CICED 5th International Conference on Electricity Distribution
Paper FP0209
THE ROLE OF STANDARDS AS ENABLER OF OPTIMIZED MV SWITCHGEAR DESIGN
Jean-Marc BIASSE Didier FULCHIRON
Schneider Electric – France Schneider Electric – France
Jean-marc.biasse@schneider-electric.comDidier.fulchiron@schneider-electric.com Jiang.liu@schneider-electric.com
Eldridge BYRON Denis BUSHEV
Schneider Electric – USA Schneider Electric – Russia
Eldridge.byron@schneider-electric.comDenis.bushuev@schneider-electric.com
ABSTRACT
Electrotechnical switchgear used for network operation
has high stakes in term of safety and power availability.
For this purpose, it is essential they rely on high level
standards such as IEC, IEEE, GB or GOST standards.
Using a marketing approach, the main expectations from
standardization are to meet customer values. For the best
efficiency, standards and consequently customer
specifications should be expressed to look for the
optimization of the products. In that sense, open
functional approach in standardization rather than fixed
technological approach is preferable. Optimized
technical specification rather than over-specification
allows for lower cost and is more environmental friendly.
Because of its international nature, IEC functional
approach, allows for the best optimization of MV
switchgear designs. It is seen that other major
standardization bodies now have close links with IEC.
Keywords: MV switchgear, standardization, IEC
standards, IEEE standards, GB standards, GOST
standards.
INTRODUCTION
In MV distribution, network operators are looking for a
high level of power availability and for safety of their
personnel. With these respects, MV switchgear play a key
role. It is essential that MV switchgear complies with high
level standards as it gives credibility of the equipment and
makes comparisons possible. In MV switchgear domain,
the international standards from IEC organization are
very common and widely used around the world. Other
standards organizations, more on a regional base are of
interest, for example IEEE, GB or GOST standards.
Coming from different origins, approaches of
standardization may not be the same, with consequences
on possible optimization of the designs vis-à-vis the real
needs of the application. Additionally, customers have an
important role in specification aspect that also may have
direct consequences in the design.
STANDARDIZATION ORGANIZATIONS FOR
ELECTROTECHNICAL PRODUCTS
Originally, every country where electrotechnical products
were manufactured, had its own standards, and this was
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Jiang LIU
Schneider Electric - China
not facilitating the use of products outside the borders as
the standard often was directly derived from the design of
certain local products. Figure 1 shows the cover page of a
year 1939 British standards dedicated to air break circuit-
breakers, while another one was dedicated to oil circuit-
breakers.
Figure 1. Covering page of British standard 862: dated
1939 – Air break circuit-breaker including totally
enclosed and flame-proof types
Progressively, national standards moved to more common
approaches to allow for better cross border acceptation of
the products. Depending on the international nature of
standards or of their regional importance, it is possible to
distinguish some major standardization bodies, IEC,
IEEE, Chinese GB, Russian GOST and European
CENELEC.
IEC Organization
Created in 1906, IEC is one of three global sister
organizations (IEC, ISO, ITU) that develop International
Standards for the world. The SMB (Standardization
Management Board) supervises the work of the 174 TCs
(Technical Committees) and SCs (Sub-Committees). TC
membership is composed of the IEC NCs (National
Committees), all of which are free to take part in the work
of any given TC.
Starting from the market, IEC approach is to define
functional needs and to give rules how to verify that any
solution satisfying the requirements fulfils the needs. This
is reflected in the IEC Directives with the notion of
market relevance. For example in paragraph 4.2 of
ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (2011) [1], it is stated that
requirements shall be expressed in terms of performance
rather than design or descriptive characteristics. This is
the direct consequence of a functional specification. As
expressed in the same paragraph, this approach leaves
maximum freedom to technical development.
IEEE Organization
The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
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“IEEE” had it’s beginnings in 1884 as the “American
Institute for Electrical Engineers”. It later merged with the
Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) and changed the name
to what we now call IEEE. By 2010, IEEE had over
395,000 members in 160 countries and it is now the world
largest technical professional organization.
Embedded within IEEE is the “Standards Association”
that has the responsibility to develop and maintain
industrial and technical standards and guides. IEEE and
IEC have now created an agreement where the
organizations can separately develop or co-develop
standards for use by the world. These standards are also
sometimes adopted by various countries.
The early foundations of IEEE being an American
standards body has lead it in becoming a part of the
“American National Standards Institute” (ANSI) thus
many of the IEEE standards are ANSI documents. These
standards and guides in the North American legal system
are minimum requirements for both commercial, technical
and safety needs; thus not complying with the standard in
the court system is a very serious offense. This has led the
standards developers in the North American markets to be
very prescriptive in the standards or use the
“technological approach” in the philosophy for standard
developments. ANSI has the responsibility for the IEC
country representation under its USNC (United States
National Committee).
SAC Organization
Standardization Administration of the P.R.China (SAC) is
authorized to exercise administrative responsibilities by
undertaking unified management, supervision and overall
coordination of standardization works in China. The GB
standards are the national standards which SAC issues.
SAC represents China to join the ISO, IEC and is
responsible for organizing the activities of Chinese
National Committee for ISO and IEC. SAC is involved in
most IEC TCs and in some high level strategy boards of
IEC, such as IEC/SMB, IEC/MSB, IEC/SG3 etc..
For MV switchgear and controlgear, the national
committee SAC/TC65 mirrors to IEC TC17A/17C. The
national standards GB/T 11022, GB1984, GB 1985 and
GB 3960 modified adopt the relevant parts of IEC 62271
with some differences in voltage grades and
environmental requirements.
Besides SAC charges of the standardization, National
Energy Bureau of National Development and Reform
Commission also has been authorized to organize Power
and Energy resources industry orientated standardization
as a complementarity. The related industrial standards,
i.e. DL, JB and NB, are respectively focused on Power
system, equipment and renewable related domains. These
standards often have been developed and have received
consensus within a specified technical committee of
industrial association. They may sometimes be perceived
as a quicker respond to market than GB and considered as
pre-standards of GB. However, it is wishable that they do
not come in conflict with GBs and international standards
to avoid content overlap and possible confusion.
GOST Organization
Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology
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(Rosstandart) is the federal executive body that realizes
the functions on rendering state services, administration
of public estate in the field of technical regulating and
metrology. Rosstandart carries out the licensing of
activity with respect to manufacture and maintenance of
measurement instrumentation and also implements the
functions on the state metrological control and
supervision until there are changes in the Russian
Federation legislation. Rosstandart also controls and
supervises the compliance of mandatory requirements of
state standards and technical regulations until the
Government of the Russian Federation makes the decision
on delegating these functions to other federal executive
authority.
Rosstandart is a member of international cooperation in
the field of technical regulation. One of the main
directions of the international cooperation are as follows:
• make provision for the leading role of Russia in
the activity of Interstate Council for
standardization, metrology and certification
within CIS;
• make provision for Russia joining to World
Trade Organization;
• harmonization of national standards of the
Russian Federation (GOST standards), rules and
procedures of conformity assurance of products
and services to specified requirements of
internationally recognized standards, rules and
procedures.
In Russia, harmonization of GOST standards is carried
out mainly with the international standards (ISO, IEC)
and European standards (CEN, CENELEC). This fully
applies to the standards for switchgear and controlgear for
rated voltages over 1 kV.
So, at present time a draft of GOST standard for
switchgear up to 35 kV on the basis of the international
standard IEC 62271-200 is being under development. It is
planned that this standard will replace currently existing
GOST standards for switchgear establishing mandatory
technical requirements and test methods that were put into
effect more than 20 years ago.
Existing GOST standards for main components of
switchgear, which were put into effect in 2003 and after,
were developed with consideration of main statements of
IEC standards (for circuit breakers, disconnectors and
earthing switches) or comply with IEC standards (for
instrument current and voltage transformers), but there
are significant differences for some technical
characteristics (for example, number of draw-in / draw-
out operations of removable parts, electrical endurance
for circuit breaker).
CENELEC Organization
Cénélec is the standardisation body for
electrotechnologies in Europe; it extends beyond the
European Union, as several countries chose to join
Cénélec even they are not in the European Union.
Member states participate to the work, and shall
implement the resulting standards as national standards,
withdrawing any possibly conflicting former standard.
This results in a progressive harmonisation between
countries of the EU.
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Furthermore, the Cenelec has an agreement with the IEC
which fosters the collaboration between the two bodies,
actually pushing preference to the IEC. Only when IEC
does not want to deal with a requested topic does the
Cénélec start his own work.
Considering MV switchgear, most European stakeholders
support the idea that the required functions are not
country-specific, and that the market size is small enough
to take advantage of a globalisation. It is completely
consistent with the idea that standards are the basis for
contractual relationship, and contribute to the smooth
operation of the global market. That means all the IEC
standards about MV switchgear are proposed in parallel
voting procedure at the Cénélec, and to date most
switchgear Cénélec standards are duplicates from the IEC
ones. Only some documents for which there is no
identified application, no market relevancy in the
countries working for Cénélec, are disregarded. This way
of working is seen as efficient on a business point of
view, as well as on resources consideration (experts
availability) as it invites stakeholders to involve
themselves at the IEC level with a broader approach than
national or regional one.
PHILOSOPHIES IN STANDARDIZATION
ACTIVITY
There are two types of philosophies in standardization
field, the functional approach and the technological
approach.
Functional approach of standardization
The functional approach is based on a marketing
relevancy for which the main expectations from
standardization are to meet customer values [2]. The main
role of a standard is to provide a frame for contracting
and business by improving relationship efficiency for a
fair market. This functional approach is a basic in IEC
standardization activity mainly because of its international
nature.
Main advantage of functional approach is innovation
using new materials, new methodologies.
For example, in China, the solid insulation technology
was used for enclosed switchgear since about 2007. Some
manufacturers claim they have developed the solid-
insulated RMUs (ring main units) that have passed type
tests. The relevant standards of these products are IEC
62271s or transformed national standards.
Though 2007 version of IEC 62271s did not state special
technical requirements for solid-insulated switchgear,
they could support the development and validation of
related products. Thus it appears that a functional
standard would be more adaptable than a technical
standard.
Disadvantage of functional approach in standardization is
possible diversity of designs, for example user interface,
interlocking methods, switchgear architecture. But it is
the responsibility of manufacturers to design products and
equipment as simple as possible to make them easy and
intuitive to operate.
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Technological approach of standardization
In the technological approach, the equipment is described
in strict prescribed manner leaving little room to
designers to bring new ideas. This approach comes from
history and was common in the development of national
standards related to local products. It is still partly used in
IEEE standardization activity, mainly because of the
legacy. Another possible reason is that IEEE organization
is an association of electrical engineers and the process of
approval is managed by the technical community. IEEE’s
balloting process requires a balanced representation
between manufacturers, users of the equipment, and
special interest groups; thus no one group controls the
outcome of a standard.
Advantage of technological approach is that it gives
uniformity of design, less need for operator training.
However, technology moves faster than standardization.
Then, this approach does not easily allow to take benefits
of new technologies, because the standard cycle could be
too long and cumbersome. There is a risk to discourage
innovation because everybody relies strictly on the
standard.
As an example IEEE standard C37.20.X series imposes
3 mm thickness of steel sheets used as enclosures or
partitions. This is typically a specific technical solution
that should meet a functional need, but which one and
with which performance level? No information is
provided by the standard, and then no alternative
technology can be proposed.
HIERARCHY OF DOCUMENTS OF
IMPORTANCE FOR MV SWITCHGEAR
DESIGN
When a manufacturer is designing a new product or
equipment, he has to consider at least three types of
documents that normally follow a clear hierarchy: the law,
the standard and the specification.
On the highest level is the legal frame expressed in laws,
directives, regulations, decrees, statutory orders,
depending on the national systems in force. The law is
providing the general rules to follow. It may be of interest
that the law refers to specific standards making them
mandatory to use. But, a law should not describe a
technical aspect of an equipment or a product.
A standard defines ratings, describes technical
requirements and the methods to verify them. It must be
open as much as possible to allow for various designs,
using preferably a functional approach. A standard may
be international (preferably for MV switchgear) or
national if there is a clear lack at international level.
A specification is generally a document where the
customer is precising what characteristics and ratings are
necessary for his applications. It may add additional
requirements that are not defined in standards but it
should not describe testing methods different from the
standard if it is for the same basic purpose.
As a general rule, the above three kinds of documents
shall be written according to their main purpose. They
shall be complementary and not overlap in the content.
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OPTIMIZATION OF THE DESIGN OF MV
SWITCHGEAR
Influence of standards on MV switchgear size
A very good example of the differences in the design of
MV switchgear relying on technological or functional
methods is the consequence in the size of the switchgear.
Table 1 gives typical width and weight for cubicles
intended for similar purpose: 630A, 15kV, including
circuit-breaker, but designed according to technological
and market driven approaches used in various countries.
Table 1: Influences of standards and market habits on MV
switchgear widths and weights
The characteristics of the three types of cubicles are not
the same, for example, IEEE does not recognize any
current rating below 1200A nor are circuit breakers
recognized in metal-enclosed switchgear IEEE standards.
But for some applications, the three types are the correct
ones to consider. It is obvious that a standard based on
functional approach, like IEC standard will give the
opportunity for a better optimization of the product
particularly considering the footprint [Fig.2].
Figure 2. Influence of standard on MV switchgear size.
Influence of standards on current transformers
This reduction in size also has been possible thanks to
new technologies of LPCT current transformers
associated with digital relays. While in the past,
electromechanical relays needed to be fed by CTs with
high burden such as 5A, the digital relays developed since
the nineties need only very low power to operate. New
IEC standards of the 60044 series were developed in
2002 for these kinds of CTs having a voltage output
instead of a current output. And currently, the whole set
of standards for instrument transformers is in
restructuration and is becoming the IEC 61869 Series.
Figure 3 shows the benefit in size using LPCT instead of
traditional CTs for the same characteristics in 24 kV and
36 kV range. At the same time, it is obvious that
requirements for 2,5 mm2 low voltage cables are no
longer adequate for digital relays. And last but not least,
the use of LPCT facilitates the protection scheme design
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as there is no longer need of CT burden calculation. In
that sense, relying on international standards allowed to
optimize both the MV switchgear design and the
engineering of the application.
Figure 3. LPCT (left) compared to traditional CTs (right)
Structure of the standards
The standards should be written in order to match
customer needs and describe requirements for this
purpose. If the requirements are lower than the needs,
safety may be jeopardized. If the requirements are much
above the needs, overcosts come, together with possible
negative environmental impact and more resources than
needed to be used.
To be able to cover a large variety of applications, IEC
standards define ratings. They may be expressed in rated
currents or voltages, or by classes regarding certain types
of performances such as mechanical endurance or
capacitive switching. To optimize the installation, the
specifier has to choose the right ratings and classes for the
products and equipment and refrain to overspecify ass
again, at the end, this will have a negative impact on
environment. For example, there is no need to specify C2
class capacitive switching in medium voltage except for
capacitor bank breakers.
CONCLUSION
For MV switchgear, the IEC functional approach allows
for a better optimization of design than other
technoclogical approaches in standardization. Due to the
market relevance, IEC often is a front-runner in opening
new possibilities for design. Even in IEC, it has been seen
that moving step by step towards a functional approach is
always possible and this is the way to ensure the best
optimization of MV electrical switchgear. One major
effect of the optimization is the reduction in size of MV
switchgear.
As a consequence, it appears that this reduction in size
has a significant positive impact on ecological point of
view, resource depletion. Now, other major standard
organizations have close links with IEC and this should
be re-inforced specifically to harmonize the basic needs.
REFERENCES
[1] ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, Edition 6.0 2001-04
(http://www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs/iec/isoi
ec-dir2%7Bed6.0%7Den.pdf)
[2] JM Biasse, Didier Fulchiron, Laurent Guise, 2011,
"Benefits of the functional approach in
standardization activity", Matpost 2011 conference
November 2011
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