The Estimation of the Possible Influence on the UHV

Power Grid Induced By Different Kind Geomagnetic

Storms

Haiyang Ge
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, North
China Electric Power University,
Beijing 102206, China
gehybb@126.com

Lianguang Liu
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, North
China Electric Power University,
Beijing 102206, China
Xueshang Feng
Sate Key Laboratory of Space Weather, Chinese Academy of
Sciences,
Beijing 100190, China

ABSTRACTAlong with the UHV construction scheme, China
will form a large number of transmission lines which have the
characteristics of the ultra-high voltage, large-capacity, long-
distance. Because the UHV power grid transmission line
parameters and the structure of the grid and the transformer are
different from the other power net, Geomagnetic storms will
affect the UHV power grid more, the work have important
significance to the assessment of the ultra-high voltage power
grid level and influence. The impact of different storms on the
grid are also different .Based on the power flow mechanism of
the GIC, different data and network parameters of geomagnetic
storms, the evaluation model of the GIC is established ,the paper
assess the result of the GIC induced by the geomagnetic storms
happened on November 2004 and December 2006 in the 2020
planning ultra-high voltage power grid, finds out the greatest
impact transformer substation and the timing analysis results of
the grid compare the different impact of different storm.. The
comparison of the analysis results is helpful for understanding
the different kind geomagnetic storms and the regional features
of GIC.
Key words-GIC,strong geomagnetic storm,ultra-high voltage
grid,ESP,transmission line
I. INTRODUCTION
During a geomagnetic storm, there will be a induced
electric field formed on the earth. Geomagnetic storm will
affect the normal function of high-voltage power grid by the
geomagnetically induced current (GIC). GIC are the ground
end of the space weather chain that originated at the sun..GIC
will bring a serried of influence on the power system.. Along
with the UHV construction scheme, the scale of the power
system is lager. In addition because of the smaller resistance of
the UHV transmission lines and the special transformer
institution., the UHV grid will be suffered more by the
geomagnetic storm.[1]
The influence of different storms on the grid are also
different. The monitoring data shows, when the geomagnetic
of 10 November 2004,the measured peak GIC in the
transformer neutral at a nuclear power station in ZHAOQING
of Guangdong province is 75.5A,the K of the geomagnetic
storm is 8.However, when the geomagnetic of 24 October
2005,the measured peak GIC in the transformer neutral at the
nuclear power station here is 19.1A,the Kp of the geomagnetic
storm is 9.So it is necessary to analysis the different kinds of
the geomagnetic storms.[2]The magnetic field of the earth in
the higher latitude areas change more quickly ,so the paper
choose power grid in the northeast of China, analysis the GIC
in the power grid. Figure I shows the UHV construction
scheme in the northeast region.

Figure I Planned UHV power grid of northeast China in 2020
II. THE CALCULATION OF THE ELECTRIC FIELD
A. The mechanism of the GIC circulation and the main
factors of the GIC in the power grid
The Sun continuously emits charged particles, mostly
protons and electrons, which constitute the Solar Wind. The
solar wind interacts with the Earths geomagnetic field, and it
will have a series of rapid changes. The space currents induce
the electromagnetic field in the earth. As in the UHV power
system ,the neutral point of the transformer in the substation is
National international technology cooperation plan (2010 DFA64680)
and state key laboratory space weatherology funded.)
1342
978-1-4244-8165-1/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE
directly connected to the ground, the resistance of the grid is
smaller comparing to the resistance of the ground, the GIC
will flow through the transmission lines, the ESP of the lines
will produce GIC in the loop consisted by the transmission
and the ground.[3][4]
The research shows that the main factors impacting the
level of the GIC includes the following, the electric structure
of the ground where the grid existing , the network structure of
the grid ,the type and the Kp index of the storms, the rate of
the electric field changing when the storms occur.[5]For a
special grid ,the grid structure and the electric structure of the
earth will not change, so the level of the GIC in the grid is
main depended on the intensity of the storms ,and the rate of
the electric field changing when the storms occur.
B. The parameters of the electric field
According to the research ,the electric field strength is
0.205V/km in SHANGHE JIANGSHU province and the
calculating inducted surface potential in HEIHE is 0.6V,when
the geomagnetic storm occurred on December 2006. As the
latitude of the UHV system area is lower than HEIHE, the
paper rough estimate the ESP in the region north to the line
from ZHALUTE to JILIN is 0.5V and the ESP in the region
south to the line is 0.4V according to the latitude of the area
and the structure of the rock in the northeast. So the potential
of the lines are calculated and shown in the table I.
TABLE I. THE POTENTIAL OF THE LINES CORRESPONDING TO THE
STORM OCCURRING ON DECEMBER 2006(V)
DIRECTION EAST NORTH
EEAST
EAST
HAILAER---
XINGANMENG
135.5256 35.4800 185.829
XINGANMENG-
--ZHALUTE
66.8412 14.4674 87.3627
ZHALUTE---
FUXIN
36.5238 63.8216 126.846
FUXIN---
YINGKOU
33.7178 33.6020 81.2841
YINGKOU---
BENXI
87.78411 66.4517 6.16028
BENXI---JILIN 50.3576 93.7244 82.2014
JIIIN---
HEERBIN
6.0759 114.7245 168.390
HAERBIN--
BAOQING
188.5920 146.5040 18.5283
FUXIN---
SHENBEI
150.7094 92.6395 19.7651
YINGKOU---
JILIN
9?.?++ !09.!+b
3
b?.099+
YINGKOU---
SHENBEI
66.2590 87.8041 57.9114
SHENBEI----
BENXI
54.7745 9.9356 68.8748
III. THE ASSESSMENT OF THE GIC LEVEL IN THE GRID
A. The parameters of the planed grid
The wires of the UHV power are at least 8-split ,the DC
resistance of the wire in no more than 0.0095/km.The 500kv
grid connecting to the UHV grid is small ,so the impact of the
500kv grid to the UHV can be ignored when assess the GIC of
the UHV grid, the model can only consider 1000kv
system.[5]The GIC can approximated as quasi-DC current.
The parameters of the network are as follows.
1 The parameters of the transformer.The measured DC
resistance of the 500kv transforms which have the
capacity of 750MVA/750MVA/240MVA is between
0.22020.32541when the temperature of oil in the
high side winding is 20.As the greater the capacity
of transformer the smaller the DC resistance, the paper
chose0.3 as the DC resistance of the transformer.
2 The parameters of the wire. The DC resistance of the
line is 0.0095/km,all lines are double-line calculated.
3 Shunt reactor and the grounding resistance of the
station. Choosing 0.3 as the grounding resistance
,ignoring the impact of the shunt reactors.
B. The GIC model of the grid
TABLE II. GIC IN THE LINES DURING MAGNETIC STORM IN DECEMBER
2006(A)
DIRECTION EAST NORTHEEAST NORTH
HAILAER---
XINGANMENG
31.0367 8.9932 58.0466
XINGANMENG-
--ZHALUTE
5.6481 4.7949 66.9279
ZHALUTE---
FUXIN
33.4904 26.0433 81.3977
FUXIN---
YINGKOU
3.7403 25.7285 37.1279
YINKOU---
BENXI
26.8639 15.0792 9.1877
BENXI---JILIN 32.2443 19.6976 26.6481
JILIN--
HAERBIN
37.9256 0.0141 67.6836
HAERBIN---
BAOQING
55.7354 34.8839 23.7483
FUXIN---
SHENBEI
7.3888 33.3274 20.1076
SHENBEI---
JINLIN
43.5261 41.0692 34.9326
YINGKOU---
SHENBEI
78.2916 30.9299 39.0827
SHENBEI----
BENXI
32.0160 6.0558 31.7224
TABLE III. GIC IN THE TRANSFORMS DURING MAGNETIC STORM IN
DECEMBER 2006(A)
DIRECTION EAST NORTHEAST NORTH
HAILAER
31.0367 8.9932 58.0466
XINGANMENG
25.3886 4.1983 8.8813
ZHALUTE
35.2311 12.0790 5.6379
FUXIN
48.5414 31.2447 5.1871
YINKOU
23.1237 40.8076 46.3155
BENXI
26.6357 1.4374 49.1829
JILIN
37.8447 60.7528 6.1029
HAERBIN
17.8098 34.8698 43.9353
BAOQING
55.7354 34.8839 23.7483
SHENBEI
10.1382 17.1322 22.1852
According to the connection of the 12 transmission lines
and the 10substations of the planed grid shown in Figure I,the

1343
structure of the network and the parameters of the lines and
the transformers, the paper set up the northeast GIC
calculation model using MATLAB/SIMULINK based on the
parameters of the UHV, and calculate the GIC in the grid
based on the plane wave method and the geomagnetic
data.The paper obtain the data shown in Table II and Table III
based on the ESP calculated in section II .
IV. COMPARISON OF GIC INDUCED BY DIFFERENT
MAGNETIC STORMS
A. The estimation of the real-time GIC during the magnetic
storms in April 2004 and December 2006

In order to analyze the relationship between GIC and the
Kp, and the changing rate of the magnetic storms ,the paper
gives the curve of the GIC and the changing rate of the
geomagnetic data in the substations(shown in Figure II and
Figure III) in BAOQING,HAERBEIN and YINGKOU where
the GIC are the largest in the Table III,using the GIC level
assessment software,[11]based on the magnetic data of the
storms in November 8,2004 and December 14,2006.The
parameters used in the calculation of the GIC in the
transforms neutral are listed in Section II^,the earth
conductivity values 0.001s/m.[7]The data of the GIC induced
by twice storm in the same site shown that although the deep
earth resistivity has great impact on the GIC, it will not
change in a solar activity period ,the changing rate of the
magnetic has great impact on the GIC. In order to verify the
relationship ,the paper do the derivative analysis of the
horizontal component of the geomagnetic field, the changing
curves are shown in Figure 4.
V. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE DATA
A. The GIC analysis of the northeast UHV
According to the Table II and Table III,when the direction
of the electric field is closed to the direction of the
transmission lines, the GIC in the lines is larger. As the point
inflection the GIC in the lines near SHENYANG and
BAOQING are larger, the lines have seriously affected by the
GIC ,and it should take some preventive measure there.
For the impact of the substation, the GIC induced by the
electric field of different directions shown that the
transformers in the UHV are more easier affected by the GIC.
The transformers near HAILAER YINGKOU and HAERBIN
have bigger GIC because of their high latitude and the point
inflection. It should pay more attention to the place.
B. The comparison of the influence on the UHV by different
types of storms
The Kp indexs of both the geomagnetic storms in 2006 and
2004.According to the analysis of the GIC in the neutral point
of the transformer induced by the two storms, both the storms
have great influence on the grid, but ,the impact of the 2004 is
greater than it of2006, shown in the Figure II and Figure
III.BAOQING has the biggest GIC in both the two storms, it is
300A in 2004,and 180A in 2006.
The paper compared the changing rate of the
geomagnetic field in 2004 and 2006.Through the comparison
of the changing rate of X and Y axis of the geomagnetic
storms and the changing rate of the storms shown in the
Figure 4,we can see the storm in 2004 has bigger changing
rate than the storm in2006 in all aspects. In other word the
geomagnetic field of storm in 2004 change rapidly. The
changing rate of the geomagnetic has greater impact on the
GIC, so the impact of the two storms are different.
C. RESPONSE
The traditional way to deal with the GIC is doing
transformation to the equipment of the grid and changing the
structure of the grid, installing isolation devices in the neutral
point of the transformer. However, comparing to the impact of
the individual transformer bias magnetic caused by AC
transmission, the GIC influent the whole grid. Besides the
UHV has special high voltage level, great scale ,so this
approach is technically difficult and will require very large
investment. Based on the analysis of the GIC, the GIC has
closer relationship to the length of the lines ,the structure and
the parameters of the grid. So it is necessary to assess the
level of the GIC in the designing stage, consider the impact of
the GIC in equipment selection ,through the rational planning
to reduce the GIC level, targeted to improve the tolerance of

Figure II The GIC of the three stations in 11th November and the changing rate of the geomagnetic field
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Figure III The GIC of the three stations in 14th December and the changing rate of the geomagnetic field

Figure IV T The changing rate of the geomagnetic field in November 2004 and December 2006
the lines and the transformation by the GIC. In the operational
phase it should pay more attention to the prediction of the Kp
and the changing rate of the geomagnetic storms ,then control
the power in the lines which can be very cost effective in the
prevention of GIC on the power safety.
VI. CONCLUSION
The analysis of the impact on the planning northeast UHV
grid shows that the UHV gird is easy to subject to greater risk
of the geomagnetic storm, GIC depends on the changing rate
of the geomagnetic field ,it should not only concerned about
the Kp but also the changing rate of the geomagnetic storms,
the solar which is the source of the magnetic should pay
attention too. The results shows that the parameters of the grid
have greater impact on the GIC, it is necessary to develop the
control strategies of the GIC in the UHV grid, do research on
the forecasting of the GIC, lay the foundation for disaster
prevention.
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