POWER SUBSTATION BUS AND SWITCHING CONFIGURATION TYPES AND TUTORIALS

There are six types of substation bus/switching arrangements commonly used in air insulated substations:
1. Single bus
2. Double bus, double breaker
3. Main and transfer (inspection) bus
4. Double bus, single breaker
5. Ring bus
6. Breaker and a half

Single Bus

-One main bus with all circuits connected directly to the bus.
-Very low reliability.
-A single failure to the main bus or any circuit section between its circuit breaker and the main bus will cause an outage of the entire system.
-Maintenance of the bus would require the outage of the total system, use of standby generation, or switching to adjacent station, if available.

Since the single bus arrangement is low in reliability, it is not recommended for heavily loaded substations or substations having a high availability requirement. Reliability of this arrangement can be improved by the addition of a bus tiebreaker to minimize the effect of a main bus failure.

Double Bus, Double Breaker

-Very high level of reliability by having two separate breakers available to each
circuit.
-Maintenance of a bus or a circuit breaker in this arrangement can be accomplished without interrupting either of the circuits.

A double bus, double breaker scheme is a high-cost arrangement, since each line has two breakers and requires a larger area for the substation to accommodate the additional equipment. This is especially true in a low profile configuration. The protection scheme is also more involved than a single bus scheme.

Main and Transfer Bus

-All circuits are connected between a main (operating) bus and a transfer bus (also referred to as an inspection bus).
-Reliability of this system is not very high. However, with the transfer bus available during maintenance, de-energizing of the circuit can be avoided. Some systems are operated with the transfer bus normally de-energized.

A shortcoming of this scheme is that if the main bus is taken out of service, even though the circuits can remain energized through the transfer bus and its associated switches, there would be no relay protection for the circuits. Depending on the system arrangement, this concern can be minimized through the use of circuit protection devices (reclosure or fuses) on the lines outside the substation.

This arrangement is slightly more expensive than the single bus arrangement, but does provide more flexibility during maintenance. Protection of this scheme is similar to that of the single bus arrangement. The area required for a low profile substation with a main and transfer bus scheme is also greater than that of the single bus, due to the additional switches and bus.

Ring Bus

All breakers are arranged in a ring with circuits tapped between breakers. For a failure on a circuit, the two adjacent breakers will trip without affecting the rest of the system.

A single bus failure will only affect the adjacent breakers and allow the rest of the system to remain energized. A breaker failure or breakers that fail to trip will require adjacent breakers to be tripped to isolate the fault.

Maintenance on a circuit breaker in this scheme can be accomplished without interrupting any circuit, including the two circuits adjacent to the breaker being maintained. The breaker to be maintained is taken out of service by tripping the breaker, then opening its isolation switches. Since the other breakers adjacent to the breaker being maintained are in service, they will continue to supply the circuits.

In order to gain the highest reliability with a ring bus scheme, load and source circuits should be alternated when connecting to the scheme. Arranging the scheme in this manner will minimize the potential for the loss of the supply to the ring bus due to a breaker failure.

Relaying is more complex in this scheme than some previously identified. Since there is only one bus in this scheme, the area required to develop this scheme is less than some of the previously discussed schemes. However, expansion of a ring bus is limited, due to the practical arrangement of circuits.

Breaker-and-a-Half

The breaker-and-a-half scheme can be developed from a ring bus arrangement as the number of circuits increases. In this scheme, each circuit is between two circuit breakers, and there are two main buses.

The failure of a circuit will trip the two adjacent breakers and not interrupt any other circuit. With the three breaker arrangement for each bay, a center breaker failure will cause the loss of the two adjacent circuits. However, a breaker failure of the breaker adjacent to the bus will only interrupt one circuit.

Maintenance of a breaker on this scheme can be performed without an outage to any circuit. Furthermore, either bus can be taken out of service with no interruption to the service. This is one of the most reliable arrangements, and it can continue to be expanded as required.

Relaying is more involved than some schemes previously discussed. This scheme will require more area and is costly due to the additional components.

Related post



No comments:

PREVIOUS ARTICLES
free counters