A Study on Reclosing of Asaluyeh-Isfahan 765 kV

Transmission Line Considering the Effect of Neutral

Reactor in Reducing Resonant Voltages
Vahid Yari, Siamak Hosein Khalaj, Faramarz Ghelichi
MONENCO Iran Consulting Engineers
MAPNA Group
Tehran, Iran

Abstract Shunt reactors are utilized on long transmission lines

(in this case a 640km 765kV line) to reduce over voltages
experienced under light load conditions. When the compensated
line is opened to clear a fault, it is found that the open-phase
voltage does not disappear. In some cases, a dangerous transient
voltage with a resonant frequency between 30Hz and 55Hz can be
seen which gradually reduces in magnitude. This over voltage
can damage line connected equipments like shunt reactors and
open circuit-breakers. This phenomenon is because of the
trapped charges existing on transmission line during the dead
time of secondary arc extinction. In case of high transient over
voltages, we need additional equipments to reduce them.
Normally, closing resistors are used to limit the over voltages.
This solution is expensive and prone to failure. The proposed
method is the usage of neutral reactors in the neutral of shunt
reactors which is a cost effective solution. The technique is shown
to reduce the resultant over voltages on the power system and
allows for faster reclosing thus improving stability.
In this research work, the investigation of a neutral reactor
application is performed for transmission lines using transient
simulation with appropriate models. The application of neutral
reactors for reducing the resonant over voltages and reclosing
over voltages during fault clearing is analyzed. The simulations
are carried out by ATP/EMTP software and the advantages of
using neutral reactors for Asaluyeh-Isfahan 765 kV transmission
line are discussed.
Keywords: Over voltage; Single-phase Reclosing; Resonance;
Shunt Reactors; Transmission Lines; ATP/EMTP.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Most of the faults on transmission lines are usually temporary

short circuits. The short circuit arc normally extinguishes after
opening the circuit-breakers and afterward the line can be
reclosed. So, fast reclosing of transmission lines is a very
important matter and can enhance the power system stability
[1].
The long length and extra high voltage causes the line to be
capacitive under light-load conditions and hence, shunt
reactors are installed on both sides of the line to compensate
the reactive power. As a result, during reclosing dead time in a
shunt compensated transmission line, transient phenomena on
the line side are excited due to line capacitance and reactors

and need to be damped fast to achieve high speed reclosure.

The waveform of these resonant over voltages depend on the
transmission line parameters and the compensation degree,
which may be up to three times higher than rated phase-toground voltage. In other words, the resonant circuit (shunt
reactor and transmission line capacitance) and the induced
voltage from the other phases define the resulting line-to-earth
voltage of each phase [2].
In order to have successful fast reclosing, different methods
have been applied to achieve this. Normally pre-insertion
resistors which are switched in about 8 milliseconds before the
main circuit-breaker closes are used to reduce the resultant
transient overvoltage. This is costly and prone to failure.
A significant reduction of the resonant and reclosing over
voltages is also possible by using a single-phase reactor in the
neutral of the shunt reactors, when the transmission line is
compensated with shunt reactors. It is shown in this paper that
by appropriate selection of the neutral reactor, resonant over
voltage is limited adequately.
In this paper, the application of shunt reactors in reactive
power compensation is introduced briefly in Section II.
Resonant over voltages after breaker opening are presented in
Section III. Then, system modeling is explained in Section IV.
In Section V, using exact network and line modeling, neutral
reactor performance is investigated for Asaluye-Isfahan
765kV transmission line. Also based on the results obtained
through transient simulations, guidelines for selection of
neutral reactor are proposed for Asaluye-Isfahan 765kV
transmission line.
II.

THE APPLICATION OF SHUNT REACTORS

As we know, long transmission lines generate great amount of

reactive power due to their shunt capacitance and cause
voltage rise at the receiving end due to capacitive current
flowing through the line reactance.
In order to keep voltages within acceptable limits, the excess
of reactive power generated by long transmission lines needs
to be compensated.

Under the sponsorship of MAPNA Group and MONENCO Iran Consulting

Engineers.

978-1-4577-0547-2/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

Shunt reactors are used in transmission lines longer than

200km for reactive power compensation and voltage control
[3].
Shunt reactors are usually modeled as a simple lumped
inductance with a series resistance. A parallel resistance may
be added for more realistic high frequency damping [5]. It is
noteworthy that shunt compensation also has an important
effect on the magnitude of the total over voltages.
Shunt reactors are generally Y-connected, either fixed or
switched, at one of the following locations:
Transmission Line end.
Substation Bus Bars.
Transformer Tertiary Windings.

frequency in the range of 30 to 55 Hz and without any

protective action can last for more than 15 seconds [7].
In this case, the reference signal is the voltage across the
circuit-breaker contacts, whose waveform depends on the
degree of compensation and presents a non-periodic behavior.
Figure 1 show the time behavior of this signal for a high
degree of compensation, which is in form of a shifting signal
with "beats". These beats may diminish after a substantial time
depending upon the time constant of the resonant signal.
The optimal closing instants for each phase, which are
indicated by arrows in Fig. 1, occur at the zero crossing and at
the beat minimum of the reference signal.

For 100% compensation, we need a shunt reactor at both ends

of the line with a positive sequence value of X pos =

.C pos .l

where
Xpos is the shunt reactor reactance per phase on each side,
Cpos is the positive sequence line capacitance,
And is the system angular frequency.
In this case, the voltages at both ends would be identical under
no-load condition. In practice, 100% compensation is avoided
because of the danger of resonance.
Typical degrees of compensation are 50% to 70%. In that
2
100
case, X pos =
*
, where k is the percentage of
.C pos .l k

compensation.
III.

RESONANT VOLTAGES AFTER BREAKER OPENING IN

SHUNT COMPENSATED TRANSMISSIO LINE

Although shunt reactors are very effective in reducing over

voltages during light load conditions, they can actually
increase the voltage induced on de-energized conductors under
certain conditions like using single-phase reclosing in singlecircuit lines.
Transmission line reclosing operations are usually performed
with trapped charges on the line. For shunt compensated
transmission lines, after the line de-energization, the trapped
charge presents an oscillating characteristic due to the circuit
formed by the line capacitance and the shunt reactors
inductance [4].
Unbalanced open phase conditions in single-circuit lines can
occur when single phase reclosing is used to clear and restore
SLG faults. In those conditions, the parallel combination of
the disconnected phase shunt reactor and line capacitance in
series with the inter-phase capacitance can form a series
resonant circuit. Single phase tripping after a SLG fault
generally results in lower induced voltages. The resonant over
voltages will last as long as the unbalanced conditions remain
in the system, stressing line insulation, shunt reactors and open
circuit breakers. It should be noted that this phenomenon can
only happen with line connected shunt reactors [5]-[6].
In this way, according to the degree of compensation, the line
side voltage will present a sinusoidal waveform with a

Figure 1. Resonant voltage with Beats across open circuit-breaker

So, reclosing at the instant of voltage minimum across the

breaker will therefore result in reduced transient over voltages
on the system.
IV.

SYSTEM MODELING

In this research work, one of the important transmission lines

of the Iran national grid (765 kV Asaluye-Isfahan) has been
selected which has a three-phase 750MVAR reactor at each
end and is currently under construction. The amount of shunt
reactors has been calculated by precise system studies and
considering the steady-state voltage limits.
In order to represent the effects of reclosing of AsaluyeIsfahan 765kV transmission line with or without neutral
reactors, a simulation model is designed in ATP/EMTP
software. The related power system is modeled using real data
selected from a part of the Iran national network. The system
includes a transmission line connected to equivalent networks
through switches. Surge arresters are modeled on both sides of
the line as well. Various switching studies are performed and
system over voltages are studied and compared with different
cases. Fig. 2 shows schematic diagram of the system modeled
using the ATP/EMTP software.
Wave
impedance

Asaluye

Figure 2. Power system model using ATP/EMTP.

Wave
impedance

20m

D. Surge Arrester
Two surge arresters are installed at both sides of the
transmission line under study. A typical 612 kV gapless metaloxide arrester is modeled and used for all simulations [5].
The surge arresters are modeled appropriately according to
their V-I characteristics as shown in Fig. 4.

Voltage (V)

A. Transmission Line
Models with frequency dependent parameters are usually used
for accurate modeling of transmission lines during switching
overvoltage studies [8]. To model Asaluye-Isfahan
transmission line, a 765 kV, 640 km transposed line is
represented by J. Marti's frequency dependent model. The
tower configuration for this line is shown in Fig. 3. As shown
in Fig. 2, transmission line model is divided into six equal
parts to obtain the profile of switching over voltages along the
line. The modeled transmission lines parameters are as
follows:

14m

Number of phases = 3
Number of bundles = 6
Conductor: ACSR Drake, d=28.1 mm.
Number of shield wires = 2
Shield wire: d=15 mm.

Current (A)

Figure 4. V-I characteristic of the 765kV surge arrester

49m

40m

V.
Figure 3. Configuration and parameters for the 765 kV tower

B. Sources
In order to represent the network on both sides of the
transmission line in current studies, two sources are
considered to feed the transmission line. Moreover, the wave
impedances which equal to 201 and 40 for Asaluye and
Isfahan respectively are considered for both sources. The wave
impedances represent the surge impedance of the lines erected
from the sending or receiving end buses and have a significant
effect on switching study results and make the simulations
more realistic.
The sources are modeled by thevenin equivalents, parameters
of which are obtained by simulation of the Iranian grid in
DIgSILENT software. These parameters are listed in Table I.
TABLE I.
Thevenin
Equivalents

EQUIVALENT SOURCE IMPEDANCES

X+()

R+()

X0()

R0()

In this section, the over voltages produced along 765kV

Asaluye-Isfahan transmission line after fault clearing are
analyzed. So, short circuits are applied in different distances
along the line and the voltage waveforms are obtained after
fault clearing. All the simulated faults take place at t=28 msec
and clear at t=528 msec.
The greatest over voltage obtained from the simulation results
is indicated in Fig. 5. This figure shows the voltage waveform
in 420km from sending end for a short circuit occurring in
210km.
1.5
[MV]
1.0
0.5
0.0
-0.5
-1.0
-1.5

Asaluye

83.3

5.21

151.8

41.07

Isfahan

70.35

5.87

90.56

70.32

C. Rectors
Shunt reactors are considered on both sides of the line and are
modeled in series with a resistance. The amount of reactance
and resistance are X=780 and R=10 respectively. The
neutral reactor is also modeled by a single phase inductance.
The resistance of the neutral reactor is ignored in this study
due to its small effect.

SIMULATION OF NEUTRAL REACTOR PERFORMANCE IN

REDUCING RESONANT OVERVOLTAGES

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

[s]

1.2

(file Resonance.pl4; x-var t) v:420KMA

Figure 5. Resonant voltage after fault clearing (Without neutral reactor)

As shown in Fig. 5, if the neutral reactors are not used the

temporary over voltages created due to resonance
phenomenon can reach up to high amounts, in this case about
1.86 pu. It should be noted that in this paper:
765kV
1pu=
* 2 * 1.05 = 654kV .
3
In following, the effect of neutral reactors on reducing the
amount of resonant over voltages is investigated. In order to
show this effect, 2 different cases are analyzed:
neutral reactors with X=100
neutral reactors with X=350

First, the 100 neutral reactor is placed in the neutral of shunt

reactors to reduce the over voltages after clearing the single
phase to ground short circuit.
The maximum over voltage obtained from the simulation
results is shown in Fig. 6.
700
[kV]
525
350
175
0
-175

can be cleared using single-phase reclosing. If arc is

extinguished completely before first shot of reclosing,
reclosing would be performed successfully [9], [10].
In order to have successful fast reclosing, the resultant over
voltages should not exceed the relevant voltage limits.
As mentioned earlier, by appropriate selection of neutral
reactor, resonant over voltages after beaker opening are
limited adequately and as will be shown in this section, the
reclosing over voltages will be reduced as a consequence [3].
In order to show the effect of neutral reactor in reduction of
reclosing over voltages, simulations are performed on
Asaluye-Isfahan 765kV transmission line.

-350
-525
-700

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

[s]

1.2

(file Resonance.pl4; x-var t) v:420KMA

Figure 6. Resonant voltage after fault clearing(With neutral reactor X=100)

According to Fig. 6, using 100 reactors in the neutral of

shunt reactor causes resonant over voltage to decrease up to
about 1p.u, but we should note that even this amount of over
voltage may be dangerous for reclosing operations and may
cause greater over voltages during reclosing. So by increasing
the amount of neutral reactor we try to make more reductuin in
resonant over voltages.
In this part, the 350 neutral reactors are used in the neutral of
shunt reactors to reduce the resonant over voltages after
clearing the single phase to ground short circuit.
The maximum over voltage obtained from the simulation
results is represented in Fig. 7.

The over voltages created by reclosing operation without the

neutral reactors is shown in Fig. 8. In this case,
treclose=0.586sec. The maximum over voltage is obtained
420km away from sending end whereas the fault place is
210km from Asaluye substation.
1.0
[MV]
0.5

0.0

-0.5

-1.0

-1.5

0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

[s]

0.8

(file 1ph-Reclose.pl4; x-var t) v:420KMA

Figure 8. Reclosing over voltage,without neutral reactor and treclose=0.586

As it is represented in Fig. 8, the reclosing over voltage has

significant amplitude of about 1.96 p.u.
Figure 9 represents the over voltages created by reclosing
operation with 350 neutral reactors.

700
[kV]
525
350
175
0

-350

800
[kV]
600

-525

400

-175

-700

200

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

[s]

1.2

(file Resonance.pl4; x-var t) v:420KMA

Figure 7. Resonant voltage after fault clearing(With neutral reactor X=350)

0
-200
-400

The results of the simulation show that with increasing the

reactance of neutral reactor from 100 to 350, the maximum
amplitude of over voltages after circuit-breaker opening has
been reduced significantly (from 1p.u to 0.61p.u). It is also
noteworthy that in addition of over voltage reduction, the
frequency of beating has been increased; i.e. there are more
times that oscillating voltage has low magnitudes and this is
the best time for reclosing the transmission line. Thus,
increasing the neutral reactor has two advantages which will
be discussed in reclosing operation through the next section.
VI.

SIMULATION OF RECLOSING OVERVOLTAGES

More than 80% of transmission-line faults are single-line to

ground faults. Moreover, a high percentage of these faults are
transient faults. Thus, most of these faults are temporary and

-600
-800
0.00

0.15

0.30

0.45

0.60

0.75

[s]

0.90

(file 1ph-RecloseWithNeutralReactor350.pl4; x-var t) v:420KMA

Figure 9. Reclosing over voltage,with neutral reactor X=350 and

treclose=0.586

By comparing Fig. 8 and Fig. 9, it is concluded that by

installing appropriate neutral reactors in neutral of shunt
reactors, the amplitude of reclosing over voltages is
significantly reduced. (The peak over voltage is 1.14 p.u in
this case). So, the great effect of neutral reactors in reducing
the over voltages on the open phase after fault clearing and
during reclosing is obvious.
As discussed earlier, the reference voltage in reclosing
operations is the voltage across circuit breaker contacts. So the
best time for reclosing is when the reference voltage has the

least magnitude. According to Fig. 10, the best times for

reclosing in this case are t=0.62, t=0.82, t=1.02, etc.
Considering the maximum stability margin of power system,
the reclosing operation should be done as fast as possible; so,
the optimum instant is t=0.62sec and the least over voltage
will be experienced in this time. It should be stated that this
kind of controlled reclosure is not possible without Switch
Sync relays and special protection and detection logics.
Voltage across open breaker is minimum

This paper has demonstrated that by means of neutral reactors,

resonant voltages on the opened phase and also the reclosing
over voltages of shunt compensated EHV lines can be
significantly reduced. These aspects were shown with
particular reference to the planned 640km long AsaluyeIsfahan 765 kV line.
In addition, the same neutral reactor can also increase the
frequency of beating after single phase opening and thus
reduces the reclosing time and improves the power system
stability. This aspect was also confirmed by simulation results.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This paper describes a portion of the engineering studies
performed on the under-construction 765kV system by
MONENCO Iran Consulting Engineers. The authors thank Iran
Power Plant Projects Management (MAPNA Group) for the
sponsorship of this work.

Figure 10. Voltage across breaker contacts after fault clearing

REFERENCES

The voltage waveform for reclosing of 765kV AsaluyeIsfahan transmission line in optimum instant of t=0.62sec is
depicted in Fig. 11. By comparing Fig. 9 and Fig. 11, it is
evident that reclosing in optimum time (in this case t=0.62sec)
causes a considerable reduction in over voltages experienced
during reclosing operations
800
[kV]
600
400
200
0
-200
-400
-600
-800
0.00

0.15

0.30

0.45

0.60

0.75

[s]

0.90

(file 1ph-RecloseWithNeutralReactor350.pl4; x-var t) v:420KMA

Figure 11. Reclosing over voltage,with neutral reactor X=350 and

treclose=0.62

So, the usage of neutral reactors together with high speed

breakers at 765 KV the reclose would be at a sufficiently low
voltage so as not to cause concern with respect to dangerous
over voltages.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
Single-phase reclosing on Asaluye-Isfahan 765kV shunt
compensated line can cause very high transient over voltages.
These over voltages are created due to a resonant voltage
remaining on the opened phase.

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