IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 28, NO.

2, APRIL 2013

733

Improving Controlled Closing to Reduce Transients

in HV Transmission Lines and Circuit Breakers
M. A. Atefi and M. Sanaye-Pasand, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractIt is widely known that controlled switching of transmission lines reduces the transients in power systems. In this paper,
the circuit-breaker (CB) closing time sequence for transmission
lines with various configurations is studied and improved. A theoretical analysis based on modal analysis of traveling waves and
inverse Laplace transform is used to find the actual zero voltage
crossing point of the poles of CB. The transmission-line coupling
effect and its effects on controlled closing sequence are also considered. In addition, the minimum requirement for dielectric strength
and operating time deviation of the CB is extracted for successful
controlled closing. Finally, comprehensive simulation studies are
performed to obtain the optimum closing sequence for various lines
configurations. It is shown that transmission-line overvoltages are
reduced using the proposed controlled closing method.
Index TermsClosing time deviation, controlled closing, optimum closing instant, rate of decrease of dielectric strength
(RDDS), transmission-line switching.

I. INTRODUCTION

CLOSING operation of a transmission line (TL) can produce transient overvoltages whose maximum peaks can
reach up to 3 p.u. It depends on several factors (e.g., the network
configuration on the source side of the breaker and the shunt
compensation level of the transmission line). One of the factors, which has more influence on the maximum voltage peak,
is the instant of closing, which can be different for every pole
of a three-phase breaker [1].
Traditionally, the transient overvoltages due to the switching
of transmission lines are limited through the adoption of preinsertion resistors in the line circuit breakers (CBs) [2]. Although
this is an effective mitigation method, the high cost of implementation and maintenance as well as high failure rates of the
closing resistors have motivated the researchers to study the
concept of accurate modeling of controlled switching relays
(switchsync relays) [3]. Using controlled closing can effectively
limit the overvoltages and eliminate the need for closing resistors [4].
Controlled switching relays offer a closing sequence (i.e., the
pole spread of 1/6 cycle between phases) to energize a transManuscript received February 25, 2012; revised July 31, 2012, September 24,
2012; accepted November 02, 2012. Date of publication January 15, 2013; date
of current version March 21, 2013. This work was supported by the University
of Tehran under Grant 8101064-1-05. Paper no. TPWRD-00194-2012.
The authors are with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran 14395-515, Iran. (e-mail:
m.atefi@ece.ut.ac.ir; msanaye@ut.ac.ir).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2012.2227831

mission line at zero voltage across the CB contacts [5]. However, these relays do not consider the induced voltage in the
other open phases due to closing of the first pole of CB whereas
this paper focuses on this subject. Although various papers have
studied the transmission-line switching topic, very few studies
are reported about the induced voltage.
The ultimate target for controlled closing is the intended energizing instant which is supervised by the phase angle at which
the CB starts to pre-strike with respect to the selected reference [5]. The elapsed time between the flashover point and the
time when the contacts engage represents the arcing time [6].
In an ideal case, the CB contacts should touch exactly when the
voltage across the contacts is zero. But in reality, the CB operating time may deviate from the intended target. This is usually
caused by variations in the operating conditions, for example,
gradually increasing contact burn-off caused by a high number
of switching operations, change of ambient temperature, and
variations of the auxiliary voltage. The variation in the closing
time of the CB poles is presumed to follow a Gaussian distribution with a standard deviation where a typical value of 0.2 ms
corresponds to a highly stable CB [7].
One of the main causes of deviation in the closing time of a
CB is the variation of the rate of decrease of dielectric strength
(RDDS). For proper operation of CB, the value of RDDS should
exceed the maximum derivative of the applied voltage, and the
statistical variation of RDDS should be low. The variations in
operating times and RDDS are compensated to some extent in
the newly designed switching relays. However, in order to minimize the adverse effect of such statistical variations and due to
the limited speed, the nominal making target is set slightly after
the voltage zero [8]. The maximum prestriking voltage will be
determined according to the statistical scatter of the contacts
closing speed [9]. Some laboratory test results about CB RDDS
and operating time deviations for industrial applications are presented in [10] and [11].
The purpose of this paper is to achieve minimum overvoltage
of the transmission line with minimization of prestriking voltage
and arcing time during the closure of a transmission line. The
newly developed switching relays function is in good agreement
with this goal but their function requires improvement. Because
after closing the first pole, the voltage of the second and third
poles of CB at the instant of closing (i.e., at 1/6 and 1/3 cycles) are not zero due to the coupling effect between phases of a
transmission line. Therefore, in this paper, a theoretical analysis
based on traveling waves, modal analysis, and Laplace transform is presented to find the optimum instant for closing the
poles of a CB, in order to reduce the prestriking voltage and
arcing time.

0885-8977/$31.00 2013 IEEE

734

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 28, NO. 2, APRIL 2013

In general, the frequency dependence of the modal transformation matrix is small for overhead lines, but may be significant in the case of underground cables and untransposed vertical twin-circuit overhead lines [12]. In the next section, the
frequency dependence of the lines parameters is ignored to
simplify solving the modal domain equations in the analytical
studies. However, this dependency is considered in the simulation studies. Due to complexity and the time-consuming nature
of the theoretical analysis, only some cases are discussed using
the proposed analytical method, to validate the results obtained
by simulation studies.
The skin effect is considered in the PSCAD simulation, although its effect is negligible for frequencies below 5 kHz [1]
that is the concern of this paper. The corona effect is important if
the conductor voltage exceeds the corona inception voltage and
for fast front transients [1]. The steepness of the voltage wave
during line closing is not high, especially for the ZVC closing of
the first pole. The second and third pole voltages are also fairly
less than 1 p.u. just before energizing them. Therefore, taking
the corona effect into account will not change the paper results
considerably.
Considering the TL coupling effect and Gaussian distribution functions for closing time and RDDS of CB, the real value
of overvoltages, prestriking voltage, and arcing time are obtained, and the minimum requirements for RDDS are extracted.
Finally, the optimum sequence of closing, considering the operating time deviation of the CB, is proposed to be used in the
switchsync relay for various transmission-line configurations.

and current,
and , the matrices of modal voltage and current vectors
and
are related to phase matrices.
Using modal transformation matrices, the modal traveling-wave
equations can be written as follows [13]:
(3)
(4)
The eigenvalue analysis should be used to find the matrices
and
that diagonalize the
and
, respectively.
Laplace transform is used in this paper to solve the modal traveling waves equations.
It is assumed that all lines parameters have constant values,
and the line is lossless. Since the impedance and admittance
matrices per unit length of line are
and
and the
and
matrices are ignored in favor of
simplification of the theoretical analysis, the
and , which
make the
and
matrices diagonal, should be found. For
a simple case, if the line is completely transposed, the
and
are equal and so the
and
are equal consequently.
With and , as the self-inductance and self-capacitance perunit length of each phase of line and
and
as the mutual
ones, the surge impedance and velocity of wave in each of the
zero, positive, and negative modes are as follows [13]:

II. MODAL ANALYSIS OF TRANSMISSION-LINE SWITCHING

In this section, first, the fundamentals of the modal analysis
of traveling waves are described. Then, the modal analysis is
detailed in order to theoretically obtain the induced voltage and
the optimum closing instant of the following CB poles.
A. Modal Analysis of Traveling Waves
When the first pole of a CB closes, the traveling voltage and
current waves in the first phase induce a voltage in the two other
open phases. The equation of voltage and current of the phases
are as follows [1]:
(1)
and
(2)
are the phase impedance and admittance mawhere and
trices, respectively, and and are the vector of instantaneous
voltage and current of the phases, respectively.
The complication of having offdiagonal elements in the matrices of (1) and (2) is overcome by transforming them into the
natural modes. Eigenvalue analysis is applied to produce diagonal matrices, thereby transforming from coupled equations in
the phase domain to uncoupled equations in the modal domain.
Each equation in the modal domain is solved for a single-phase
line by using the modal traveling-time constant and modal surge
impedance [1]. Using the transformation matrices for voltage

(5)

B. Induced Voltage Calculation Based on Modal Analysis

In this paper, it is assumed that phase A is the first phase
which is closed and the line is open ended. In the conventional
controlled switching method, phase C should be closed after
1/6 cycle and then the last phase ( i.e., phase B) is closed 1/6
cycle after closure of the second phase. However, in the proposed method, these are not the optimum instants for closing
the following phases. This is shown in detail by obtaining the
zero voltage crossing (ZVC) of the second phase using the induced voltage based on the modal analysis of traveling-wave
equations. In this paper, the time differences between the closing
instants of the conventional and proposed methods are called
and
for the second and third poles, respectively.
The voltage of each of the
and modes is equal to
(6)
where is the Laplace operator, and
and
are parameters dependent on and the current of each mode is
(7)
where
and
are particular solutions, taking into account the initial conditions [14]. Considering the zero initial

ATEFI AND SANAYE-PASAND: IMPROVING CONTROLLED CLOSING TO REDUCE TRANSIENTS

conditions,
and
are zero. Considering
and
for the sending and receiving ends, respectively, the
boundary condition for which the current at
is zero leads
to
(8)
where
is the mode traveling time constant which is calculated by dividing the line length by the velocity of the wave in
each mode. The boundary condition at
yields

735

The instantaneous voltages

and
can be extracted
by numerical analysis and inverse Laplace transform. In a similar way explained in this section, the instantaneous voltage of
each phase could be extracted in any location of the transmission line. For instance, the voltage at the end of the line for phase
A can be calculated with substitution
in (6) and using
(8) and the
matrix as follows:

(9)
Also from (8) and (9) and using

results in
(16)

(10)
, substituting
Using the KVL equation for phase A at
in (6) and expressing the voltage of phase A in the form
of mode voltages and using (10) results in
(11)
where

is

III. VALIDATION OF SIMULATION RESULTS

(12)
Finally, the induced voltages at line side of the next poles are
and mode voltages, i.e.,
extracted by using

(13)
where

and

The voltage at the end of the line for other phases can be
calculated in a similar way.
For a double-circuit transmission line, all matrices of
and are 6 6 and the modal transformation matrices
and
are 6 6 as well. Therefore, equations of the single-circuit
TL can be extended for this case too.
For theoretical confirmation of the simulation results, a
MATLAB program is developed based on the proposed modal
analysis and Laplace transform. Various cases are studied and
some of them are presented as sample cases.

are as follows:

(14)
Equations (12)(14), which are developed in this paper, are
used for calculating the optimum closing instants. Induced
voltage for an ideally transposed line is a particular situation in
which

(15)

For verification of the simulation results at the first step, (13)

and (15) are used to calculate the induced voltages at the line
side of poles C and B of the CB. The ZVC point as the
optimum instant for closing the next pole of CB (i.e., phase
C) occurs when the induced voltage at the line side of the
CB is equal to the source-side voltage of the related phase. At
the second step, the induced voltage curves and ZVC points obtained through PSCAD simulation studies are compared to those
of the analytical results.
The configuration and characteristics of a 400-km, 400-kV
flat tower transmission line are shown in Fig. 10. Based on
this information, the L and C matrices are calculated. Then,
the induced voltages on other phases at the line side of the CB
based on equations developed in the previous section and inverse Laplace transform are obtained and shown in Fig. 1.
The voltage waves shown in Fig. 1 during the time interval
of 0 to 2.6 ms are consistent with part of a sinusoidal waveform
with the frequency of 50 Hz. Since the values of the induced
voltages at 2.5 ms (T/8 of a 50 Hz wave) are 0.14 and 0.18 p.u.
for phase C in Fig. 1(a) and (b), respectively, the amplitude
of the sinusoidal waves are 0.2 and 0.25 p.u. for the untransposed and transposed lines, respectively. As shown in Fig. 1,
the voltage waves drop at 2.6 ms (twice the traveling-wave time
constant). This is because of the fact that the line-side voltage
of the second pole is a superposition of the capacitive coupling
of the first phase voltage and the phase-to-phase traveling wave
[15]. The sign of the phase-to-phase traveling wave in the first
and second (or third) poles are opposite [15]. Accordingly, the
voltage of the second phase decreases at 2.6 ms.

736

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 28, NO. 2, APRIL 2013

Fig. 2. Simulated induced voltage on other phases after closing phase A for
a 400-kV flat tower TL. (a) Untransposed. (b) Transposed.

Fig. 1. Calculated induced voltages on other phases after closing phase A

for a 400-kV flat tower TL, (a) Untransposed. (b) Transposed.

According to the aforementioned results, for the first 2.6

ms, the induced voltage of phase C can be written as
and
for the untransposed and
transposed lines, respectively.
Considering the ZVC of phase A as the reference point and
intersecting the induced voltage of phase C in Fig. 1 with
the line-side voltage of
, the optimum instant for closing phase C is 2.98 and 2.8 ms for the untransposed and transposed lines, respectively. Meanwhile, the conventional closing time is 3.3 ms. Therefore, there is an approximate 0.5-ms time difference with the conventional switching
method closing time for the transposed case.
The results of induced voltages obtained for this TL using
PSCAD simulation are shown in Fig. 2. A comparison between
Figs. 1 and 2 indicates that the simulation results curves are quite
similar to the analytical ones. The optimum instants for closing
the second pole are 2.87 and 2.7 ms for the untransposed and
transposed lines, respectively. These results are in good agreement with the analytical results of Fig. 1. The small difference
between the results stems from the fact that in the analytical
studies, the line is assumed to be lossless, and the frequency
dependence is ignored to simplify the solution of the modal domain equations. However, the frequency dependency and losses
are considered in the simulation studies.
The configuration of a 400-km, 400-kV concentric tower
double-circuit transmission line is shown in Fig. 11. The
and
matrices of this line are calculated, and the induced
voltages in other phases are obtained from (12)(14) for the
double-circuit line. The results for untransposed and separately
transposed lines are shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. Induced voltages on other phases after closing phase for a 400-kV
double-circuit line: (a) untransposed and (b) separately transposed.

According to the analytical results shown in Fig. 3, the optimum closing instant of phase is 2.73 and 2.6 ms for the
untransposed and separately transposed double-circuit lines, respectively. Moreover, the optimum instant of closing is 2.7 ms
for the double-circuit line where both circuits are transposed together. The PSCAD simulation results are quite similar to the
aforementioned results.

ATEFI AND SANAYE-PASAND: IMPROVING CONTROLLED CLOSING TO REDUCE TRANSIENTS

737

In order to reduce overvoltage according to (18),

should
be greater than the prestriking voltage
, where is
the arcing time if prestriking occurs. Particularly,
should be
less than
to prevent closing phase C earlier than phase
A
(19)

Fig. 4. Absolute value of the contact voltage and minimum and maximum prestriking voltages.

IV. PROPOSED REQUIREMENTS FOR RDDS

CB CLOSING TIME DEVIATION

AND

The absolute values of the CB second pole voltage for both

cases where the coupling effect is considered and not considered
are shown in Fig. 4. When the coupling effect is ignored in the
conventional controlled closing algorithm [5], the voltage of CB
second pole is the source-side voltage of phase C, which is
shown as the solid curve in Fig. 4. However, considering the
coupling effect, the CB contact voltage is the dotted curve. It is
obvious that the ZVC of the second pole occurs earlier when the
coupling effect is considered.
In addition, the absolute value of the derivative of the applied voltage for the second pole at the ZVC point is more than
1 p.u., where 1 p.u. is equal to
is the power angular
frequency, and
is the peak of the nominal voltage. For instance, in Fig. 3(b), the voltage across the CB second pole for
the first line
can be written as the difference of the
source-side voltage of phase and the induced voltage at
the line side for this phase. As the amplitude of line-side voltage
of phase for the transposed case of Fig. 3(b) is 0.32 p.u.,
can be written as follows:
(17)
Considering (17), the ZVC occurs at 2.6 ms and the absolute
at the ZVC point is about 1.19
value of derivative of
p.u. Since in the conventional-controlled switching, the tangential RDDS is assumed to be 1 p.u., it is proposed that the RDDS
requirement of high-voltage CB be increased at least 20%.
Another requirement for RDDS can be explained by using a
sample case in which a low value of RDDS is considered for a
CB, in conjunction with a high value of operating time deviation. This makes the conventional-controlled closing impossible
and phase C may be closed earlier than phase A which results in an overvoltage increase. To show this concept, it has
been assumed that pole A is closed at the ZVC point, and
RDDS is linear and its per-unit value is . The total making
time considering the predetermined
is , the operating time
deviation is
, and is the time remaining on the ZVC point.
The dielectric strength of the CB contact before the occurrence
of the ZVC point can be written as follows:
(18)

According to (19), one can conclude that by having a determined operating time variation, the nominal RDDS of a CB
should be higher than a minimum value to achieve successful
controlled closing. On the other hand, one can realize from
Fig. 4 that the actual value of maximum prestriking voltage and
arcing time is increased and the minimum prestriking voltage
is not zero when the coupling voltage is not considered. To
minimize the prestriking voltage and, consequently, the adverse
effects on overvoltages, the actual value of ZVC should be
considered.
In order to illustrate this concept, the peak value of the
per-unit induced voltage at the line side of the CB second pole
is assumed
. Therefore, the maximum prestriking voltage
after occurrence of ZVC, considering the time delay of
is
, where
is obtained
by solving the following equations for the conventional and
proposed controlled closing algorithms, respectively:

(20)
For example, for
1.2 p.u.,
ms, and
0.25
p.u., the prestriking voltage for both methods is calculated by
solving (20). Especially in the case that
is about 0.9 ms, the
maximum prestriking voltage is about 0.29 p.u. for the conventional method. While considering the actual value of ZVC in
the proposed method, the maximum prestriking voltage is decreased to 0.13 p.u.
Following the aforementioned analytical results in the next
section, comprehensive simulation studies are performed to find
the minimum requirements of RDDS and CB operating time
deviation and optimum instants for closing the CB next poles
for various line configurations based on the actual value of ZVC.
The analytical results obtained in this paper are used to validate
the simulation results of the next section.
V. SIMULATION RESULTS
In this section, at first, the requirements for successful
controlled closing are obtained using simulation results of
Section III and the proposed equations are given in Section IV.
Then transmission-line closing simulation results for several
cases are presented. Finally, the improved sequence of contact
closing considering the operating time deviation of CB is
proposed to be used in switchsync relays for various transmission-line configurations.

738

Fig. 5. Minimum requirement for the RDDS versus arcing time for various
.

Fig. 6. Cumulative probability of overvoltage for phase C at the end of the

line for various RDDSs.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 28, NO. 2, APRIL 2013

Fig. 7. Comparison of the prestriking voltages for the conventional and proposed methods.

Fig. 8. Overvoltages at the end of the line for phase C using the conventional
and proposed closing methods.

A. Proposed Requirements for Successful Controlled Closing

As indicated in Section IV, the RDDS and operating time
deviation of a CB are interrelated. The curve of the proposed
equation (19) (i.e., the RDDS versus arcing time , for
in
the range of 0.251.5 ms) is illustrated in Fig. 5.
It can be seen that the greater the operating time deviation,
the more is the required RDDS. Therefore, it may become impossible to perform a successful controlled closing in a CB with
a high value of
or a low amount of RDDS. For example, if
is 0.5 ms, for a prestriking voltage of 0.5 p.u.,
and
RDDS should be more than 1.36 p.u.
To show the importance of the required RDDS, the line
closing overvoltages at the end of the line using a statistical
simulation are obtained. The
is assumed to be
0.5 ms,
and the simulation is performed for RDDS of 0.85 to 1.2 p.u.
The overvoltage at the end of the line for phase C is shown in
Fig. 6. It can be concluded that the more the CB RDDS, the less
overvoltage there is at the line end. Therefore, it is proposed
that a CB with a higher RDDS value be selected.
Another important factor for successful closing is the actual
value of the ZVC point. For the proposed method, the curves of
the maximum prestriking voltage in terms of for some usual
RDDS values are shown in Fig. 7.
The related values for the conventional method are also presented in this figure. The maximum prestriking voltage for the
conventional controlled closing method for RDDS in the range
of 0.8 to 1.2 p.u. is 0.24 to 0.29 p.u. However, according to

Fig. 7, for the extreme case in which is 0.9 ms, the maximum
prestriking voltage for the proposed controlled closing method
is decreased by about 0.15 p.u. in comparison to the conventional method. Therefore, arcing time is also decreased using
the proposed actual ZVC point.
To show the advantage of the proposed method more clearly,
phase C overvoltage levels for the TL of Fig. 10 using the
conventional and proposed closing methods for transposed and
untransposed cases are shown in Fig. 8. It should be noted that
phase B is closer to phase A in the line conductors configuration and, consequently, the coupling voltage in phase C for
the untransposed line is less than that for the transposed line.
Therefore, the advantage of the proposed method is more for
the transposed line. Fig. 8 clearly shows that the overvoltages
are reduced using the proposed method.
B. Single-Circuit Transmission Line
1) Uncompensated Flat Tower Transmission Line: A
400-kV, 400-km uncompensated flat tower transmission line,
similar to the one studied in Section III, is simulated. The
optimum closing instants considering the coupling effect for
different lengths of line and for the transposed and untransposed lines are analyzed. There is no significant difference
between the ZVC values of the third pole for transposed and
untransposed lines. Meanwhile, for the second pole, the ZVC
for the transposed line occurs about 0.10.15 ms earlier than

ATEFI AND SANAYE-PASAND: IMPROVING CONTROLLED CLOSING TO REDUCE TRANSIENTS

739

TABLE I
PROPOSED CLOSING INSTANTS FOR A STANDARD DEVIATION OF 0.2 ms

TABLE II
PROPOSED CLOSING TIME SEQUENCE FOR A 400-kV FLAT TOWER TL

Fig. 9. Optimum instants of closing for the transposed transmission line. (a)
Second pole. (b) Third pole.

that of the untransposed line. Therefore, the results for the

transposed case (i.e., the worst case) are presented in Fig. 9.
Using the conventional method, the closing instant for the
second and third poles are 3.3 and 6.7 ms, respectively, as shown
in Fig. 9(a) and (b). Considering the actual value of the second
pole ZVC point, the
value for the transposed line is about
0.40.6 ms where the bigger one is for the longer lines. Moreover, the
value is about 0.3 ms for long lines, while for the
shorter lines, it is nearly zero. If these time difference values are
not considered and the proposed controlled closing is not used,
the prestriking voltage and arcing time are not as minimum as
they can be. This would result in extra transmission-line overvoltage if the conventional closing method is used.
2) Effect of Shunt Compensation: Shunt reactive compensation has been widely used in transmission systems to regulate
the voltage magnitude and improve the voltage quality. The effect of shunt compensation at both ends of the line is studied in
this section. The amount of compensation required on a transmission line depends on the line characteristics, the anticipated
line loading, the system operating philosophy, and so on [16].
Three levels of shunt compensation are considered in the simulation studies (i.e., 50, 100, and 150 MVAR). According to
the simulation results, it is concluded that for the transposed
line is more than that for the untransposed line, especially for
the second pole (i.e.,
). Therefore, only the results for the
transposed line are illustrated in Fig. 9. Meanwhile, the obtained
simulation results for the untransposed line are similar to those

of the transposed line except that

for the transposed line is
about 0.2 ms more than that for the untransposed line in the corresponding case.
From Fig. 9, it could be concluded that
for the uncompensated line is more than that for the compensated line. Meanwhile, this result cannot be used for lines shorter than 100 km
because the degree of compensation depends on the length of
line. However, the effect of shunt compensation level on the
ZVC value of the second pole is not significant, and the time
difference between ZVC points for various levels of compensation is less than 0.1 ms, which is negligible. Therefore, it is
concluded that the sensitivity of
to the line length is much
more than its sensitivity to the degree of compensation.
On the other hand,
is more sensitive to the level of compensation and the closing time difference between uncompensated and highly compensated lines is about 0.20.4 ms which
depends on the length of line and level of compensation. The
more the compensation degree, the more
is. It is concluded
that to reduce the arcing time, prestriking voltage, and overvoltages, the proposed controlled closing method, which is based on
the actual values of ZVC points, should be used especially when
the line is compensated.
Considering the standard deviation of 0.2 ms for the closing
time of the CB, the proposed closing instants for the second
and third poles of the CB are presented in Table I. This timing
schedule could be chosen tighter but it is not practiced because,
in reality, the scatter of CB operating time is not less than 0.2 ms.
For example, the closing instant of 2.5 0.2 ms for the second
pole is considered 2.5 ms.
Considering the timing schedule shown in Fig. 9 and Table I,
the proposed closing time sequence algorithm for a 400- kV flat
tower transmission line is described in Table II. In this table,
closing time sequence is in milliseconds and is the length of
line in kilometers. For example, if the TL with the length of less
than 400 km is uncompensated and transposed, the proposed
closing instants for the second and third poles are 2.9 and 6.7
ms, respectively.
C. Double-Circuit Transmission Line
In this section, closing of a double-circuit transmission line
is analyzed for two cases (i.e., closing one line when the other

740

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 28, NO. 2, APRIL 2013

Fig. 10 The 400-kV flat tower transmission line.

Fig. 12 Conductor arrangement of a 400-kV flat tower double-circuit line. (a)
Symmetrical. (b) Optimum arrangement.

TABLE III
PROPOSED CLOSING TIME-SEQUENCE ALGORITHM FOR SIMULTANEOUS
CLOSING BOTH LINES OF A 400-kV DOUBLE-CIRCUIT LINE

Fig. 11 The 400-kV concentric tower doublecircuit transmission line.

one is energized and closing both de-energized lines simultaneously). For these cases, a 400-kV widely used concentric
tower shown in Fig. 11. in the Appendix is simulated with
or without shunt compensation on both lines. Based on the
simulation studies, the results for the case of closing one line
when the other one is de-energized is similar to the results of
single-circuit line closing and, therefore, these results are not
presented in this section.
1) Closing One Line When the Other Line Is Energized: A
de-energized line in close proximity to an energized line has a
voltage induced on it through capacitive coupling. This voltage
depends drastically on tower configuration and in practical circumstances, the magnitude of induced voltage can be as high as
30% of the energized line voltage [17]. If the line is transposed,
the induced voltage is negligible. For untransposed delta or concentric towers, the induced voltage is less than 0.1 p.u. and can
be ignored as well. In these cases, the coupling voltage due to
first phase closing is much more than the coupling voltage of the
second line. Therefore, the results obtained for the single-circuit transmission line are applicable in this case as well. However, for vertical and especially flat towers and lines with a high
number of bundles, the induced voltage is considerable and can
be as high as 0.3 p.u.
The phase conductor arrangement of double-circuit lines is
an important factor for the electric- and magnetic-field levels
around them. The optimum phase arrangement of double-circuit lines for the electric- and magnetic-field minimization is
investigated in [18]. A double-circuit line with a flat configuration has the highest coupling effect for which symmetrical and
optimum arrangements are shown in Fig. 12.
For the symmetrical arrangement of Fig. 12(a), the voltages
of two sides of the de-energized line CB second pole have a
phase difference of about 10 and the line length does not affect

the phase and magnitude. Moreover, the coupling voltage due

to closing of the first phase is low compared to the already energized line coupling effect. Simulation results show that in the
worst case is about 0.3 ms and the voltage derivatives of the
two sides of the CB have the same sign. Therefore, the derivative of the CB voltage at the ZVC point is about 0.70.8 p.u. and
a CB with a high value of RDDS for successful synchronous
closing is not required. Hence, the conventional method can be
used in this case.
For the optimum conductor arrangement of Fig. 3(b), the
phase difference of the two sides of the de-energized line CB
second pole is more than 90 . Therefore, the derivative of the
CB voltage at the related ZVC point is more than 1 p.u. (i.e., in
this case, it is about 1.23 p.u. for phase A). Therefore, unlike
the symmetrical line, for the line with an optimum conductor
arrangement, a CB with higher RDDS is required.
2) Simultaneous Closing of Both De-Energized Lines: In
some situations, especially for temporary plans, only one CB
may be used for two lines of a double-circuit line and both lines
are closed simultaneously. When the first pole of CB is closed,
the first phases of both lines induce some voltage on the other
phases. Therefore, in this case, the amount of induced voltage
is more than that of the case of closing only one line. For example, for a long untransposed double-circuit line, by closing
phase A, the induced voltage on phase C is more than 0.3
p.u. and
is about 0.9 ms. Therefore, using the conventional
method for simultaneous closing of both lines of a double-circuit line produces a high level of overvoltages. The advantage
of applying the proposed method is quite clear in this case. The
proposed closing sequence for this case is listed in Table III.
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the traditional switchsync relay functionality
is improved using the actual ZVC point in order to reduce TL

ATEFI AND SANAYE-PASAND: IMPROVING CONTROLLED CLOSING TO REDUCE TRANSIENTS

transients by preventing the CB prestrike. At first, the analytical method using modal transformation and inverse Laplace
transform is presented. Then, several simulations are performed
for transposed and untransposed lines and single- and doublecircuit lines with or without shunt compensation. The method
works very well for untransposed and transposed transmission
lines while the advantage of the proposed method is more for
the transposed lines. Some of the results are confirmed by comparing them with the analytical studies results. Moreover, the
minimum requirements for operating time deviation and the
RDDS of a CB are presented in order to have successful controlled closing.
Some of the obtained results are summarized as follows.
In order to reduce transmission-line closing overvoltages,
the coupling effect should be considered.
If the conventional method is used similarly for all TL configurations, it could result in up to 30% of TL extra overvoltages.
Proper instant for CB closing depends on TL configuration,
compensation level, transposition, and line length.
For successful controlled closing, the actual zero voltage
crossing point should be used.
It is proposed to adjust the closing instant of the CB second
pole earlier than the 1/6 cycle of the conventional-controlled switching method.
Required RDDS is assumed to be 1 p.u. in the conventional
method, whereas considering the coupling effect, it should
be more than 1.2 p.u. for some cases.
For a given operating time deviation of the CB and TL
configuration, the RDDS shall be higher than a specified
value to achieve the minimum prestriking voltages.
The overvoltages at the far end of the line are decreased
using the suggested method. Also, insulators with smaller
dimensions can be selected. Moreover, the proposed
method decreases the prestriking voltage and the CB
arcing time and, therefore, positively affects CB aging.
The second pole for the transposed line should be closed
earlier in comparison to the untransposed line.
The coupling effect for the transposed line is more in comparison to the untransposed line.
The coupling effect for the double-circuit line is more in
comparison to the single-circuit line.
For all types of uncompensated lines, the ZVC of the third
pole does not differ so much from 6.7 ms.
The shunt compensation does not affect
considerably,
whereas
may be more than 0.4 ms for the compensated
line.
At the most adverse situation,
could reach up to 1 ms.
This method is useful to be applied for aging transmission
lines and CBs to decrease the overvoltages on the aging
networks and to prevent prestriking and failure of the CB.
APPENDIX
The configuration of the transmission lines studied in this
paper are shown in Figs. 1012.

741

REFERENCES
[1] J. A. Martinez-Velasco, Power System Transients, Parameter Determination. Boca Raton, FL: CRC, Taylor & Francis Group, 2010.
[2] P. Mestas and M. C. Tavares, Comparative analysis of control
switching transient techniques in transmission lines energization
maneuver, presented at the Int. Conf. Power Syst. Transients, Lyon,
France, Jun. 47, 2007.
[3] M. Sanaye-Pasand, M. R. Dadashzadeh, and M. Khodayar, Limitation of transmission line switching overvoltages using switchsync relays, presented at the Int. Conf. Power Syst. Transients, Montreal, QC,
Canada, Jun. 1923, 2005.
[4] K. M. C. Dantas, D. Jr. Fernandes, W. L. A. Neves, B. A. Souza, and L.
C. A. Fonseca, Mitigation of switching overvoltages in transmission
lines via controlled switching, presented at the IEEE Power Energy
Soc. Gen. Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA, Jul. 2024, 2008.
[5] Control Switching Buyers Guide, 3rd ed. Ludvika, Sweden: ABB,
2009.
[6] C. H. Flurscheim, Power Circuit Breaker Theory and Design. Stevenage, U.K.: Peregrinus, 1985.
[7] U. Samitz, H. Siguerdidjane, F. Boudaoud, P. Bastard, J. P. Dupraz, M.
Collet, J. Martin, and T. Jung, On controlled switching of high voltage
unloaded transmission lines, in Proc. Elektrotech. Inf., Paris, France,
Aug. 2002, vol. 119, no. 12, pp. 415421.
[8] Y. Gual, G. Xu, W. Liu, X. Zheng, and N. Du, Controlling strategy and
implementation for synchronously closing 550 kV parallel capacitor,
in Proc. IEEE Conf. Mechatron. Autom., Changchun, Jilin, China, Aug.
912, 2009, pp. 50025007.
[9] K. Frohlish, C. Hoelzl, M. Stanek, A. C. Carvalho, W. Hofbauer, P.
Hoegg, B. L. Avent, D. F. Peelo, and J. H. Sawada, Controlled closing
on shunt reactor compensated transmission lines part I: Closing control device development, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 12, no. 2, pp.
734740, Apr. 1997.
[10] U. Kriisi and K. J. Frohlich, Controlled switching-suitability check for
already-installed HVAC circuit breakers, in Proc. IEEE/PES Transm.
Distrib. Conf. Exhibit., Oct. 610, 2002, vol. 2, pp. 813817.
[11] H. Hamada et al., RDDS (rate of decrease of dielectric strength)
measurement for gas circuit breaker, in Proc. IEEE/Power Eng.
Soc. Transm. Distrib. Conf. Exhibit., Oct. 610, 2002, vol. 3, pp.
17551759.
[12] A. B. Fernandes and W. L. A. Neves, Phase-domain transmission
line models considering frequency-dependent transformation matrix,
IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 708714, Apr. 2004.
[13] J. D. Glover, M. S. Sarma, and T. J. Overbye, Power System Analysis
and Design, 4th ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2007.
[14] A. El Hakimi, H. Le-Huy, and P. Viarouge, Semi-analytical method
for overhead transmission line transients simulation: Model for use in
real-time, in Proc. IEEE Conf. Elect. Comput. Eng., Montreal, QC,
Canada, Sep. 1995, vol. 1, pp. 4043.
[15] Y. Hase, Handbook of Power System Engineering. Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley, 2007.
[16] Transmission Line Reference Book: 345 kV and Above, 2nd ed. Palo
Alto, CA: Elect. Power Res. Inst., 1987.
[17] Transmission and Distribution Committee of the IEEE Power and Energy Society, IEEE Standard 524a-1993, 1993.
[18] G. Filippopoulos, D. Tsanakas, G. Kouvarakis, and J. Voyatzakis, Optimum conductor arrangement of compact lines for electric and magnetic field minimizationcalculation and measurement, The Power
Connection PFISTERER on-line publication list, May 9, 2010.
M. A. Atefi received the B.Sc. and the M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering
from The University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, in 2005 and 2007, respectively,
where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree.
His research interests include power system protection and the study and simulation of electromagnetic transients in power systems and apparatus.

M. Sanaye-Pasand (M98SM05) received the Ph.D. degree from The University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, in 1998.
Currently, he is a Professor with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. His research interests include power
system protection, control, and transients.