Chair of Energy Distribution and High Voltage Engineering
Beside the cost effective, environmentally friendly and resource optimized conversion of energy the save and efficient transmission and distribution of electric power is one the most important aspects of an economical energy supply. The chair for Energy Distribution and High Voltage Engineering focuses in its activities on the following topics:
- High Voltage Technology and Insulating Materials
- High Voltage Measuring and Testing Technique
- High Voltage Devices and Substations
- Planning of Power Transmission and Distribution Networks
- Protection of Power Transmission and Distribution Networks
- Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) in Electrical Power Systems
These topics are a part of German taught study programmes as well as of the English taught International Master Programme “Power Engineering”. The research activities within the last five years were concentrated on:
- Optical sensing methods for measuring high voltage or high current in power systems. At the moment several prototypes will be manufactured to be tested later on in a 110 kV substation in Poland as well as in Germany.
- EMC-test facility to investigate the susceptibility of large railway systems like locomotives or trains. Jumping repeating nano-second impulses will be generated with field strength of 10 kV/m in order to simulate interferences caused by lightning strokes, switching devices, frequency converters or pantographs.
- Auxiliary power networks of pit coal fired power plants, which were analysed in order to investigate cost saving potentials by using short circuit current limiting elements. Together with Vattenfall Europe Generation and Siemens the behaviour of superconducting limiters as well as of semiconducting limiters are studied in order to develop a new design for the auxiliary demand structure.
- Grid integration of dispersed generation is a rapidly growing theme in research. Due to the tremendous amount of wind generation in Germany, particularly the 110 kV distribution grids are close to their maximum capacity. Transmission grid operators will also be faced with more critical situations demanding the balance between generation and load in the grid. Therefore, Chair for Energy Distribution and High Voltage Engineering started to build a large project team together with Vattenfall Europe Transmission, envia-Netz and eon-edis to define possible concepts for the integration of the upcoming additional dispersed generation to the grid.
A variety of other, smaller projects, which were carried out together with industry can be found below:
- Investigation of earth fault detection in medium voltage networks
- Lightning protection test on the Cargolifter airship together with Lightning Technologies, Pittsfield, USA u.a
- Lightning protection test on wind generator rotor blades together with Lightning Technologies, Pittsfield, USA u.a
- Ferro resonance analysis on high voltage instrument transformers
- Harmonic analysis in power plants
- Analysis of transient overvoltages in pit coal mining networks
- Cleaning of high voltage equipment under life conditions together with IPK-Berlin u.a.
- Forced aging of medium voltage substation under extreme climate conditions
- Mechanical function test of high voltage circuit breakers at extreme low temperatures (-50 C)
In total, the chair realises an annual project volume of about 500-700 T€/a. The chair operates a fully screened laboratory (Fig. 1), which is equipped with an AC test set up to 1000 kV (1ph) or 600 kV (3ph), a DC set up to 1600 kV and an impulse generator up to 1800 kV BIL resp. 1400 kV SIL. Furthermore a climatic chamber with a size of 7x5x8 m and a temperature range of -50 … +80 C is available. Different optical, electronic and EMC laboratories will round the scope of available infrastructure.
