GROUND2008

&

3rd LPE

International Conference on Grounding and Earthing & rd 3 International Conference on Lightning Physics and Effects
Florianopolis - Brazil November, 2008

INFLUENCE OF LONG-SPAN CROSSINGS ON THE SHIELDING FAILURE FLASHOVER RATE OF THE TUCURUI-MANAUS 500kV TRANSMISSION LINE
Leonardo Rocha Vanderlei Machado Camilo Machado Daniel Glria Paulo Liberato Eletronorte - Centrais Eltricas do Norte do Brasil S.A. / Engetower Engenharia e Consultoria S.A.
Abstract The Tucurui-Manaus 500 kV transmission line, approximately 1500 km long, will be constructed in the

and present lower costs. The other objective is to supply regions future electric power demands [2]. Transmission projects in the Amazon Region deals with complex environmental and social challenges such as permanent preservation areas, native communities, flooded areas, necessity of erection of transmission lines with cable clearances above the forest and wide rivers to be crossed. All of these factors may lead to a quite expensive or unfeasible project. Thus, special techniques and design might be necessary for minimum environmental and social impact and to minimize costs. Along Tucurui-Manaus 500 kV transmission line route, five long span crossings are expected to be constructed in order to cross wide rivers. Transmission lines across rivers need long spans from 600 m up to 4000 m and extreme clearances to allow for shipping up to 70 m. Conductors must be selected prior to tower design, because they determine tower height and tower loading. In order to limit conductor sags and tower heights, special conductors that permit high tensile stresses must be adopted. Tall towers are required to accommodate conductor sags and provide the clearance above water level necessary for shipping. Some mechanical requirements make dimensions of crossing towers larger than the typical ones. Crossing tower heights still depend on the type of terrain where the tower will be located. The main dimensions are shown in Figure 2 where B is the spacing between cross arms, S is the conductor sag, D is the electrical clearance, C is the required clearance for shipping and H is the tower height [3].

Amazon region. There will be five river-crossings with spans over 1000 meters long. Generally, the terrains in both sides of those rivers are totally flat, which calls for the use of very tall towers. The crossing projects are quite complex and involves many electrical and mechanical challenges. When individually analyzed, long-span crossings present high shielding failure flashover rates per 100 km per year. These results will affect the overall shielding failure flashover rate and can not be neglected. This work presents the methodology used for computation of the influence of those crossings on the shielding failure rate and the obtained results by computational simulations.

1 - INTRODUCTION In order to integrate the Isolated System of the Amazon Region to the Brazilian National Interconnected System, the Tucuru-Manaus 500 kV transmission line and the corresponding substations and equipment were planned. Figure 1 shows the line and substation locations.

Figure 1: TucuruiManaus 500 kV transmission line location [2].

The line is expected to be 1476 km long and will interconnect Tucuru Hydroelectric Power Plant, some loads situated on the left side of the Amazon River and the cities of Manaus and Macapa. The line mainly fulfills two objectives: the first one is to reduce the burning of fossil fuels used to generate electric power in the region, by replacing part of thermoelectric generation with power generated by hydroelectric sources, which are renewable

Figure 2: Long-span crossing main dimensions (adapted [3])

During the lightning performance studies of the Tucurui Manaus 500 kV line, no problems were detected related to shielding failure rate for typical tower configurations developed to be used along the line. However, for longspan crossing configurations, the obtained shielding failure rates were relatively high and might affect the overall shielding failure. In this work, the influence of calculated shielding failure rates for long-span crossings are estimated and discussed. 2 SIMULATIONS 2.1 COMPUTATIONAL PROGRAM In this work, the analysis was performed by means of simulations using DATMOS computational program, version 3.0 [4], [5], developed by CEPEL, Electrical Energy Research Center of Eletrobras, in FORTRAN 90 Programming Language. As input data, parameters of line and cables, tower geometry and lightning regional information must be provided. From those data, DATMOS is able to determine the number of direct flashes that hit each line cable and indirect flashes that may generate important overvoltages along the line. For each simulated stroke, the type of incidence (direct stroke near the tower, direct stroke on the midspan or indirect stroke) is determined and the respective current parameters are estimated as a function of probability density curves of each parameter: current amplitude, front and tail times. From internal or external routines, curves of resultant overvoltages associated to the stroke are calculated for the main points of line. The corresponding results are stored in files. From the resultant overvoltages generated by each stroke, the program calculates the lightning performance of the line, and the flashover rate per 100 km per year is given for each type of incidence. However, DATMOS is only able to execute bidimensional analysis. In order to obtain more accurate results, it would be necessary a tridimensional analysis. In this work, for estimating purposes, DATMOS is used. 2.2 INPUT DATA As lightning input data, it was used the median parameters obtained from the measurements made by Berger [1]. It was considered a regional flash density ( N g ) of 5 flashes/km. For comparison purposes two different typical tower alternatives were designed and proposed to be adopted along the line, except for long-span crossings. The first alternative comprises a delta double-circuit tower configuration, illustrated in Figure 3. The phases are placed in delta and each one has a symmetrical bundle of four RAIL 954 MCM sub-conductors with a spacing of 0.7 m between them. The second alternative is illustrated in Figure 4. It comprises a pyramidal double-circuit tower configuration,

the phases are placed in vertical position and each one has a symmetrical bundle of four RAIL 954 MCM subconductors, spaced 1.1 m between them. For each configuration, two EHS 3/8 cables are considered as ground wires. For simulation purposes, it was assumed a 500 m span and sags of phase conductors and ground wires equal to 21.16 m and 15.14 m respectively. The typical tower heights of delta and pyramidal doublecircuit configurations were assumed to be 50.4 m and 59.36 m respectively.

Figure 3: Typical Delta Double-Circuit Tower Configuration (dimension in millimeters)

Figure 4: Typical Pyramidal Double-Circuit Tower Configuration (dimension in millimeters)

For long-span crossings, as already discussed, special structures must be designed. The purposed delta and pyramidal alternatives are illustrated in Figures 5 and 6 respectively. Although typical and special structures present similar configurations, special ones present larger dimensions, in order to meet long-span crossing requirements. The phase bundles of each alternative have four PASTEL/ALMELEC32/19 795 MCM subconductors with a spacing of 0.457 m between them. As ground wires, two PHLOX/ALMELEC24/37 750 MCM were adopted.

Table 1 presents the sags, span lengths and clearances for shipping of each long-span crossing. The electrical clearance was assumed to be 10 m for all long-span crossings. From these parameters and dimensions shown in figures 5 and 6, the tower heights of each crossing were determined for each configuration, as detailed in Table 2.
Long-Span Crossing Name Trombetas 1 Trombetas 2 Trombetas 3 Faro Jatapu Uatum Amazonas - Jurupari 1 Amazonas - Jurupari 2 Phase Ground Conductor Wire Sag Sag (m) (m) 46.92 31.38 6.66 190.87 135.02 52.24 101.28 39.84 26.64 5.65 162.04 114.62 44.35 85.98 Clearence for Shipping (m) 40.00 40.00 40.00 40.00 40.00 40.00 70.00

Length (m)

1070 875 403 2158 1815 1129 1572

2078

176.98

150.22

70.00

Figure 5: Long-Span Crossing Delta Double-Circuit Tower Configuration (dimension in millimeters)

Table 1: Long-span crossings lengths, clearances and cable sags Long -Span Crossing Name Trombetas 1 Trombetas 2 Trombetas 3 Faro Jatapu Uatum Amazonas Jurupari 1 Amazonas Jurupari 2 Delta Tower Height (m) 117,24 101,70 76,98 261,19 205,34 122,56 201,60 277,30 Pyramidal Tower Height (m) 116,42 100,88 76,16 260,37 204,52 121,74 200,78 276,48

Table 2: Tower heights of each tower configuration for long-span crossings

The grounding impedance was assumed to be 10 and the tower surge impedance equal to 300 for all simulations. Non-linear effects (corona effects and soil ionization) were not included in this work. 3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Using DATMOS Program, typical and long-span special alternatives developed for the Tucuru-Manaus 500 kV transmission line were simulated in order to evaluate their lightning performance. Simulating only typical tower structures, without taking into account the long-span crossings influence, the calculated overall shielding failure flashover rate of the line was zero for both alternatives.

Figure 6: Long-Span Crossing Pyramidal Double-Circuit Tower Configuration (dimension in millimeters)

However, when long-span crossings and the respective special structures were individually simulated, high flashover shielding failure rates, per 100 kilometers per year, were observed for some crossings. From these results and the crossing lengths, the individual shielding failure flashover rate per year of each crossing was calculated. Tables 3 and 4 show the results obtained for delta and pyramidal double-circuit tower configurations respectively. The individual shielding failure rates per year of longspan crossings were summed up and the results represent the total outage rates due to long-span crossing shielding failures of each alternative.
Simulated Shielding Failure Flashover Rate (/100km/year) 1.480 0.882 0.263 10.370 6.780 1.799 9.790 13.980 Long-Span Crossing Shielding Failure Flashover Rate (/year) 0.016 0.008 0.001 0.224 0.123 0.020

failure flashover rate of the line was calculated for each configuration. The results are shown in Table 5. Although these overall rates are relatively low (0.057 and 0.035 per 100 km per year for delta and pyramidal configurations respectively), it is estimated to occur 0.836 and 0.520 short-circuit per year due to shielding failures for delta and pyramidal configurations respectively. Based on the results presented in this topic, it is observed that Tucurui-Manaus 500 kV transmission line has a non-zero shielding failure flashover rate for any chosen tower configuration to be used, when taking into account the long-span influence.
Overall Shielding Failure Flashover Rate of TucuruiManaus Line (100 km/year) 0.057 0.035

Long Crossing Name Trombetas 1 Trombetas 2 Trombetas 3 Faro Jatapu Uatum Amazonas Jurupari 1 Amazonas Jurupari 2

Crossing Length (m)

Tower Configuration Alternative

TucuruiManaus Line Length (km)

Shielding Failure Flashover Rate (/year)

1070 875 403 2158 1815 1129 1572 2078

Delta DoubleCircuit Pyramidal Double Circuit

1472 1472

0.836 0.520

Table 5: Overall shielding failure flashover rate for TucuruiManaus 500 kV line

5 CONCLUSIONS
0.154 0.291 0.836

TOTAL SHIELDING FAILURE FLASHOVER PER YEAR

Table 3: Shielding failure flashover rates for long-span crossings using delta double-circuit tower alternative Calculated Long-Span Shielding Crossing Failure Shielding Flashover Failure Rate Flashover Rate (/100 km/year) (/year) 0.342 0.004 0.128 0.000 7.017 3.741 0.440 5.640 9.742 0.001 0.000 0.151 0.068 0.005 0.089 0.202 0.520

This work presented results concerning the influence of long-span crossings on the shielding failure flashover rate of the Tucurui-Manaus 500kV transmission line, obtained by application of DATMOS computational program developed by CEPEL for lightning performance calculations. Two tower configuration alternatives for typical and long-span crossing special structures were simulated. Although typical structure alternatives presented shielding failure flashover rate equal to zero, some longspan crossings, when individually analyzed, presented high shielding failure rates for delta and pyramidal alternatives and the results affect the lightning performance of the line. Considering each long-span crossing alternative (delta and pyramidal configurations), long-span crossings were individually analyzed and the shielding failure rates per 100 km per year of each crossing were obtained. The respective results were used in order to calculate the overall shielding failure flashover rate per 100 km per year of the Tucurui-Manaus line. The obtained values were 0.057 and 0.035 for delta and pyramidal configurations respectively. Although these values are relatively low, it is estimated to occur 0.836 and 0.520 line outages per year due to shielding failures at longspan crossings for delta and pyramidal alternatives respectively. It was concluded that the influence of long-span crossing on the shielding failure rate must not be neglected and affects the line lightning performance. Those crossings must be analyzed individually in order to obtain and to compute their influence on the shielding failure rate. However, for more accurate results, a computational

Long Crossing Name Trombetas 1 Trombetas 2 Trombetas 3 Faro Jatapu Uatum Amazonas Jurupari 1 Amazonas Jurupari 2

Crossing Length (m) 1070 875 403 2158 1815 1129 1572 2078

TOTAL SHIELDING FAILURE FLASHOVER PER YEAR

Table 4: Shielding failure flashover rates for long-span crossings using pyramidal double-circuit tower alternative

From the total shielding failure flashover rate per year caused by long-span crossings and the total Tucurui Manaus line length (1476 km), the overall shielding

program that performs three-dimensional analysis must be used. In order to minimize shielding failure rates presented in this work, it was recommended the employment of surge arresters in parallel with insulator strings of each longspan crossing tower, which are very effective to minimize lightning outages. Although costs associated to their acquisition and maintenance are relatively high, longspan crossing present few towers, achieving a balance between costs and a better line performance.

6 REFERENCES
[1] BERGER, K., ANDERSON, R. B., KRNINGER, H., Parameters of Lightning Flashes, Electra, n. 41, pp. 23-37, June, 1975 [2] CCPE (Coordinating Committee of Electrical Systems Expansion Planning) Integration of Amazon to National Interconnected System, R1 Report Electrical and Technoeconomic Viability, July 2004 [3] KIESSLING, F. Long-Span Crossings Location and Selection of Tower Sites, International Workshop: Long-Span Crossings in Aerial Transmission Lines, Cigr-Brazil/CE B2 Aerial Lines, presentation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, May 2008 [4] SALARI, J. C., PORTELA, C., A Methodology to the Calculation of Lightning Performance of Conventional and NonConventional Transmission Lines, Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Lightning Protection (ICLP), pp. 650-655, Avignon, France, September, 2004 [5] SALARI, J. C., PORTELA, C., Computation of Transmission Lines Short-Circuits Caused by Direct and Nearby-Ground Lightning Incidence. Ground2006 International Conference on Grounding and Earthing, pp. 345-350, Macei, Brazil, November, 2006

Main author Name: Leonardo de Carvalho Rocha Address: SCN Quadra 06 Conj. A, Bloco B, sala 816, Asa Norte - Cep 70.716-901 - Braslia/DF. Phone: 61 3429 - 6332 E-mail: leonardo.rocha@eln.gov.br