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Analysis of Current Unbalance in Transmission Systems With Short Lines
Analysis of Current Unbalance in Transmission Systems With Short Lines
2, APRIL 2007
Abstract—The analysis of current unbalance in power systems as untransposed lines [6]–[13] and banks of single-phase trans-
with short transmission lines is presented. Measurements in the Is- formers [2], the line traps (LT) used by the power-line carrier
rael Electric Transmission System as well as numerical simulations (PLC) and connected into line phases were also considered.
of three-phase load flow have revealed lines with a high level of
current unbalance. It is found that significant current unbalance
The load-flow simulations proved that the existing unbalance
on short transmission lines may take place due to the following in the IECo generators and the loads is much smaller than the
reasons: acceptable unbalance limits. The zero-sequence currents do not
• inherent asymmetry of untransposed transmission lines; pose any problems for the transformer neutrals as well as for the
• presence of line traps used for power-line carriers (PLC); earthing grid. On the other hand, the analysis of the three-phase
• electromagnetic coupling between lines on double-circuit load flow revealed transmission lines with a significant level of
towers;
• superposition of current symmetrical components in lines current asymmetry. It was noticed that the length of the majority
under light loading. of lines with high unbalance does not exceed a few kilometers.
It is shown that the current asymmetry may lead to overcurrents In order to understand the observed phenomena, the fol-
in individual phases of transmission lines as well as to growth of the lowing analysis is performed. The unbalance is explored in the
magnetic field in proximity of the lines. system with short, untransposed 161-kV transmission lines.
Index Terms—Asymmetry, current unbalance, magnetic field, Line traps (LT) used for PLCs on 161-kV transmission lines
sequence currents, three-phase load flow. are connected into one phase (center-to-ground coupling) [14].
The inductance of LT is 2 mH.
It has been found that significant current asymmetry on short
I. INTRODUCTION transmission lines may take place due to the following reasons.
1) inherent asymmetry of untransposed transmission lines;
T HE study of current and voltage unbalance was performed
for the transmission system of the Israel Electric Corpora-
tion (IECo). Most of the transmission lines in IECo are shorter
2) presence of LT used for PLCs;
3) electromagnetic coupling between lines on double-circuit
than 50 km, while the single-phase loads are rather small in com- towers;
parison with the three-phase symmetrical load. The traditional 4) superposition of current symmetrical components in lines
approach ascribes the appearance of voltage and current unbal- under light loading.
ance in transmission systems to the following reasons [1]–[3]: All of the revealed cases of significant current unbalance in
• long untransposed transmission lines; IECo transmission lines can be ascribed to one of the above
• banks of single-phase transformers; reasons or to their combinations.
• large single-phase loads, such as railway traction load, and Some of the above phenomena have been thoroughly ex-
arc furnaces connected to high-voltage (HV) busbars. plored [6]–[13]. However, transmission systems with short
The study was initiated by recent measurements performed lines, where the line impedance is of the same order as the
in IECo. The measurements have revealed significant current impedance of the LT, while the line impedance is smaller than
unbalance on several transmission lines. Since the unbalance the equivalent impedance of the transmission systems, have
might have a negative impact on the following components of some special features from the asymmetry point of view. To
the power system: generators, loads, transformers, and earthing the best of the authors’ knowledge, asymmetry issues in the
grid [3], as well as possibly increasing power losses in transmis- systems with short lines have not been well studied in the open
sion lines [4], the research on the asymmetry in IECo transmis- literature.
sion systems was conducted.
In the first stage of the research, the unbalance load flow
II. CURRENT UNBALANCE IN TRANSMISSION
program for load flow in a three-phase asymmetrical system
SYSTEMS WITH SHORT LINES
was developed. Each element of a transmission system in the
program is presented by its three-phase model, taking into con-
sideration asymmetry of its phase parameters [5], [6]. In addi- A. Current Unbalance Due To Inherent Asymmetry of
tion to the “traditional” sources of the inherent unbalance, such Untransposed Transmission Lines
Untransposed lines are reckoned to be the main source of
Manuscript received June 8, 2005; revised May 4, 2006. Paper no. TPWRD- current unbalance in the transmission systems [1], [6]–[13].
00344-2005. Asymmetrical phase spacing of a transmission line results in
The authors are with the Israel Electric Corporation, Haifa 35434, Israel
(e-mail: aharon@iec.co.il; kosnir_g@iec.co.il). the unbalance of line self and mutual impedances and partial
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2006.883011 capacitances.
0885-8977/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE
KALYUZHNY AND KUSHNIR: CURRENT UNBALANCE IN TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS 1041
(2)
Fig. 4. Net-through zero-sequence current versus line length. the circulating negative-sequence current versus PU values
of the equivalent system impedance are presented in Fig. 7.
The system impedance is calculated as a ratio to the
positive system impedance of 10 km, double-circuit line. The
calculations are performed on the assumption that the equiv-
alent positive-sequence impedance is equal to the system
zero-sequence impedance . A practical range of the system
impedance was determined on the condition that the short-cir-
cuit currents in the transmission system vary from 5 to 50 kA.
The values of the PU system impedance corresponding to
the above short-circuit currents vary from 2 to 20.
It is evident that the through current unbalance in trans-
mission systems with short lines is limited by the system
impedance. This result explains the above-mentioned low
levels of unbalance in the generators and in the loads of the
Fig. 5. Circulating negative-sequence current versus line length. IECo system. On the other hand, the system impedance does
not limit the circulating current unbalance even in very short
lines.
According to the curves in Figs. 3 and 4, the through unbal- When radial double-circuit lines are considered, the equiva-
ance grows with the increase of the line length. On the other lent system zero-sequence impedance may reach an infinite
hand, the circulating unbalance does not depend on the line value (if the load transformer winding does not enable the flow
length (Figs. 5 and 6). of zero-sequence currents). In this particular case, the through
The current unbalance generated by an untransposed double- zero-sequence current is null, while the zero-sequence circu-
circuit line depends also on the Thevenin equivalent system lating current will have the same value as in the line connected
impedance . Consider the through and the circu- to system busbars at both of its ends.
lating current unbalance generated by a short 10-km line having The above results demonstrate the necessity to take into
an – arrangement as a function of the equivalent system account the issues of current unbalance even when very short
impedance. The net-through negative-sequence current and double-circuit lines are designed. Disregarding the issues
KALYUZHNY AND KUSHNIR: CURRENT UNBALANCE IN TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS 1043
(4)
(3) (8)
In (3), -impedance of line trap; and The analytical expressions for the current unbalance due to
are equivalent negative-sequence impedance and zero-se- adding LTs into one circuits of a double- circuit line can be
quence impedance of the system equivalent at the line sending derived from the equivalent scheme in Fig. 8, taking into account
end; and are equivalent negative-sequence impedance the expressions (8) for the sequence impedances. The negative-
1044 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 2, APRIL 2007
(9)
where
(10)
Fig. 10. System model for studying current unbalance due to electromagnetic
Fig. 11. Current unbalance on the second line. (a) Symmetrical currents versus
coupling between two lines on double-circuit towers.
P . (b) Phase currents versus P .
the maximum current unbalance takes place in a line under light lines. That asymmetry results in the appearance of the nega-
loading, while the other one is heavily loaded. Consider current tive-sequence and the zero-sequence currents in each line due
unbalance due to the electromagnetic coupling between lines to electromagnetic coupling with the other line. For example,
installed on double-circuit towers in the system model shown in when the phase currents in the first line are about 1650 A, the
Fig. 10. negative-sequence and zero-sequence currents in the second line
The system model includes two untransposed short lines in- and induced by the phase currents in the first line
stalled on common double-circuit towers. Each line connects are about 12–14 A. The positive-sequence current in the second
two system busbars. The system at each end is presented as a line can be also determined as a vector sum of the posi-
Thevenin equivalent with the same parameters as in the model tive-sequence current due to the load flow in the line and of the
shown in Fig. 1. In order to exclude the influence of circu- induced current due to electromagnetic coupling with the first
lating unbalance on the phenomenon under consideration, it is line. When the power over the second line is close to zero,
assumed that the system busbars of the first line have no gal- the positive-sequence current is smaller than the currents
vanic connection with the system busbars of the second line and [Fig. 11(a)]. The current unbalance manifests it-
(Fig. 10). The lines are installed on the above mentioned typ- self as a drastic difference between magnitudes of the phase cur-
ical double-circuit towers with vertical arrangement of bundled rents in the second line. For example, when MW,
phase conductors and with – (SB) phasing. The length of the currents in phases “ ” and “ ” are about 10 A, while the
the lines installed on the double-circuit towers is 5 km. It is as- current in phase “ ” is 30 A [see Fig. 11(b)]. This high asym-
sumed that the load angle is selected to maintain the active metry can be observed only if one of the two lines is under light
power transmitted over the 1st line equaling 460 MW. Let loading, while the other one is heavily loaded. If the both lines
us assume that the active power transmitted over the second are heavily loaded, the current unbalance in each line does not
line lies in the range . The variation of exceed 2%.
is modeled by an appropriate change of the load angle (see
Fig. 10). D. Superposition of Current Symmetrical Components in
Operation of the second line under light loading, while the Lines Under Light Loading
first line is heavy loaded, may result in significant current un- Some cases of the high current unbalance that have been ob-
balance on the second line (see Fig. 11). served on short transmission lines can be explained as the super-
The currents in each line can be determined as superposition position of sequence currents in lines under light loading. The
of the currents due to load flow over the line and the induced flow of positive-sequence currents in the transmission system is
currents due to the electromagnetic coupling with the other line. determined by the power flow from generators to loads. The neg-
The unequal spacing between the line phases brings about the ative-sequence currents generally flow from untransposed trans-
asymmetry of mutual impedances and capacitances between the mission lines (generators of the current unbalance) to generators
1046 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 22, NO. 2, APRIL 2007
Fig. 12. System model for studying current unbalance due to the superposition
of sequence currents in the second line.
currents , and (the load’s
transformers have ungrounded neutral. The sequence currents
seen by the second line are , , and
and to large loads having relatively small negative-sequence im- . Superposition of those sequence currents results
pedances. The zero-sequence currents flow from the untrans- in the severe current unbalance shown in Fig. 13.
posed lines to transformers with grounded neutrals. The
E. Problems Due to Current Unbalance
different routes of sequence currents flowing in the transmis-
sion systems may result in cases when the negative- and zero-se- The aim of the above study was to understand the phenomena
quence currents in a line under light loading may have signifi- of high current unbalance that has been observed in short trans-
cant values with respect to the line positive-sequence current. mission lines. The next step of the research is the analysis of
Superposition of the sequence currents on the line manifests it- problems caused by the phenomena.
self as a significant unbalance of the line phase currents. We have already shown that the significant current unbalance
The phenomenon can be modeled in the scheme shown in due to the electromagnetic coupling between lines as well as due
Fig. 12. The system model includes two short, single-circuit to the superposition of sequence currents may take place only in
untransposed lines connecting two system busbars with the the lines under light loading. It seems that the significant unbal-
load at an intermediate point of the transmission. The system at ance of small phase currents [see Figs. 11(b) and 13] does not
each end of the busbars is presented as a Thevenin equivalent. have any negative impact either on the power system compo-
The Thevenin impedances are calculated on the condition that nents or on the environment in the line proximity.
the short-circuit currents at the system terminals, when the On the other hand, the high current unbalance that takes place
lines are disconnected, are 40 kA The load due to the inherent asymmetry of the line’s parameters or due
is presented as a constant impedance. Its positive-sequence to the presence of LTs may occur also in heavily loaded lines.
impedance is calculated on condition that, if the voltage across Generally, as it has been shown above, the through unbalance
the load is 165 kV, . in the systems with short lines is small and does not pose any
In order to model high current unbalance in the second line, problems outside the lines. It is the circulating unbalance inside
we must deliver over the first line, while the power flow the short lines that may cause the following problems.
through the second line is almost zero , 1) Increase of power losses in the double-circuit lines [4],
(see Fig. 12). The required load flow can be achieved by selec- [6]–[12].
tion of the Thevenin voltages , , 2) Overcurrents in individual phases of the lines.
while the load angle is kept in the range 3) Increase of the magnetic field in the line’s proximity.
. Consider the impact of the circulating unbalance due to
The phase currents in the second line versus the active power adding LTs into one circuit of the double-circuit line (see
flow over the line are given in Fig. 13. Table I) on the overcurrents and on the magnetic field.
In order to explain the current unbalance shown in Fig. 13, The phase currents in the line, calculated in one-line sym-
consider the superposition of sequence currents in the second metrical model, equal 1650 A. The real current in phase of
line, when the load angle . The transmission the 1st circuit equals 2189 A (i.e., circulating unbalance in-
of over the 1st line generates negative-sequence current creases the phase current by 33%). The flow of overcurrents in
and zero-sequence current . That the line’s lower phase [see Fig. 9(a)] may reduce the minimum
unbalance is small with respect to the positive-sequence cur- phase-to-ground line clearance. Therefore, the probability of
rent . The load consumes the following sequence short circuits on the line increases.
KALYUZHNY AND KUSHNIR: CURRENT UNBALANCE IN TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS 1047
III. SUMMARY
Transmission systems with short lines feeding balanced loads
may have significant, circulation current asymmetry on their
transmission lines.
This asymmetry is caused by using specific phase arrange-
ments on short, double-circuit lines as well as by adding LT.
The analytical expressions to estimate the unbalance resulting
from adding the LT are developed.
The unbalance may cause overcurrents in individual phases of
the lines and increase the magnetic field in the line’s proximity.
The unbalance can be reduced by the selection of the optimal
phase arrangements of transmission lines and by the proper de-
sign of PLC LT.
The significant current asymmetry in the lines under light
loading may take place due to electromagnetic coupling be-
tween the lines as well as due to the superposition of sequence
currents.
This asymmetry manifests itself as expressive unbalance of
small phase currents, which does not have any negative impact
either on the power system components or on the environment
in the line proximity.
Fig. 14. Effect of the current unbalance on the magnetic field. (a) Magnetic flux ACKNOWLEDGMENT
density in line proximity. (b) Magnetic flux density to the right of the right-of- The authors are grateful to D. Shein and B. Reshef from
way.
IECo for their contribution to this study. The authors also thank
D. Amdur from IECo for his support of this research.
[12] A. Ametani, D. V. Dommelen, and I. Utsumi, “Study of super-bundle Gregory Kushnir received the M.Sc. degree in elec-
and low-reactance phasings on untransposed twin-circuit lines,” Proc. trical engineering from the Urals Technical Univer-
Inst. Elect. Eng., Gen. Transm. Dist. C, vol. 137, no. 4, pp. 245–254, sity, Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 1969.
Jul. 1990. He was with the Urals Section of “Souztech-
[13] J. Ma, S. Fortin, and S. F. Dawalibi, “Analysis and mitigation of current energo,” the Urals Technical University, the Urals
unbalance due to induction in heavily loaded multicircuit power lines,” Power System Dispatch Centre, and is currently
IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 1378–1383, Jul. 2004. with the Israel Electric Corporation Ltd., Haifa.
[14] M. P. Sanders and R. E. Ray, “Power line carrier channel & application His research interests include the development of
considerations for transmission line relaying,” in Pulsar Technol. Tech. mathematical models and programs for steady states
Brochure, Apr. 2001. and transients in power systems as well as problems
of load-flow optimization.
Aaron Kalyuzhny (M’98) received the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from the Siberian Research
Institute of Energy, Novosibirsk, Russia, in 1990.
Currently, he is with the Israel Electric Corpo-
ration Ltd., Haifa. His research interests include
unbalance steady states and transients in power
systems as well as different aspects of the reactive
power compensation.