On avoiding ferroresonance in networks with inductive voltage transformers

U. Prucker, A. Umlauf, L. Niedung

Trench Germany GmbH, Bamberg, Germany

Abstract: This paper deals with single phase isolated neutral, a single-phase ferroresonance occurs
ferroresonance in high voltage substations with in high voltage networks with a solidly earthed neutral
inductive voltage transformers (VT) and provides an system. In this case the electrical circuit can be
overview of uncritical and critical network described by a simple single-phase system. There are
configurations, parameters influencing the two situations in which a single phase ferroresonance
ferroresonance behaviour and measures to avoid can occur. The first situation may exists by the
ferroresonance occurrence. A special measure to avoid coupling between double circuit lines when the line of
ferroresonance, which is applied by Trench Germany lower voltage is disconnected at both ends while the
(TG), is discussed. This measure is to de-tune the non- line of higher voltage keeps energised and the voltage
linear resonant circuit by a VT iron-core with an transformer is connected to the de-energised line [6,7].
integrated air-gap. By means of TG’s VT-design it is The more important and more often reported
possible to avoid ferroresonance occurrence for nearly ferroresonance situation may occur when a VT,
all substation arrangements. A comparison of connected to an open busbar section, is de-energised
theoretically and experimentally obtained by tripping a circuit breaker (CB) equipped with
ferroresonance studies is discussed. grading capacitors [6,8,9].
Again, it must be pronounced that ferroresonance
1. Introduction occurs only for specific network configurations, that
means a critical combination of the circuit breaker
Although the first papers on ferroresonance were grading capacitance, phase to ground capacitance and
published in the beginning of the last century [1,2] magnetizing characteristic of the VT.
ferroresonance, which can occur exceptionally for As already mentioned above this paper will now focus
specific power network configurations, is still a not on triggering a single-phase ferroresonance by
fully understood phenomenon. This paper focus on so opening of a circuit breaker with grading capacitors.
called single-phase ferroresonance in networks with Figure 1 shows the typical substation arrangement for
inductive voltage transformers (VT), fed by the circuit this case. For a qualitative understanding of the
breaker grading capacitance. In principle ferroresonance phenomenon this arrangement can be
ferroresonance is a forced oscillation in a non linear reduced to a series resonant circuit (s. figure 2).
series resonance circuit including a capacitance and a
non linear inductance, which shows significantly
distorted voltage and current waveforms. The non
linear behaviour of the saturable inductance can cause
oscillations at network frequency so called
fundamental ferroresonance, simple fractions of it
described as sub-harmonic ferroresonance and even
chaotic oscillations. Ferroresonance can result in high
overvoltages, especially at system frequency, and high
overcurrents, which can finally result in insulation Figure 1: Substation arrangement with CB and VT according to [3].
failures of the high voltage equipment or in
destruction of the inductive voltage transformer due to
overheating [3,4,5]. However, there are measures to
avoid ferroresonance with respect to substation and
VT design as will be discussed below. Even if there is
the risk of ferroresonance for specific substation
configurations, inductive VTs, rather than capacitive
ones, are used because of their reliability, cable
discharge capability, higher accuracy and stable
transformation ratio during the entire lifetime [4].

2. Single-phase ferroresonance
In contrast to the well known three-phase
Figure 2: Series resonant circuit for describing the single phase
ferroresonance, which can occur in systems with ferroresonance phenomenon according to [10].

1
With Thevenin’s theorem the voltage divider, built by
the grading capacitance and the phase to ground
capacitance of the busbar, can be substituted by the
equivalent Thevenin voltage and capacitance. A
detailed description is found e.g. in [11].
The intersections of the straight capacitance line with
the magnetizing curve of the non-linear inductance
shows three possible operating points. It can be
shown, that point B is unstable whereas A and C are
stable ones. Point C is correlated to high voltages and
higher currents which may destroy the high voltage
equipment and must therefore be avoided.
Uncritical network configurations
There are some substation configurations which are
uncritical regarding ferroresonance generation. For
instance the large inductance of a power transformer
or the large capacitance of a transmission line directly
attached to the VT will prevent ferroresonance
occurrence. According to figure 2 the high capacitive
or inductive reactance will not allow to match the
ferroresonance conditions. Of course if circuit
breakers without grading capacitors are installed in the
substation, which are nowadays available for system
voltages up to 500 kV, there is also no risk of
ferroresonance.
Critical network configurations
More attention should be given to critical network
configurations. The three most important substation
configurations which may produce ferroresonance are
listed below. A critical situations may occur when a
busbar section, connected to the VT, is de-energised
by tripping one or several circuit breakers
simultaneously. The second situation is more critical
because of the greater equivalent grading capacitance
caused by circuit breakers arranged in parallel. Critical
situations can also occur during opening of the circuit
breaker in line bays or in bus coupling bays with open
feeder disconnector. In general a critical network
configuration exists if the ratio of the phase to ground
capacitance to the grading capacitance of the circuit
breaker is low.
3. Mitigation and measures to avoid
ferroresonance
The possibility of ferroresonance occurrence in critical
network arrangements is affected by several
parameters like the actual system voltage, power
losses, grading and phase to ground capacitance
values, the moment of circuit breaker switching and
finally the VT design.
Power losses and therefore damping is always present
in the form of corona losses, leakage current on
insulators, iron and eddy current losses in the VT and
the burden on the VT secondary. Damping reduces the
ferroresonance current and can sometimes even avoid
2 Prucker, U., Umlauf, A. & Niedung, L.
a stable ferroresonance. Therefore loading the VT
with maximum burden is recommended in case of
critical substation configurations. When designing a
new substation circuit breakers with low or even no
grading capacitance will reduce or even prevent the
risk of ferroresonance generation. For a given CB
grading capacitance there is no risk of ferroresonance
if the phase to ground capacitance value exceeds a
certain limit. Therefore an adequate high phase to
ground capacitance connected to the inductive VT will
also lower this risk of ferroresonance appearance.
However, even for phase to ground capacitance values
below this limit there may exist several distinct ranges
wherein only damped transient ferroresonances occur.
In general these ranges strongly depend on the burden
connected to the secondary. This phenomenon is
related to a non matching phase angle between the
network voltage and the natural oscillation of the
ferroresonance circuit. Another important aspect
affecting ferroresonance generation is the circuit
breaker switching event itself, since ferroresonance
appearance is completely determined by the electrical
circuit and the initial conditions. In most of the cases
voltage maximum is assumed to be the most critical
time for circuit breaker opening.
The measures to avoid a single-phase ferroresonance
can be divided in two classes: damping of the
ferroresonance oscillation and de-tuning of the
resonance circuit. Damping of the ferroresonance can
either be done on the primary or the secondary side. In
air insulated substations the resistance attributed to
corona losses and leakage current on outdoor
insulators is sometimes sufficient to provide an
effective damping on the primary side. This resistance
is in parallel to the phase to ground capacitance. In
GIS, however, theses kind of power losses do not
exist. Damping on the VT secondary, in addition to
the connected burden, can consist of an active or
passive damping circuit. For active damping an
appropriate damping circuit is switched in the VT
secondary circuit in case of ferroresonance
occurrence. A passive damping device consists of a
saturable reactor with an extreme knee of the
saturation characteristics in combination with a
resistor in parallel to the VT burden. The reactor can
then be considered as a magnetic switch. The resistor
on the secondary only works as an additional burden
as long as the reactor is saturated. Sometimes this
happens for a short time only which is not sufficient to
damp the oscillation. Moreover if the VT core is
saturated the coupling between the primary and
secondary side is not ideal due to an increased leakage
flux of the VT’s primary coil. Therefore the damping
of the oscillation is lower than theoretically expected.
Another possibility is to de-tune the resonant circuit.
De-tuning of the resonant circuit can be obtained by
changing the ratio of the CB grading capacitance to
the phase to ground capacitance or by changing the
magnetizing characteristics of the voltage transformer.
The second measure can be achieved by lowering of
the nominal inductance or by decreasing the slope of
the linear region of the magnetizing curve. However,
for a given iron core design a lower inductance results
in a decreased output power. Therefore, if high
burdens are required, the VT will get more expensive
than a VT with high inductance since the cross section
of the iron core and maybe some other dimensions
related to the iron core size must be increased to
obtain the same output power.
4. Voltage transformers with air-gap design
Trench Germany (TG), one of the biggest
manufacturer of SF6 insulated inductive voltage and
current transformers for gas insulated and air insulated
high voltage substations, prefers to suppress
ferroresonance by inserting an air-gap in the iron-core
of the VT [7]. According to fig. 2 critical operating
points can be avoided when inserting an air-gap in the
iron core since the slope of the linear segment of the
magnetizing curve is decreased. The slope of the
magnetizing curve gets smaller with increasing air-gap
distance. Since the accuracy of a VT is affected by the
air-gap distance it is only possible to increase the air-
gap up to a certain limit given by the burden and
accuracy class requirements. It must be pronounced
that it is much easier to design a ferroresonance free
voltage transformer for low burden and accuracy class
requirements. Unfortunately there are burden and
accuracy class requirements which are too high and
not really needed in service.
In addition it is only possible to design a
ferroresonance free voltage transformer if all relevant
system parameters, like maximum system voltage,
earthing system, total circuit breaker grading
capacitances, phase to earth capacitances are known
for all possible switching configurations which can
occur in service. In most cases it is possible to avoid
ferroresonance for a specific substation configuration
by means of an inductive voltage transformer with an
air-gap iron core, provided that all relevant system
parameters are known.
5. Comparison between theory and
experiment
To decide whether a specific network configuration
will be ferroresonance free a detailed analysis with an
appropriate VT and network model is required. The
equivalent circuit of such a system study is shown in
figure 3. The VT reactance L and the magnetic flux
dependent iron losses RE were determined by
measurements on the iron core to get an accurate
hysteresis loop. The resistance RS parallel to the
grading capacitance of the open circuit breaker is
given by the power factor of the grading capacitors.
On avoiding ferroresonance in networks with inductive voltage transformers
CS
R
U0
RS CE Rp L RE RB RD
Network Voltage Transformer
CS : grading capacitance of circuit breaker
RS : resistance of circuit breaker
CE : total earth capacitance (network and PT)
RP : power losses of the network
RB : burden
RD : optional additional resistor
RE : iron losses
R : resistance of the high voltage winding
L : main inductance of the voltage transformer
U0 : voltage source
Figure 3: Equivalent circuit for modelling of a single phase
ferroresonance.
The resistance RP parallel to the phase to ground
capacitance CE is determined by the system power
losses e.g. due to corona discharges or leakage
currents along the insulators. For designing a
ferroresonance free VT as well as performing a
ferroresonance study at Trench Germany a worst case
scenario is assumed, that means new grading
capacitors with a power factor of 0.3% and new
composite insulators with silicone sheds and a
correspondingly high resistance of e.g. 6 G: for a
420kV outdoor VT. Figure 4 shows the results of such
a worst case study. The calculation was performed for
a SF6 insulated 420 kV combined unit (voltage and
current transformer) type SVAS 420/1G, installed at
the bus coupling bay of a 400 kV air insulated
substation. The VT of the combined unit was designed
ferroresonance free according to the customer’s
requirements. The new combined unit was installed in
an already existing substation with old circuit
breakers. After the installation of the instrument
transformer an at site ferroresonance test was
performed. Figure 5 shows the typical measured
secondary voltage waveform for a circuit breaker
switching event at voltage maximum. Comparing
figure 4 and 5 there is obviously a much higher
damping rate for this particular bus coupling bay
arrangement than previously assumed during the VT
design phase. The high damping rate can be related to
the large number of 18 porcelain insulators installed in
this substation section. Besides it is well known that
the damping behaviour also depends on the actual
weather condition, which influences corona and
leakage current losses. Since the measurements had
been performed on a warm summer day with a relative
high humidity there had been some corona activities
resulting in additional power losses.
After the experiment new calculations were performed
to fit the experimental results as shown in figure 6.
3
 150 non-linear inductance and a capacitance will always
100
50
build a resonant circuit However, in most cases it is
U [V]

0 possible to design a ferroresonance free VT by the TG

-50
-100
design. For that purpose sophisticated calculations
-150 a) must be carried out for each individual substation
arrangement. A lot of calculations are required to get a
0.05
0.025 sufficient feeling for the effect of parameter variations
I [A]

0
-0.025
[12]. Especially the effect of power losses has a great
-0.05 influence on the ferroresonance behaviour, as shown
b) by the experiment.
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
t [s]
Figure 4: Calculated secondary voltage (a) and corresponding 7. References
primary current (b) waveform of a transient ferroresonance (worst
case scenario). [1] J. Bethenod,”sur le transformateur et resonance”, L’Eclairae
Electrique, pp. 289-296, Nov. 30, 1907.
150
100
[2] P. Boucherot, “Existence de deux regimes en ferro-
50 resonance”, R.G.E., pp. 827-828, Dec. 10, 1920.
U [V]

0
-50
[3] Z. Emin, B.A.T. Al Zahawi, Y.K. Tong., “Voltage
-100 transformer ferroresonance in 275 kV substation”, Proc. ISH,
-150 1999.
0 0.5 1 1.5
t [s] [4] R. Mareachen, A. Christesen, G. Poletto, “Ferroresonance on
Figure 5: Measured secondary voltage waveform of a highly 345-kV bus kills PT”, pp. 69-70, Electrical World, April
damped transient ferroresonance. 1986.
[5] D.A.N. Jacobson, D. Swatek, R. Mazur, “Mitigating potential
150
100 transformer ferroresonance in a 230 kV converter station”,
50 Computer Analysis of Electric Power System Transients:
U [V]

0 Selected Readings. Piscataway, N.J:IEEE Press, 1997,

-50 pp359-365.)
-100
-150 a) [6] N. Germay, S. Mastero, J. Vroman, “Review of ferro-
resonance phenomena in high-voltage power system and
0.05 presentation of a voltage transformer model for
0.025
I [A]

0 predetermining them”, CIGRE Paper 33-18, Paris, 1974.

-0.025
-0.05 [7] G. Köppl, S. Läderach, A. Umlauf, “Ferroresonanz – ein
b) weiterhin aktuelles Problem”, pp. 19-23, Bulletin SEV/VSE,
0 0.5 1 1.5 No.19, 1995.
t [s]
Figure 6: Calculated secondary voltage (a) and corresponding [8] N. Janssens V. Vanderstockt, H. Denoel, P.A. Monfils,
primary current (b) waveform fitted to the measured data. “Elinination of temporary overvoltages due to ferroresonance
of voltage transformers: Design and testing of a damping
system”, CIGRE Paper33-204, Paris, 1990.
The best agreement between calculations and
measurements were obtained for a resistance value of [9] C.H. Petersen, A. Umlauf, “Kippschwingungen in starr
RS corresponding to a power factor of 3% and RE = geerdeten Drehstromnetzen”, pp. 236-240,
Elektrizitätswirtschaft, 1980.
90 M: corresponding to a resistance of 1.6 G: for
each of the 18 porcelain insulators. Of course the [10] R. Bayer, J. Luhmann, J Mentel, C. Neumann, “Simulation
von einphasigen Kippschwingungen in Spannungswandlern
corona losses cannot be separated and are therefore mittels EMTP/ATP”,pp. 79-87, ELEKTRIE, 56, 2002.
included in this resistance value.
[11] G. Balzer, “Vermeidung von Ferroresonanzen in
Drehstromnetzen”, pp. 121-126, etz Bd. 4, 1982.
6. Conclusions
[12] D.A.N. Jacobson P.W. Lehn, R.W. Menzies, “Stability
Ferroresonance is a well known phenomenon since Domain Calculations of Period-1 Ferroresonance in a
nearly 100 years, but it sill remains a serious problem. Nonlinear Resonant Circuit”, IEEE Trans. Pow. Del., pp.
865-871, Vol. 17, No.3, 2002.
Even if it is possible to damp a ferroresonance
oscillation with special damping devices it is much
more effective and reliable to avoid ferroresonance by Author address: Dr. Udo Prucker
de-tuning the resonant circuit rather than to damp it. Trench Germany GmbH
Therefore air-gap voltage transformers with reduced Nürnberger Strasse 199, 96050 Bamberg, Germany
reactance were developed at Trench Germany. Email: dr.prucker@trench.de
However, a VT can only be considered to be
ferroresonance free in a certain parameter range for
which it is designed for. You may always find some
parameters for which ferroresonance will occur since a

4 Prucker, U., Umlauf, A. & Niedung, L.