Neutral Earthing Zig-Zag Transformers (33kV to 415V - ZNyn11)

Joe MacEnriSenior Manager, Planning & Asset Management at Muscat Electricity Distribution Company (MEDC)Top Contributor I have a couple of questions on these transformers as my reasonably extensive library of electrical theory books don't seem to answer them: 1. If zigzags present an infinite (or extremely high) impedance to pos and neg sequences how can they supply a substation LV load under balanced conditions where there is only pos sequence? How can there be flux linkages from the HV winding to the LV winding in the iron core under balanced conditions? Are they linked in flux paths outside the core only? 2. As they can clearly supply such loads and have the advantages of much reduced magnetising current compared with a similar Yy, also have reduced power requirements by a factor of 1.7 as the HV winding see less voltage and finally the excellent triplen harmonic reduction performance why don't we use these much more widely on our power systems for distribution trafos etc? I know they are more expensive but surely that is just because they are a special product as opposed to a regular one, no? Like (3) Comment (10) Follow Reply Privately 5 days ago Comments KURPAD BHEEMA PRAKASH, Gerbrand Ronsmans and 1 other like this 10 comments

Gary Gary Fox Senior Specification Engineer at General Electric Seems like something of a disconnect in your question. The title refers to "Earthing ...Transformers" yet your questions seem to concern themselves with harmonic mitigating transformers. Hate to refer to a competitor's publication, but here's something that may help clarify how harmonic mitigating transformers work: http://static.schneiderelectric.us/docs/Electrical%20Distribution/Low%20Voltage%20Transformers/Harmonic%20Mitigating/7400DB030 1.pdf The zig zag winding causes the triplen currents to cancel themselves out in the secondary winding, hence no flux from them flows through the core, while this is not the case for the fundemental or non-triplen harmonics. Makes no sense that harmonic mitigating transformers have lower losses than a standard winding transformer for situations where there are no loads that cause triplen harmonics. Like (2) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 days ago Victor V., Randy B. like this

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Randy Randy Beltz CEO - CCi Wireless - Infrastructure Maintenance Services I may be wrong, but the primary advantage of the zig-zag transformer is its ability to increase the safety of personnel in wet or otherwise "electrically dangerous" environments ... i.e., mining or rain forest applications. I assume that the infinite or extremely high impedance that you reference is in relation to ground or neutral and has little if any effect on low voltage load performance. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 5 days ago

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vasanthakumar vasanthakumar B R -Power sector expert.Considering a Yz1 or Yz11 Transformer,the interconnection between phases effects a reduction of third harmonic voltages and at the same time permits of unbalanced loading.On account of the type of connection, the zig zag has to be confined to low voltage winding.Since the phase voltages are composed on the zigzag side of two half voltages with a phase difference of 60 deg, 15% more turns are required for a given total voltage per phase compared with a normal phase connection, which may necessitate an increase in the frame size over that normally used for the rating. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 4 days ago Randy B. likes this

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Ing. Ole Ing. Ole Knudsen Experienced Electrical Engineer, looking for new challenges. Top Contributor One standard use of a Zig-Zag transformer is in connection with power generation facilities, when there may be a number of generatoes that can be coupled in parallel. In these systems, the Zig-Zag transformer is used to establish one single neutral connection to earth, while all the neutral (or star points) of each individual generator is left isolated. This serves to limit the harmonics and zerosequence currents, that otherwise could circulate between the generators, if they had their neutrals interconnected. Due to the special coupling, with each of the three legs of the transformer being wound with two half primary windings, from different phases, the neutral of the transformer will be at the virtual centre point of the three phase voltages from the generators. A further advantage of this is, that a secondary winding will often be used to provide low voltage power to some or all of the power stations' auxiliary loads. The standard coupling of these transformers will then be ZNyn11, or ZNyn1. That means that the Zig-Zag transformer can be configured to the same vector groups as the ordinary Dyn coupled transformers that may be used during start-up and shut down of a power station. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate

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4 days ago Randy B. likes this

Ing. Ole Ing. Ole Knudsen Experienced Electrical Engineer, looking for new challenges. Top Contributor One important reason not to use them more often, is also the additional load losses caused by the "longer" windings required in each phase. Instead of the phase current just having to follow a "straight"om phase to Neutral, this path will now be composed of two halves, which will total 2/(sqrt(3)) times the phase voltage. This results in around 11.55% higher primary losses than for the standard transformer. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 4 days ago

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KRISHNA KRISHNA KHASANIS Project Manager - Electrical at LARSEN & TOUBRO LIMITED - QATAR Top Contributor If I understand correctly, you are asking why can not a neutral earthing zigzag transformer be used as a distribution transformer. First and foremost , earthing transformer is used for system grounding , in otherwords to creat an " artificial neutral " where there is no neutral available. There is a distinct difference ( owing to their application ) between a regular distribution transformer & earthing transformer in the way they are rated. Have you ever seen a distribution transformer's rating specified in terms of its neutral current carrying capacity for a particular period ? Whereas ( interconnected star ) earthing transformer, along with its line - line system voltage rating, is also specified in terms of its " specific earth fault current carrying capacity " for the short period of say 10 seconds or 01 minute. In otherwords, we can say that MVA rating of the earthing transformer is based on its short-time thermal rating. Earthing transformer's thermal & dynamic withstand capacity corresponds to its rated neutral current. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 3 days ago

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Raghunath Raghunath Rompicherla

Principal Power Systems Engineer at Worley Parsons Oman Engineering Mr. Joe Mac Enri, The extremely high impedance presented by the ZNyn transformer corresponds to zero sequence currents on y-side. The positive/negative sequence impedance is similar to normal transformers depending on the rating and is typically 4% for 315kVA transformer. The high zero sequence impedance (Art&Science of Protective Relaying by Mason puts the value at 50% as a practical one).for single-phase-to-ground faults on 415V side limits the earth fault current magnitudes and also limits the abilility of the transformer to supply unbalanced loads. Hope it is helpful. Like (1) Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 3 days ago Randy B. likes this

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ANAND KUMAR ANAND KUMAR GUPTA Executive Director (Technical) at Torrent Power Limited Top Contributor Rather than trying to explain I would like to recommend to Mr. Joe MacEnri a visit to the following website. I hope this would explain all that he wants to know. http://apps.geindustrial.com/publibrary/checkout/Zig-Zag-Trans?TNR=White%20Papers%7CZig-ZagTrans%7Cgeneric Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 1 day ago

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Meynardo Meynardo Custodio Electrical Consulting Engineer at Meynardo Custodio P.E. I like to analyze the issue being discussed but it is not clear to me. It seems that the ZNYn11 connection appears to be incomplete. How did the 415 V secondary voltage been able to stepped down from the 33 KV primary? Is the connection an auto-transformer type or was the delta primary connection ommitted? in that case should it be ZNDyn11? Please clarify. Like Reply privately Flag as inappropriate 18 hours ago

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Ing. Ole

Ing. Ole Knudsen Experienced Electrical Engineer, looking for new challenges. Top Contributor @ Meynardo: The primary is Z-coupled, so the designation ZNyn11 is correct. There is no need for any delta connection.