voltage is transformed from high to low or the reverse using transformers. What is the difference between Switchyard and Substation? The function of substation is to stepping up or down the voltage as per requirements. It receives electrical power via incoming transmission lines and delivers electrical power via the outgoing transmission lines. The function of Switchyards is to deliver the generated power from power plant at desired voltage level to the nearest grid. Function of switch yard The function of electrical switch yard is to deliver the generated power from power plant at desired voltage level to the nearest grid or in another way you can say simply switching the received power supply from various generating station to various location w.r.t their requirement. ELEMENTS OF A SWITHYARD 1. Galvanized steel structures for towers, gantries and equipment support 2. Bus Bar 3. Insulators 4. Lightning Arrestor 5. Circuit Breaker 6. Isolator 7. Earthing Switch 8. Current Transformer 9. Potential transformer 10.Capacitor voltage transformer 11.Wave trap and PLCC 12.Shunt reactor/Capacitor 13.Power Cables

14.Control Cables for protection and control 15.Control and Protection Panel 16.DC Battery and Charging Equipment

Description of the equipment 1. Galvanized steel structures for towers, gantries and equipment support

2. Bus Bar: Bus bar is that conductor where feeders from generating
station & feeders for different load-Centre are connected. The type of arrangement adopted depends on various factors viz. to ensure uninterrupted and reliable power supply distribution, should be economically viable, should be easy for operation and maintenance, and should be more flexible. The materials used for bus bar should have low resistivity, higher softening temperature, good mechanical properties and low cost. To accommodate more number of bays within limited space, two tire designs of conductors are followed in modern switchyards. The upper level consists of flexible bus bar arrangement of ACSR (Aluminum Conductor Steel Reinforcement) strung between Aframes by using string of insulators consisting of several number of disc insulators depending upon the voltage level. This arrangement requires high structures and high spacing of conductors. In MTPS four main bus systems are used: - MAIN BUS 1, MAIN BUS 2, MAIN BUS 3 & MAIN BUS 4 (main bus 1 and main bus 2 is connected by jumper to main bus 3 & 4). MAIN BUS 1 & MAIN BUS 2 are used for unit 1 to unit 4 (220 KV, 50 Hz). MAIN BUS 3 & MAIN BUS 4 are used for unit 5 & 6(220 KV, 50 Hz). Two new main buses are introduced for unit 7 and unit 8 (400 KV, 50 Hz).

3. Insulator:
The live equipments are mounted over the steel structures or suspended from gantries with sufficient insulation in between them. Porcelain insulators are most widely used. Following two types of insulators are used in switchyard: a) Pedestal b) disc

a) PEDESTAL: These are used on steel structures for rigid supporting of pipe bus bars, for holding the blade and fixed contacts of the isolators. b) DISC: These insulator units are connected to each other to form a string insulator of required length to suit the system voltage. In switchyards these insulators are for stringing of swing bus, at the dead end and as a drop down conductor. Normal system voltage, system over voltage due to switching and lighting strokes, rainfall, atmospheric pollution etc. are the important factors to be considered along with the mechanical factors such as loading, swing etc. for the selection of insulators in the switchyard.

4. Lightning Arrestor/ Surge Diverter :

In switchyard, the first and the last equipment is lightning arrestor, also called surge arrestor, as it protects the switchyard from any surges. Temporary over-voltages may be caused by a number of system events such as line to ground-fault , circuit back feeding , load rejection, ferroresonance. There may be also other internal surges known to be switching surges. A lightning arrestor resembling a safety valve of the system diverts these over voltages to ground by lowering its resistance. Use of lightning arrestor: i. ii. iii. It protects the equipment from lightning stroke. It is used to give electrostatic shielding against external field. Lightning arrester is used to provide path to unwanted excessive currents.

5. Circuit Breaker: Circuit breakers are the main switching equipment in a

switchyard. These are capable of safe interruption of normal as well as very high fault currents without causing any damage to the circuit breakers contacts. The breakers shall essentially consist of moving and fixed contacts kept within a dielectric medium. The medium in case of EHV may be compressed air, insulating oil, sulphur hexafluoride gas or high vacuum. The moving contact is connected to the external operating mechanism through insulating handle/rod capable of making it on and off with sufficient force and speed. As the contacts separate arcing between these parting contacts takes place due to high temperature, voltage gradient and multiplication of electrons present within the arc space. For successful arc interruption the function of the dielectric medium is to fulfill the following basic requirements.

Types: i. Oil Circuit breaker: Oil circuit breakers rely upon vaporization of some of the oil to blast a jet of oil through the arc. ii. Gas Circuit breaker: Gas (SF6) circuit breaker sometimes stretch the arc using magnetic field and then rely upon the dielectric strength of SF6 to quench the stretched arc. iii. Vacuum Circuit breaker: Vacuum circuit breakers have minimal arcing (as there is nothing to ionize other than the contact material), so that the arc quenches when it is stretched by a small amount(<2-3 mm).Vacuum circuit breakers are frequently used in modern medium voltage switchgear to 35000 volts. Unlike the other types they are inherently unsuitable for interrupting DC faults. iv. Air Circuit breaker: Air circuit breaker may use compressed or the magnetic force of the earth itself to elongate the earth.as the length of the sustainable earth is dependent on the available voltage the elongated earth will eventually exhaust itself. Use: Basic use of switchgear is protection which is interruption of short circuit and overload fault currents while maintaining service to unaffected circuits. Switchgear also provides isolation of circuits from power supplies. Switchgear is also used to enhance system availability by allowing more than one source to feed a load. Specification of SF6 circuit breaker: Rated voltage: 6.6 kv, Rated pressure of SF6 3.4 barabs Rated current: 800A, Motor supply voltage: 220V/DC Rated frequency:50HZ Auxiliary circuit:220 V Rated peak making current:103 KV Trip/closed coil 220V/DC Rated breaking current:40 KA, Rated short time current for 3sec:40 KA Maker: NGEF in technical collaboration with ABB SPACE Italy.

6. Isolator: It is used for no load opening or closing of circuits. They can be

operated remotely by motorized, hydraulic, pneumatic mechanisms or manually. Isolators have their positional switches at their mechanism boxes for development of a set of contacts according to ON or OFF status of the isolators.

 Uses of isolator: It provides electrical isolation of the equipment, bus bar and circuit from the live parts for maintenance purpose. It is using for transfer of load from one bus to another.

7. Earthing Switch: 8. Current Transformer: Current Transformer is a series connected

transformer having single bar primary several protection cores and one metering core of respective accuracy classes. The entire transformer element is kept in porcelain case with transformer oil in sealed condition and is pressurized by nitrogen for reducing corona. Design: Uses of Current Transformer: i. Ct are used for electronic meter whose VA are very less ii. It is used for units protection such as BUS Zone, differential protection. iii. CT are used extensively for measuring current and monitoring the operation of power grid. iv. Protection devices and revenue metering may use separate CTs to provide isolation between metering and protection circuits.

9. Potential Transformer: PT is parallel connected type of instrument

transformer used for metering and protection in high voltage circuits or phasor phase shift isolation. They are designed to present negligible load to the supply being measured and to have an accurate voltage ratio to enable accurate metering. PT has only one terminal that is input terminal. 10. Capacitive voltage transformer: It is combination of capacitive voltage divider and conventional EMVT measuring a reduced proportional voltage. As CVT consists of inductance in iron core and of capacitance, it would be subjected to ferro-resonance oscillations and transient phenomenon. Hence ferro resonance suppressor device is used. CVTs are used in EHV substation both as voltage transformer as well as coupling capacitor for power line carrier application. 11. Wave trap and PLCC: Wave trap is used in power line carrier communication
(PLCC). Since the power transmission lines physically go between substations, it is used to possible to use this metallic link as a communication link without dependence on the telecom company network. The signals are primarily protection signals and in

addition, voice and data communication signals. Wave trap traps the high frequency communication signals sent on the lines from the remote substation and diverting them to the PLCC panel in the substation control room through coupling capacitor. The wave trap opposes high impedance to the high frequency communication signals(150 kHz to 500 kHz),thus obstructs the flow of these signals into the substation bus bar whereas provides a path of negligible impedance to the power frequency (50 Hz) current to substation bus bar. The wave trap looks like a drum and installed by hanging from substation line site gantry structure and connected in series with the transmission line. A coupling capacitor is connected to wave trap in one end and other to PLCC equipment through a coupling device. It is erected below the line side truss on MS structure and connected to the wave trap by ACSR conductor. The coupling capacitor acts as high impedance to power frequency while provides a very low impedance to the carrier frequency.