Air Insulated Electrical Substation Design

Air insulated substations are the most common type of substation that you will find on the electrical network, due to their cost effectiveness and simplicity..

This course will give you an appreciation of how to design this type of substation   

Air insulated substations contain various types of equipment to provide a fully functioning system.

This includes conductors and clamps to connect the equipment's together, circuit breakers to switch the power on and off and transformers to change the system voltage.

By the end of this section you will know all about the main equipment's they use and their purpose inside the substation.

Inside the air insulated substation we need to interconnect all of the equipment's together in a safe and cost efficient manner.

To do this we use conductors & busbars to carry the electrical energy between the equipment's, connectors & clamps to join the conductors together and insulators to prevent the electricity leaking out to the grounded structures

By the end of this section you will understand the different types of equipment's that we use inside the air insulated substation to carry the electrical energy safely through the substation.

Insulators are used widely inside air insulated substations to keep personnel safe and prevent the electrical energy leaking out.

By the end of this section you will know all about the different type of insulators we use inside air insulated substation and learn about what the creepage distance is how it affects the design of the equipment's inside the substation

The network designer has numerous options on how to connect the incomers, busbars and feeders together to create a fully functioning substation

This section introduces some of the main configurations that we use to connect these elements together.

By the end of this section you should know the main network configurations that we use and understand the benefits and disadvantages of each

In part 2 of this section on circuit breakers we will take a further look into the design of high voltage circuit breakers with a particular emphasis on live tank circuit breakers.

By the end of this section you will understand all about the insulating mediums that we use inside the contact chamber, how live tank circuit breakers operate and what additional features we need on extra high voltage circuit breakers.

Metalclad switchgear is one of the most popular types of air insulated switchgear that we use on the distribution network.

In this section we will look at all of the important aspects of this type of switchgear and how it is designed to operate safely under all conditions.

By the end of this section you will know all about vacuum contact bottles, circuit breaker trucks and the enclosures that house them.

Circuit breakers are used in the network to switch the electrical energy on and off.

Sometimes we also need to insert some physical barriers into the network so that we know that the electrticity cannot flow into some parts of the network, to do this we use electrical isolators.

By the end of this section you will know why we use isolators inside air insulted substations and appreciate all of the different types of isolators that you will come across.

Safety is the main priority for all electrical utilities and protecting personnel from the dangers of electricity, whilst they are working inside the substation is essential

To do this we use grounding equipment's to make sure that when equipment is being installed, modified or maintained the electrical energy is rendered harmless.

By the end of this section you will understand why we need to ground the equipment's and look at the equipment's that we can use to do this in a safe and controlled way.

Air insulated substations use air as an insulating medium, and therefore need to be designed carefully so that the electrical energy that passes through them is controlled and kept safe.

To do these we space the equipment out using electrical clearances.

By the end of this section you will understand what the main electrical clearance parameters are, and how they are used to design the substation.