EEEEC16

Power Transmission and Distribution

DR YASHASVI BANSAL
Assistant Professor (EE)
COURSE OUTCOMES:
CO1. To get introduced with the basics of power transmission systems
CO2. To be familiar with the distribution systems
CO3. To analyze performance of transmission systems through modeling
CO4. To know design and physical construction of overhead lines and underground cables
CO5. To be aware of phenomena of surges and travelling waves in high voltage transmission systems
REFERENCE BOOKS:

1. HadiSaddat, “Electric power systems”, Tata McGraw Hill. 2014.

2. Abhijit Chakraborty, and Sunita Halder, “Power System Analysis, Operation
and Control”, PHI, New Delhi, 2011.
3. W. H. Stevenson, “Elements of Power System Analysis”, McGraw Hill,
1982.
4. C. L. Wadhava, “Electrical Power Systems”, New Age International, 2004.
 Structure of a power system
(i) Generating station: G.S. represents the generating station
where electric power is produced by 3-phase alternators
operating in parallel. The usual generation voltage is 11 kV.
For economy in the transmission of electric power, the
generation voltage (i.e., 11 kV) is stepped upto 132 kV (or
more) at the generating station with the help of 3-phase
transformers. The generating voltages are normally between
11 kV and 33 kV due to technical problems, such as heating
and insulation problems.

Schematic diagram depicting power system structure (Detailed)

The transmission of electric power at high voltages has several advantages:

It may appear advisable to use the highest possible voltage for electric power transmission to save conductor material and
have other advantages. But there is a limit to which this voltage can be increased. The increase in transmission voltage
introduces insulation problems and the cost of switchgear and transformer equipment increases. Therefore, choosing the
proper transmission voltage is essentially a question of economics.

Generally, the primary transmission is carried at 66 kV, 132 kV, 220 kV, or 400 kV.
(ii) Primary transmission. A 3-phase, 3-wire overhead system transmits the electric power at 132 kV to the city’s outskirts. This
forms the primary transmission.

(iii) Secondary transmission. The primary transmission line terminates at the receiving station (RS) which usually lies at the
city’s outskirts. At the receiving station, the voltage is reduced to 33kV by step-down transformers. From this station, electric
power is transmitted at 33kV by a 3-phase, 3-wire overhead system to various sub-stations (SS) located at strategic points in the
city. This forms the secondary transmission.
 (iv) Primary distribution. The secondary transmission line terminates at the sub-station (SS) where voltage is reduced
from 33 kV to 11kV, 3-phase, 3-wire. The 11 kV lines run along the important road sides of the city. This forms the
primary distribution. It may be noted that big consumers (having demand more than 50 kW) are generally supplied
power at 11 kV for further handling with their own sub-stations.

(v) Secondary distribution. The electric power from primary distribution line (11 kV) is delivered to distribution sub-
stations (DS). These sub-stations are located near the consumers’ localities and step down the voltage to 400 V, 3-phase,
4-wire for secondary distribution. The voltage between any two phases is 400 V and between any phase and neutral is
230 V. The single-phase residential lighting load is connected between any one phase and neutral, whereas 3-phase, 400
V motor load is connected across 3-phase lines directly.

It may be worthwhile to mention here that secondary distribution system consists of

feeders, distributors and service mains. Fig. shows the elements of low voltage
distribution system. Feeders (SC or SA) radiating from the distribution sub-station
(DS) supply power to the distributors (AB, BC, CD and AD). No consumer is given a
direct connection from the feeders. Instead, the consumers are connected to the
distributors through their service mains.
The service mains are small conductors, which deliver power to the
consumer’s premises up to the metering point.
 In India, 765 kV is the maximum
transmission voltage. Power Grid
Corporation builds these lines for
interstate communication throughout
the entire nation. India's transmission
voltage (highest) is 765 kV AC. The
highest DC transmission voltage in
India is 800kV.

Schematic diagram depicting power system structure (Ref: Nagrath and Kothari)
For economic and technological purposes, individual power systems are organized as electrically connected
areas or regional grids (also called power pools). Each area or regional grid operates technically and
economically independently. Still, these are eventually interconnected to form a national grid (which may even
form an international grid) so that each area is contractually tied to other areas with respect to certain
generation and scheduling features.
Individual State grids were
interconnected to form 5 regional grids
Why interconnection?? covering mainland India. The grids
were the Northern, Eastern, Western,
North Eastern and Southern Grids.

In August 2006 North and East grids

were interconnected thereby 4 regional
grids were synchronously connected
forming a central grid operating at one
frequency. On 31st December 2013, the
southern Region was connected to the
Central Grid. Thereby achieving 'One
Nation, One Grid, One Frequency'.
 Substations
In between the generating station and last consumer end, a number of transformation and switching stations have to
be installed. These are generally known as substations.

According to constructional features. A sub-station has many components (e.g. circuit breakers, switches, fuses, instruments etc.)
which must be housed properly to ensure continuous and reliable service. According to constructional features, the sub-stations are
classified as :

(i) Indoor sub-station (ii) Outdoor sub-station (iii) Underground sub-station (iv) Pole-mounted sub-station

(i) Indoor sub-stations. For voltages upto 11 kV, the equipment of the sub-station is installed indoor because of economic
considerations. However, when the atmosphere is contaminated with impurities, these sub-stations can be erected for voltages
upto 66 kV. These substations are preferred in the big cities when the load centre lies in the heart of cities.

(ii) Outdoor sub-stations. For voltages beyond 66 kV, equipment is invariably installed outdoors. It is because for such voltages, the
clearances between conductors and the space required for switches, circuit breakers, and other equipment becomes so great that it is
not economical to install the equipment indoor. All equipments except control and monitoring equipment installed in open air.

(iii) Underground sub-stations. In thickly populated areas, the space available for equipment and building is limited and the cost of
land is high. Under such situations, the sub-station is created underground.

(iv) Pole-mounted sub-stations. This is an outdoor substation with equipment installed overhead on H-pole or 4-pole structure. It is
the cheapest form of sub-station for voltages not exceeding 11kV (or 33 kV in some cases). Electric power is almost distributed in
localities through such substations. These substations are very simple in construction and economic as there is no need of any building.
Underground substation

Pole mounted substation

 Equipment in Substations
1. Bus-bars. When a number of lines operating at the same voltage have to be directly connected electrically, bus-bars are
used as the common electrical component. Bus-bars are copper or aluminium bars and operate at constant voltage. The
incoming and outgoing lines in a sub-station are connected to the bus-bars.
2. Insulators. The insulators serve two purposes. They support the conductors (or bus-bars) and confine the current to the
conductors. The most commonly used material for the manufacture of insulators is porcelain.
3. Isolating switches. In sub-stations, it is often desired to disconnect a part of the system for general maintenance and
repairs. This is accomplished by an isolating switch or isolator. An isolator is essentially a knife switch and is designed to
open a circuit under no load. In other words, isolator switches are operated only when the lines in which they are connected
carry no current.
For example, consider that the isolators are connected on both sides of a circuit breaker. If the isolators are
to be opened, the C.B. must be opened first.
** An isolator cannot be used to open a circuit under normal conditions. It is because it has no provision to
quench the arc that is produced during opening operation. Hence the use of circuit breaker is essential.

4. Protective relay. A protective relay is an automatic device which detects an abnormal condition in an electrical circuit and
causes a circuit breaker to isolate the faulty element of the system. In some cases it may give an alarm or visible indication
to alert operator.
5. Circuit breaker. It is a mechanical switching device capable of making, carrying and breaking currents under normal
circuit conditions and also making, carrying for a specified time, and automatically breaking currents under specified
abnormal circuit conditions such as those of short circuit. The medium in which circuit interruption is performed may be
designated by suitable prefix, such as, oil-circuit breaker, airblast circuit breaker, air-break circuit breaker, sulphur
hexafluoride circuit breaker,vacuum circuit breaker, etc.
6. Power Transformers. A power transformer is used in a sub-station to step-up or step-down the voltage. The modern practice
is to use 3-phase transformers in sub-stations ; although 3 single phase bank of transformers can also be used. The use of 3-
phase transformer (instead of 3 single phase bank of transformers) permits two advantages. Firstly, only one 3-phase load-tap
changing mechanism can be used. Secondly, its installation is much simpler than the three single phase transformers.

7. Instrument transformers. The lines in sub-stations operate at high voltages and carry current of thousands of amperes. The
measuring instruments and protective devices are designed for low voltages (generally 110 V) and currents (about 5 A).
Therefore, they will not work satisfactorily if mounted directly on the power lines. This difficulty is overcome by installing
instrument transformers on the power lines. The function of these instrument transformers is to transfer voltages or currents in
the power lines to values which are convenient for the operation of measuring instruments and relays. There are two types of
instrument transformers viz.

(i) Current transformer (C.T.) (ii) Potential transformer (P.T.)

(i) Current transformer (C.T.). A current transformer in essentially a step-up transformer which steps down the current to a known ratio. The
primary of this transformer consists of one or more turns of thick wire connected in series with the line. The secondary consists of a large
number of turns of fine wire and provides for the measuring instruments and relays a current which is a constant fraction of the current in the
line.
Suppose a current transformer rated at 100/5 A is connected in the line to measure current. If the current in the line is 100 A, then current in the
secondary will be 5A. Similarly, if current in the line is 50A, then secondary of C.T. will have a current of 2·5 A. Thus the C.T. under
consideration will step down the line current by a factor of 20.

(ii) Voltage transformer. It is essentially a step down transformer and steps down the voltage to a known ratio. The primary of this transformer
consists of a large number of turns of fine wire connected across the line. The secondary winding consists of a few turns and provides for
measuring instruments and relays a voltage which is a known fraction of the line voltage. Suppose a potential transformer rated at 66kV/110V
is connected to a power line. If line voltage is 66kV, then voltage across the secondary will be 110 V.
8. Metering and Indicating Instruments. There are several metering and indicating instruments (e.g. ammeters, voltmeters, energy meters etc.)
installed in a sub-station to maintain watch over the circuit quantities. The instrument transformers are invariably used with them for satisfactory
operation.

9. Fuse. There are several metering and indicating instruments (e.g. ammeters, voltmeters, energy meters etc.) installed in a sub-station to
maintain watch over the circuit quantities. The instrument transformers are invariably used with them for satisfactory operation.

10. Lightning arrester. It is also known as surge arrestor which is normally connected between phase and ground at the substation to protect the
substation equipments from lightning and switching surges. Surge arrestors offer low resistance to the high voltage surge for diverting to the
ground. After discharging the surge energy to ground, it blocks the normal current flowing to ground by offering a high-resistance path.

10. Auxiliary supply.

Switchgear: It is a general term covering switching and interrupting

devices and their combination with associated control, metering,
protective and regulating devices, also assemblies of these devices with
associated inter-connections, accessories, enclosures and supporting
structures used primarily in connection with generation, transmission,
distribution, and conversion of electric power.
Equipment in Substations
Substation Layout

66/11 kV Sub-Station
11 kV/400 V Indoor Sub-Station
(i) The 3-phase, 3-wire 11 kV line is tapped and brought to the gang operating switch installed near the sub-station. The G.O.
switch consists of isolators connected in each phase of the 3- phase line.

(ii) From the G.O. switch, the 11 kV line is brought to the indoor sub-station as underground cable. It is fed to the H.T. side of
the transformer (11 kV/400 V) via the 11 kV O.C.B. The transformer steps down the voltage to 400 V, 3-phase, 4-wire.

(iii) The secondary of transformer supplies to the bus-bars via the main O.C.B. From the busbars, 400 V, 3-phase, 4-wire
supply is given to the various consumers via 400 V O.C.B. The voltage between any two phases is 400 V and between any
phase and neutral it is 230 V. The single phase residential load is connected between any one phase and neutral whereas 3-
phase, 400 V motor load is connected across 3-phase lines directly.

(iv) The CTs are located at suitable places in the sub-station circuit and supply for the metering and indicating instruments and
relay circuits.
 RADIAL AND RING-MAIN DISTRIBUTORS
If a distributor is connected to the supply system from one end only, it is called radial system of distribution. This is also
true for the feeders i.e. if a feeder is connected to the supply system from one end only that feeder is called radial feeder.
Figure 1(a) shows a radial distribution system.
The main drawbacks of this system are:
1. Distributor nearest to the substation is highly loaded.
2. Severe voltage variation to the consumers far away from the substation due to load variations.
3. Consumers are dependent on a single feeder and a single distributor and a fault on either of them causes interruption of
supply to all the consumers away from the fault.

The difficulties of a radial system can be overcome by using a ring-main system. A ring main is the name given to a
distributor or feeder, arranged to form a closed loop. It may have one or more feeding points. Figure 1(b) shows the ring-
main distributing system.
INTERCONNECTORS

Sometimes between the two points of a ring main, the potential difference becomes very high which can be reduced by
increasing the cross-section of the feeder ring or by joining those points which have high potential difference by an
interconnector. Since increasing the cross-section requires the replacement of older ring main and also more volume of
conductor, interconnectors provide economy and are frequently used.

Interconnected distribution system and system with interconnectors are different. In the interconnected distribution system,
different feeding stations (more than one) are connected by interconnected feeders. However, interconnectors are used in
distributors to reduce the potential difference between any two points. Figure shows the interconnected distribution system
and interconnectors.
 METHODS OF FEEDING DISTRIBUTORS
(i) Distributor fed at one end
(ii) Distributor fed at both ends
(iii) Distributor fed at the center
(iv) Ring distributor.
The following points are worth noting in a singly fed distributor :

(a) The current in the various sections of the distributor away from feeding
point goes on decreasing. Thus current in section AC is more than the
current in section CD and current in section CD is more than the current in
section DE.
(b) The voltage across the loads away from the feeding point goes on
decreasing. The minimum voltage occurs at the load point E.
(i) Distributor fed at one end (c) In case a fault occurs on any section of the distributor, the whole
distributor will have to be disconnected from the supply mains. Therefore,
continuity of supply is interrupted.
 a. Load voltage goes on decreasing as we move away from one feeding
point say A, reaches minimum value and then again starts rising and
reaches maximum value when we reach the other feeding point B. The
minimum voltage occurs at some load point and is never fixed. It is
shifted with the variation of load on different sections of the distributor.
b. If a fault occurs on any feeding point of the distributor, the continuity of
supply is maintained from the other feeding point.
(ii) Distributor fed at both ends c. In case of fault on any section of the distributor, the continuity of supply
is maintained from the other feeding point.
d. The area of cross-section required for a doubly fed distributor is much
less than that of a singly fed distributor.
 It is equivalent to two singly fed distributors, each distributor
having a common feeding point and length equal to half of the
total length.

(iii) Distributor fed at the center

It is equivalent to a straight distributor fed at both ends with

equal voltages, the two ends being brought together to form a
closed ring. The distributor ring may be fed at one or more
than one point.

(iv) Ring distributor.

Comparison of various types of ac and dc
systems
D.C. transmission
A.C. transmission
Various Systems of Power Transmission
Two-wire d.c. system with one conductor earthed
Two-wire d.c. system with mid-point earthed. Three-wire d.c. system.

There are
two outers and a
middle or neutral
wire which is
earthed at the
generator end

Single phase 2-wire a.c. system with one conductor earthed. Single phase 2-wire system with mid-point earthed.

Single phase 2-wire a.c.

The two wires possess equal
system with one
and opposite voltages to earth
conductor earthed.
 Single phase, 3-wire system.
Two phase, 4-wire a.c. system. Four wires are taken from the
The system consists ends of the two-phase
of two outers and windings and the
neutral wire taken mid-points of the two
from the mid-point windings are connected
of the phase together. This system
winding. If the load can be considered as two
is balanced, the independent single phase
current through the systems, each transmitting
neutral wire is zero. one half of the total power.

Two-phase, 3-wire system. 3-phase, 4-wire system.

3-Phase, 3-wire system.

The third or neutral

wire is taken from the
junction of two-phase
windings whose
voltages are in
quadrature with each
other. Each phase The 3-phase, 3-wire system If the loads are balanced, then
transmits one half of may be star connected or current through the neutral
the total power. delta connected. wire is zero.
 Calculation of R, L and C
• A transmission line has four constants R, L, C, and G distributed uniformly along the whole length of the line.

R L
The resistance of the transmission line
conductor is the most cause of power loss in
the transmission line.
C G
Fourth constant i.e., shunt conductance. It represents
the conductance between conductors or between
conductor and ground and accounts for the leakage
current at the insulators. It is very small in the case
of overhead lines and may be assumed zero.
TYPES OF CONDUCTORS

ACAR aluminium conductor alloy reinforced

 Calculation of Resistance
The effective resistance of a conductor is

Skin effect
A solid conductor may be thought to be consisting of a large number of strands, each carrying a small part of the
current. The ‘inductance of each strand will vary according to its position. Thus, the strands near the centre are
surrounded by a greater magnetic flux and hence have larger inductance than that near the surface. The high
reactance of inner strands causes the alternating current to flow near the surface of conductor.
Proximity effect