Concept Note on Single Bus-bar vs Main-Transfer Scheme

Purpose:
Study of Single Busbar Scheme with respect to Main-Transfer scheme in perspective of Gas Insulated
Switchgear.

For the study the Substation is considered with One (1) no. of 220kV Evacuation line, two (2) nos. of
Transformer bays.

AIS vs GIS Equipment- Reliability Perspective:

From a GIS prospective, in GIS station all busbars, Isolators, CT/PT are enclosed in module gas chambers thus
reliability of the system increases, as probability of bus faults and connection phase-earth faults by
rodents/birds/insulator arcing due to rain water tracking are very less compared to Air Insulated yards. Since,
complete GIS is insulated from external environmental factors maintenance required for overall system is very
less in a GIS.

The comparisons are done at equipment level, as we compare the operation mechanism and inherent
characteristics of each physical character of equipment to understand differences.

1. Circuit Breaker:
The internal arc-quenching/interrupter (puffer type) mechanism of AIS and GIS breakers are both
fundamentally same. Hence, the reliability of Breaker may be considered same except environmental
faults due to rain water etc. on AIS bushings.

2. Current Transformer/ Potential Transformer:

The AIS CT/PT internal insulation is oil and GIS CT/PT the internal insulation is SF6. As, this is not a
switching equipment the operation reliability of GIS CT-PT/QIS CT-PT may be considered same. Except
environmental faults due to rain water etc. on AIS bushings.

3. Isolators (with or w/o ES):

The Switching performance of the Isolators are required under no load/load (as per configuration)
condition. The GIS isolators are located inside GIS enclosure, hence due to better arc quenching of SF6
the reliability of the GIS Isolator is more than the AIS Isolator.

4. Busbars and Equipment:

Due gas encapsulation in GIS, the equipment connections / Busbars are free from environmental
faults due to rain water etc. on AIS bushings. Hence, GIS more reliable.

Single Bus bar (SB) GIS Scheme:

Line Bay

Trafo Bay Trafo Bay

This the simplest form of bulk power evacuation/distribution schemes i.e all feeders are connected to a single
bus and there is no redundancy for Main Busbar or any feeder.

Main & Transfer Switching (M+T) Scheme:

Line Bay

In M+T scheme, any of the feeder CB can be taken into maintenance without shutdown of power flow and
thus, M+T scheme is more reliable than SB scheme. However, since the M+T scheme implementation includes
additional 1 Isolator per bay, addition of Bus Transfer /Bus Coupler Bay the cost of M+T scheme is higher than
BC Bay

SB scheme.

The M+T scheme also provides higher flexibility to the operator to adjust Main Busbar load, by shifting some
load on the transfer bus. This flexibility is not applicable with busbars without sectionalizer and hence, not
applicable for our case.
Trafo Bay Trafo Bay

Considerations:
As OHL travels through different geography and areas, the probability of fault on the lines are comparatively
high. It may be noted that 80-90% of line faults are temporary L-G faults and self-clearing in nature. Only 10-
20% faults are Permanent faults which requires maintenance/replacements such as insulator flash-over and
conductor break etc. As per statistics majority of faults in lines are likely to occur during rainy seasons.

Hence, it can be safely concluded that probability of line faults requiring maintenance is around 3-5%
considering a 12 months cycle.

As OHL are beyond the scope of the substation and probability of major fault is less hence lines are not
considered as part of Substation bus configuration study.

Un-interrupted power evacuation cannot be achieved during break down / fault at Line Circuit Breaker, as no
option for Transfer of the line CB function is available in SB scheme. This short coming can be over come by the
M+T scheme.

In SB scheme, future expansion (if any) needs to be envisaged at present, as there will not be any flexibility of
load shifting between the buses as available in M+T scheme.

As discussed above in section “AIS vs GIS equipment”, the Circuit Breaker interrupter designs for AIS CB and
GIS CB are fundamentally same and hence, probability of fault occurrence in CB of both AIS/GIS are same.
Thus, although GIS system is a high reliability system at main switching equipment (CB) level the reliability is
almost same without any added advantage.

It must also be noted that GIS CB pole/interrupter removal for maintenance can only be undertaken by skilled
workers certified by OEM. Hence, fault detected on CB - Call raised to OEM – CB Pole change / Maintenance
complete, this cycle may take more than 2-4 days. In contrast in a AIS system, the CB pole removal can be
done by Substation OEM personnel within 2-3 hours if the spare is available.

Conclusion:

Based on above considerations it can be concluded that whether a GIS or AIS is implemented, Main and
Transfer scheme is a recommended scheme for a power evacuation switchyard of a Generation system as
down time would lead to loss of revenue.