UNIT II SWITCHING TRANSIENTS

Over voltages due to switching transients - resistance switching and the equivalent circuit for
interrupting the resistor current - load switching and equivalent circuit - waveforms for transient
voltage across the load and the switch - normal and abnormal switching transients. Current
suppression - current chopping - effective equivalent circuit. Capacitance switching - effect of
source regulation- capacitance switching with a restrike, with multiple restrikes. Illustration for
multiple restriking transients - ferro resonance.

OVER VOLTAGES DUE TO SWITCHING TRANSIENTS:

The making and breaking of electric circuits with switchgear may result in abnormal
overvoltages in power systems having large inductances and capacitances. The overvoltages may
go as high as six times the normal power frequency voltage. In circuit breaking operation,
switching surges with a high rate of rise of voltage may cause repeated restriking of the arc
between the contacts of a circuit breaker, thereby causing destruction of the circuit breaker
contacts. The switching surges may include high natural frequencies of the system, a damped
normal frequency voltage component, or the restriking and recovery voltage of the system with
successive reflected waves from terminations.
Characteristics of Switching Surges:
The wave shapes of switching surges are quite different and may have origin from any of
the following sources.
(i) De-energizing of transmission lines, cables, shunt capacitor, banks, etc.
(ii) Disconnection of unloaded transformers, reactors, etc.
(iii) Energization or reclosing of lines and reactive loads,
(iv) Sudden switching off of loads.
(v) Short circuits and fault clearances.
(vi) Resonance phenomenon like ferro-resonance, arcing grounds, etc.
Typical wave shapes of the switching surges are given in Figs. 2.1(a) to (e).From the figures
of the switching surges it is clear that the overvoltages are irregular (oscillatory or unipolar) and
can be of high frequency or power frequency with its harmonics. The relative magnitudes of the
overvoltages may be about 2.4 p.u. in the case of transformer energizing and 1.4 to 2.0 p.u. in
switching transmission lines.
Switching Overvoltages in EHV and UHV Systems:
 The insulation has the lowest strength for switching surges with regard to long air gaps.
Further, switching overvoltages are of relatively higher magnitudes as compared to the lightning

overvoltages for UHV systems. Overvoltages are generated in EHV systems when there is a
sudden release of internal energy stored either in the electrostatic form (in the capacitance) or in
the electromagnetic form (in the inductance). The different situations under which this happens
are summarized as,
(i) Interruption of low inductive currents (current chopping) by high speed circuit breakers. This
occurs when the transformers or reactors are switched off
(ii) Interruption of small capacitive currents, such as switching off of unloaded lines etc.
(iii)ferro-resonance condition
(iv) Energization of long EHV or UHV lines.
 Transient overvoltages in the above cases can be of the order of 2.0 to 3.3 p.u. and will have
magnitudes of the order of 1200 kV to 2000 kV on 750 kV systems. The duration of these
overvoltages varies from 1 to 10 ms depending on the circuit parameters. It is seen that these are of
comparable magnitude or are even higher than those that occur due to lightning. Sometimes the
overvoltages may last for several cycles. The other situations of switching that give rise to switching
overvoltages of shorter duration (0.5 to 5 ms) and lower magnitudes (2.0 to 2.5 p.u.) are:
(a) Single pole closing 6f circuit breaker
(b) Intimation of fault current when the L-G or L-L fault is cleared
(c) Resistance switching used in circuit breakers
(d) Switching lines terminated by transformers
(e) Series capacitor compensated lines
(f) Sparking of the surge diverter located at the receiving end of the line to limit the
lightning overvoltages
RESISTANCE SWITCHING:
Impacts of current chopping, capacitive current breaking etc. give rise to severe voltage
oscillations. These excessive voltage surges during circuit interruption can be prevented by the
use of shunt resistance R connected across the circuit breaker contacts as shown in the equivalent
circuit in Fig.2.2. This is known as resistance switching.

CB

Referring to
Fig.2.2, when a fault occurs, the contacts of the circuit breaker are opened and an arc is struck
between the contacts. Since the contacts are shunted by resistance R, a part of arc current flows
through this resistance. This results in the decrease of arc current and an increase in the rate of
de-ionization of the arc path. Consequently, the arc resistance is increased. The increased arc
resistance leads to a further increase in current through shunt resistance. This process continues
until the arc current becomes so small that it fails to maintain the arc. Now, the arc is
extinguished and circuit current is interrupted.
 The shunt resistor also helps in limiting the oscillatory growth of re-striking voltage. The
analysis of resistance switching can be made to find out the critical value of the shunt resistance
to obtain complete damping of transient oscillations.
LOAD SWITCHING:
The most frequent functions performed by some switching devices are to switch on and
switch off loads. In many instances, this can be represented by a parallel RL circuit. Low power
factor loads will be mostly inductive, high power factor loads will be mostly resistive. When
such a load is switched off, the effective capacitance of the load becomes important in
determining the form of the transient generated. This is illustrated in Fig. 2.5.

The load depicted in Fig. 2.5 has a relatively high power factor. When the current extinguishes,
the instantaneous voltage, and therefore the voltage across the load, is V0. Now C will be charged
to this voltage and will subsequently discharge through L and R. In Fig. 2.5(b), this is shown as a
damped oscillatory discharge and is in fact a damped cosine wave.
As the power factor improves, the current comes more and more into phase with the
voltage, so that V0 diminishes. At unity power factor (purely resistive load), voltage is zero when
current is zero, so there is no transient at all. The situation is different if the power factor is
corrected to unity. An example given below will make this clear and also provide an opportunity
to look at series damping.
Arc furnaces are commonplace in industry. Ore is smelted and metals are alloyed and
refined by melting them with the intense heat of an electric arc, using graphite electrodes. Such
installations usually operate at a low voltage and high current and are consequently fed by a step
down furnace transformer. They are characterized by low power factor and frequent switching.
Capacitors are frequently connected to the high voltage bus to improve the power factor; they are
switched with the transformer and furnace.
Fig. 2.6. shows one phase of such an installation, with its equivalent circuit. Delta and
star connections can be used; the figure shows one phase of a star connected circuit.

Steady-state conditions are depicted in the phasor diagram of Fig. 2.7. The post
interruption transient can be computed from the circuit shown in 2.8.
From figure 2.8., we can write,
CAPACITANCE SWITCHING:

The importance of shunt capacitor banks in power systems increasing due to the increase
of inductive loads. The operation of power factor improvement involves energizing and de-
energizing of capacitor banks. During capacitance switching operations, the stored energy in the
electric field of capacitance is released in the system which may results in excessive
overvoltages. Dropping of a long open-circuited line or underground cable or disconnection of
capacitor banks may present hazardous overvoltages.
Figure 2.9 depicts events occurring before and after such a switching operation, which in
this case was performed successfully.
 Because of the relative phase of current and voltage (current leads the voltage by 90°),
the capacitor is fully charged to maximum voltage when the switch interrupts. The capacitance
which is isolated from the source retains its charge as shown in Fig. 2.9(b). As a consequence of
this set up of the charge, it can be seen from Fig. 2.9(c) that, half a cycle after current zero, the
voltage across the switch reaches a peak value of 2 V, which is potentially dangerous. Figure 2.9
tends to simplify conditions to some extent. When a capacitor is connected to a system, the
leading current that it draws, flowing through the inductance of the system causes the capacitor
voltage to be somewhat higher than the open-circuit system voltage. This is a negative regulation
sometimes referred to as the "Ferranti Rise."
When the capacitor is disconnected, the potential of the source side of the circuit breaker
will return to this lower value, but will do so by way of an oscillation involving the source
inductance and the stray capacitance adjacent to the breaker on the source side. A more accurate
representation of the disconnecting event is shown in Fig. 2.10. In order to simplify the
subsequent analysis we will choose to ignore this, however, it does exist and can be important on
relatively weak systems.

A situation can arise where a lower voltage system is being supplied by a higher voltage
system through a stepdown transformer with cable on the higher voltage side and the lower
voltage breaker is called upon to interrupt the charging current of the cable.
Some circuit breakers, when called upon to interrupt a load or fault current, do not do so
at the first current zero, but instead wait until sufficient gap has been established between their
contacts for their various arc-extinguishing agencies to have a better chance of operating
successfully. The current involved in capacitance switching is frequently small, so that more
often than not the circuit breaker is capable of interrupting it at the first current zero. If this
should occur soon after the contacts have parted, the voltage of 2 V will appear across the
contacts while their separation is small, so there is an increased possibility of the device
reigniting. Let us assume, a restrike takes place exactly when the voltage reaches its peak, which
is equivalent to reclosing the switch at that instant. This is an LC circuit, so we would expect it to
respond to this sudden disturbance by going into an oscillation at its natural frequency, which is

where L is the inductance of the supply and C the capacitance of the bank.

When examining the energization of capacitor banks; a reignition or restrike is in fact an

inadvertent re-energization, in this case with a trapped charge of 1 pu. The restrike current will
be the instantaneous voltage across the switch divided by the circuit surge impedance, or

Neglecting damping, the voltage will swing as far above the instantaneous system voltage as it
started below. This is indicated in Fig. 2.11, which shows the initial clearing, the trapping of
charge on the capacitor, and the subsequent restrike. The transient voltage excursion to 3Vp is an
abnormal overvoltage by our definition and is the consequence of the energy stored in the
capacitor bank at the time of the restrike.
 In the
sequence drawn in Fig. 2.11(a) the Rs represent sequential restrikes and the Cs subsequent
clearings. The sequence is idealized and to some extent oversimplified. For example, in practice
restrikes will not always occur precisely at the voltage peak, so that the voltage, if it escalates,
does so more slowly. Again, the circuit is more complicated. Some capacitance will exist on the
source side of the breaker, which will introduce higher frequency disturbances, as was pointed
out in Fig. 2.11. When the switch recovers after point A, the potential at the switch is quite high.
But the source would have it be at its potential. The source side of the switch, therefore, goes
through a high-frequency transient involving an oscillation of the aforementioned capacitance
and the inductance of the source. In fact, at this time, it is possible for a voltage of 4 per unit to
be developed across the switch, a point which is often overlooked. A reignition may occur at this
time rather than half a cycle later, which will probably result in the switch conducting current for
another half cycle.
CURRENT CHOPPING:

The phenomenon of arc suppression devices in the circuit breaker bringing the current to
zero abruptly and prematurely ahead of the normal zero is known as current chopping. This
phenomenon is an example of what is known generically as current suppression. It can give rise
to an abnormal voltage as a consequence of the release of trapped magnetic energy associated
with the current. It is often observed when the no-load or magnetizing current of a transformer is
being switched, or when a shunt reactor is disconnected. The phenomenon has been observed for
many years and continues to attract attention. The overvoltage generation can be understood by
reference to Fig. 2.12.

Let us assume that at the time the chop occurs the instantaneous current is I 0. This is
flowing in the transformer winding and is associated with a certain amount of magnetic energy,
most of which resides in the transformer core:
1 2
Energy = L m I 0
2

This may be considerable, for although I is only about 1 % of the normal full load
current, the magnetizing inductance Lm is quite high. The current cannot cease suddenly in such
an inductive circuit, yet it has no complete path through the switch. It is therefore diverted into
the system capacitance on the transformer side of the switch, which is designated C in Fig. 2.12.
This consists primarily of the transformer winding capacitance, together with any capacitance
that may be in the connections between the switch and the transformer. When the current is
diverted into this capacitance, the energy from the magnetic field of the transformer is
transferred to the electric field of the capacitance. If this capacitance is known, it is possible to
calculate the voltage to which C will be charged:
1 1
C V 2= Lm I 20
2 2

( )
1
Lm 2
V =I 0
C
This states that the peak voltage reached across the capacitor, and therefore across the
winding, is given by the product of the instantaneous current chopped and the surge impedance
of the transformer. Figure 2.13. shows the energy released by a transformer core when the
magnetizing current is chopped.

FERRORESONANCE:

The term ferroresonance refers to a special kind of resonance that involves capacitance
and iron-core inductance. The most common condition in which it causes disturbances is when
the magnetizing impedance of a transformer is placed in series with a system capacitor. This
happens when there is an open-phase conductor.
 Ferroresonance is different than resonance in linear system elements. In linear systems,
resonance results in high sinusoidal voltages and currents of the resonant frequency. Linear-
system resonance is the phenomenon behind the magnification of harmonics in power systems.
Ferroresonance can also result in high voltages and currents, but the resulting waveforms are
usually irregular and chaotic in shape. The concept of ferroresonance can be explained in terms
of linear-system resonance as follows.
Consider a simple series RLC circuit as shown in Fig. 2.14. Neglecting the resistance R
for the moment, the current flowing in the circuit can be expressed as follows:

When XL = |XC|, a series-resonant circuit is formed, and the equation yields an infinitely
large current that in reality would be limited by R.

An alternate solution to
the series RLC circuit can be obtained by writing two equations defining the voltage across the
inductor, i.e.,

where v is a voltage variable. Figure 2.15. shows the graphical solution of these two equations
for two different reactances, XL and XL′. XL′ represents the series-resonant condition. The
intersection point between the capacitive and inductive lines gives the voltage across inductor EL.
The voltage across capacitor EC is determined as shown in Fig. 2.15. At resonance, the two lines
will intersect at infinitely large voltage and current since the |XC| line is parallel to the XL′ line.
Let us assume that the inductive element in the circuit has a nonlinear reactance
characteristic like that found in transformer magnetizing reactance. Figure 2.16 illustrates the
graphical solution of the equations following the methodology just presented for linear circuits.
The diagram is useful to help understand ferroresonance phenomena.
 It is obvious that there may be as many as three intersections between the capacitive
reactance line and the inductive reactance curve. Intersection 2 is an unstable solution, and this
operating point gives rise to some of the chaotic behavior of ferroresonance. Intersections 1 and
3 are stable and will exist in the steady state. Intersection 3 results in high voltages and high
currents. Figures 2.17 and 2.18 show examples of ferroresonant voltages that can result from this
simple series circuit.

The same inductive characteristic was assumed for each case. The capacitance was varied to
achieve a different operating point after an initial transient that pushes the system into resonance.
The unstable case yields voltages in excess of 4.0 pu, while the stable case settles in at voltages
slightly over 2.0 pu. Either condition can impose excessive duty on power system elements and
load equipment.
For a small capacitance, the |XC| line is very steep, resulting in an intersection point on the
third quadrant only. This can yield a range of voltages from less than 1.0 pu to voltages like
those shown in Fig. 2.18.
When C is very large, the capacitive reactance line will intersect only at points 1 and
3(Fig.2.16). One operating state is of low voltage and lagging current (intersection 1), and the
other is of high voltage and leading current (intersection 3). The operating points during
ferroresonance can oscillate between intersection points 1 and 3 depending on the applied
voltage. Often, the resistance in the circuit prevents operation at point 3 and no high voltages will
occur.
It is easier to cause ferroresonance at the higher voltage levels, its occurrence is possible
at all distribution voltage levels. The proportion of losses, magnetizing reactance, and
capacitance at lower levels may limit the effects of ferroresonance, but it can still occur.

Two Mark Questions

1. What are the causes of switching surges?

The making and breaking of electric circuits with switch gear may result in
abnormal transient over voltages in a power system having large inductance and
capacitance.
The root causes for the switching surges include the following.
i. Capacitance Switching
ii. Load Switching
iii.Ferroresonance
2. What is meant by resistance switching?
The excessive voltage surges due to current chopping, capacitive current breaking
etc during circuit interruption can be prevented by the use of a shunt resistance R
connected across the circuit breaker contacts. This is known as resistance switching

3. What is meant by capacitance switching?

 The shunt capacitors are employed to correct a lagging power factor, or in some
cases, to provide voltage support for the system. In some applications they are switched
in and out quite frequently as the system load varies and the system fluctuates. The
process of energizing or de-energizing capacitor banks for power factor correction is
called capacitance switching.
4. Define current chopping.
The phenomenon of arc suppression devices in the circuit breaker bringing the
current to zero abruptly and prematurely ahead of the normal zero is known as current
chopping.
5. Draw the equivalent circuit for interrupting the resistor current.

6. What is meant by load

switching?
The most frequent functions performed by some switching devices are to switch
on and switch off a load which is represented by a parallel RL circuit. Low power factor
loads will be mostly inductive, high power factor loads will be mostly resistive. When
such a load is switched off, the effective capacitance of the load becomes important in
determining the form of the transient generated
7. Define normal and abnormal switching transients.
Transients during energization are termed as normal switching transients. The
voltage value will be Up to 2 p.u. and no trapped charges are assumed. Eg: Capacitor
Energization
Transients during de-energization are termed as abnormal switching transients.
The voltage value will be very high and trapped charges are assumed.
8. What are the effects of source regulation?
Effects of source regulation include the following.
i. Negative regulation.
ii. Lowers the source side potential of the breaker.
9. What is restriking voltage?
It is the transient voltage that appears across the contacts of the circuit breaker at
or near the zero current instant during arcing period. A high frequency transient voltage
appears across the contacts and is caused by the rapid distribution of energy between the
magnetic & electric field associated with the station & transmission lines of the system at
the zero current. This transient voltage is known as restriking voltage
10. What is the need for resistance switching?
Resistance switching is used to prevent the excessive voltage surges due to
current chopping, capacitive current breaking etc. using a shunt resistance R connected
across the circuit breaker contacts

16 Mark Questions

1. Explain resistance switching and equivalent circuit for interrupting resistor current.
2. Explain load switching.
3. Explain capacitance switching including effects of source regulation. Also explain
restrike and multiple restrikes.
4. Explain in detail about ferroresonance.
5. What is current chopping? Explain in detail.