CIGR Canada

21, rue dArtois, F-75008 PARIS

(Paper CIGRE 123) Conference on Power Systems
http : //www.cigre.org
Vancouver, October 17- 19, 2010
Field Trial of Dynamic Thermal Rating Devices
on 230kV Indian Arm Crossing in British Columbia


S. CHERUKUPALLI
1
, and M. L. LU
1

M. SIU
2
, T. MACISAAC
2
, and K. MORISON
2

BC Hydro
1
(CAN) BC Transmission Corporation
2
(CAN)
SUMMARY

This paper presents the results of a 10-month field trial of four dynamic thermal rating (DTR) devices
that were installed on the 230kV Indian Arm crossing in Port Moody, British Columbia, Canada. This
pilot project was initiated by BC Transmission Corporation (BCTC) with collaboration from
BC Hydro intended to get first-hand experience/knowledge of the performance of these devices, with
the long term objective of identifying the cost-effective, reliable, economical, and robust DTR
system(s) that best suits the needs of BCH and BCTC. This pilot study provided a unique insight into
the strengths and weaknesses of the individual devices deployed as demonstrated by the
comprehensive field data from a utilitys perspective. The experience gained during the deployment
and subsequent monitoring proved to be invaluable. Following the analyses of the data from this
monitoring period it is recommended that the two most promising devices be investigated in greater
depth in the next phase by using a more controllable and adjustable test environment with the
objective of identifying their limits of capability.


KEYWORDS

Ampacity; Conductor; Real time monitoring; Sag; Solar radiation; Temperature; Thermal rating;
Transmission line; Weather; Wind.
sudhakar.cherukupalli@bchydro.com


1.0 INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, building a new transmission line has become much more difficult and costly than ever
before largely due to the challenges of obtaining new Right-of-Way corridors. This situation arises
from the publics increasing awareness of or concern over, the social or environmental impacts that a
new transmission line may impose upon their properties or the community at large. Therefore,
maximizing the capacity of an existing transmission line may, in many cases, becomes a more cost-
effective, or sometimes, even the only viable option to meet the publics demand for a reliable and
sufficient power supply.

An existing transmission lines power delivery capacity may be raised by either voltage upgrading or
ampacity uprating with the latter being usually more cost-effective. An ampacity uprating is, in turn,
normally accomplished fully or partially by increasing the lines thermal rating.

Traditionally, a lines thermal rating is defined as the maximum allowable current (or ampacity) when
the conductor is at its maximum allowable temperature (typically 90
o
C) and is located in an assumed
conservative ambient weather condition (typically a wind of 0.6m/s and an air temperature of 30
o
C for
summer and 10
o
C for winter). Such a rating is called static thermal rating (STR) [1]. Clearly, most
of the time, a transmission line is operating well under this thermal limit (say, 90
o
C).

Alternatively, a lines thermal rating may be defined to be the maximum allowable current that is
computed by assuming that the conductor is at its maximum allowable temperature and the actual
weather conditions are used. Such a rating is called dynamic thermal rating (DTR), because the
rating varies with time as the natural result of varying weather conditions [1]. DTR is superior over
STR because of the following two reasons:

Most of the time, the ampacity from DTR is higher than the ampacity of STR, so that DTR has
an economical advantage of being able to deliver more power.
Conceptually, DTR provides the true or exact rating of a line such that the conductors
thermal limit (say 90
o
C) is never violated. On the other hand, while it is true that a statically
rated line is operating well under its thermal limit for the most of time, occasionally the
thermal limit could be violated under, for example, an extremely hot and calm ambient
condition. Thus, DTR can also lead to a safer operation of the line than STR.

Over the decades, various DTR techniques have been explored and tried in many countries. They may
be divided into the following five categories:

Weather based DTRs [2]
Tension based DTRs [3]
Sag based DTRs [4]
Conductor temperature based DTRs [5]
Replica conductor based DTRs [6]

While there are a variety of DTR techniques available either commercially or in laboratories, there is a
lack of consensus as to which technique performs best. Thus, it is difficult for a utility to decide which
technique to choose without its own first-hand experience/knowledge.

BCH owns and operates majority of transmission lines within the province of British Columbia (BC)
with a total length of over 18,000 km. Most of the lines were built prior to 1980. BC is also well
known for its diversity in climate and complexity in terrain. Thus, there are both great opportunities
and considerable challenges to the application of DTR techniques.

In the past, BCH tried some DTR methods without much success. However, with the steady and fast
advancement and improvement of the DTR techniques, it was BCHs belief that it was time to
1

consider another comprehensive review of the existing DTR techniques. It was thus decided to initiate
a field trial program. The 230kV Indian Arm crossing in Port Moody was selected as the trial site for
its long span (1,676m) and proximity to Vancouver. Four DTR devices were chosen and installed on
the crossing; one sag based device, one conductor-temperature based device, one replica-conductor
based device, and one weather based device.

2.0 OVERVIEW OF THE FIELD TRIAL PROGRAM

2.1 Description of the site

The 230kV Indian Arm crossing is located in Port Moody, BC, approximately 16km east of downtown
Vancouver. The crossing consists of a steel lattice dead-end tower 3-1 and a steel lattice suspension
tower 2-1 with a span length of 1,676m. The crossing has two circuits on it: 2L11 on the northeast side
and 2L49 on the southwest side. The conductor used for the crossing is a special 871kcmil AACSR
one that has a diameter of 35.48mm, unit mass of 3.6058kg/m and a rated tensile strength of 603kN.
The lowest phase of 2L11 was selected as the subject of the investigation. See Figure 1 for the
illustrations.























Figure 1: The Indian Arm crossing shown by (a) a photo taken from Str.2-1 towards Str.3-1; (b) a
plan view; and (c) a profile view.


2.2 Overview of the DTR devices and their installations

Four DTR devices were chosen and installed on the crossing. They are:
DTR-A: A weather based DTR device that is essentially a weather micro-station consisting of:
(a) a 2D anemometer for measuring wind speed and wind direction; (b) a temperature and
humidity sensor; (c) a pyranometer for measuring total solar radiation; and (d) a rain gauge for
measuring precipitation. See Figure 2(a) for the photo of DTR-A as installed on the top
crossarm of Str.2-1 of the crossing.
DTR-B: A replica-conductor based DTR device that consists of (a) a cold rod with an
embedded thermocouple for determining the temperature of the replica conductor without
heating; (b) a hot rod with an embedded thermocouple for determining the temperature of the
Indian Arm
Str.3-1 (DE)
Str.2-1 (SU)
Str.1-3 (DE)
Bedwell Bay
3-1
2-1
1-3
N
2L11
2L49
(b)
(a)
1251m
1676m
(c)
2

replica conductor with known J oule heating; and (c) an additional thermocouple for
determining ambient air temperature. See Figure 2(b) for the photo of DTR-B as installed on
the north leg of Str.2-1 at approximately 8m below the bottom crossarm of the tower.

DTR-C: A self-powered, conductor-temperature based DTR device that is capable of
measuring, simultaneously, both the conductor temperature and the electrical current that the
conductor carries at the installation spot of the device. Figure 2(c) shows a photograph of the
installed device on the lowest phase conductor of 2L11 at a horizontal distance of
approximately 53m from the conductor suspension point on Str.2-1.

DTR-D: A sag based DTR device that consists of a camera on a structure and a target on a
conductor nearby. Figure 2(c) shows the camera as installed on the north leg of Str.2-1 at
approximately 17m below the bottom crossarm of the tower, as well as the target that was
installed on the lowest phase conductor of 2L11 at a horizontal distance of approximately 47m
from the conductor suspension point on Str.2-1.


(a)

(c)
DTR-A









DTR-C

(b) DTR-B




DTR-D







Figure 2: Photos of the DTR devices installed on the Indian Arm crossing: (a) DTR-A; (b) DTR-B;
and (c) DTR-C and DTR-D.

2.3 Brief description of the field trial program

All of the four devices (as well as the associated solar panels and communication devices) were
installed by the end of J une 2009, so that all of the devices started to operate and produce raw data
starting J uly 1, 2009. The raw data was sent wirelessly to a laptop computer in a BCH office and was
downloaded and saved. The monitoring program was initially planned to end in May 2010 so data was
recorded over an approximately 10-month period.

A ground survey was performed on the catenary of the lowest phase of 2L11 on J une 23, 2009 when
the circuit was taken out of service for the installation. This surveyed catenary served as a base case
scenario for the sag and tension analysis of the crossing span.
3


Several problems were encountered during the field trial as described below:

DTR-A did not function normally at times (September 01-08, and November 28-30),
presumably due to the power supply voltage (from the solar panel) falling below the minimum
threshold. The relative humidity sensor of DTR-A did not appear to function normally since
J anuary 26, 2010 for unknown reasons.

DTR-B started to collect data from J une 12, 2009, but no data was found during the period
from J une 18 to August 7, 2009. Presumably, the downloading of the data was delayed and it
was found corrupted.

DTR-C appeared to have periodic loss of communication, resulting in several data gaps. The
wireless connection to DTR-C was completely lost since March 11, 2010 to the end of the
program. The cause for the lost connection is unclear for most of the events.

DTR-D appeared to function normally initially until August 20, 2009 when the
communication to it was lost. The communication was recovered through on-site repair.
However, it was then found that the confidence level of the recorded data dropped
significantly, presumably due to the target being twisted for unclear reasons. The situation
remained up to the end of the program due to the inability of line outage for the purpose of
restoring the target position.

Inconsistent time stamping was found among different devices and even for the same device
but different time periods. This problem was corrected through data validation.

Regardless of these problems, this pilot study proved to be extremely fruitful overall as will be
discussed in the subsequent sections of this paper.

3.0 VALIDATION OF THE FIELD DATA

Data validation is an important step and done to ensure that the data is reasonable and useful with
certain confidence through relatively simple data manipulations. This was done by adopting the
following methods:

Range check to ensure that the data is contained in a reasonably realistic range. For example,
ambient air temperature in Vancouver shall fall in the range between -30
o
C and 50
o
C.

Smoothness check to ensure that two consecutive sets of data in a time series do not change
significantly beyond a reasonably realistic threshold. For example, ambient air temperature
shall not vary by 10
o
C within 10 minutes.

Cross check to ensure the readings as recorded from two devices follow a known relative
relationship and they trend consistently with time. For example, the two thermometers next to
each other should provide similar readings of the ambient air temperature and the two readings
should follow a similar trend with time (i.e., the peaks and the valleys in the temperature
readings match reasonably well).

Pattern (or trend) check to ensure that data for a given parameter follow a known trend. For
example, solar radiation shall follow a diurnal pattern.
4

0
5
10
15
01/01/2010 0:00 06/01/2010 0:00 11/01/2010 0:00 16/01/2010 0:00 21/01/2010 0:00 26/01/2010 0:00 31/01/2010 0:00
Date
T
a

(
o
C
)
0
100
200
300
400
500
S
R

(
W
/
m
2
)
Ta[A] Ta[B] SR

Figure 3: Variation in the monitored ambient air temperature Ta[A] (from DTR-A) and Ta[B] (from
DTR-B) as well as the total solar radiation SR (from DTR-A) for the month of J anuary 2010.

Data validation is essential and is very useful. It helps to (a) identify the inconsistency in time; (b)
identify flawed data or even identify devices that may be malfunctioning; and (c) identify the accuracy
of a particular instrument/ or a parameter.

As an illustration, Figure 3 shows the variations of ambient air temperature and solar radiation with
time for the month of J anuary 2010. Ta[A] and Ta[B] are the ambient air temperatures recorded by
devices DTR-A and DTR-B, respectively, and SR is the total solar radiation expressed in W/m
2
, as
measured by DTR-A. DTR-B is located approximately 20m below DTR-A, both on Str.2-1. It may be
seen in Figure 3 that the two temperatures are very close and follow each other with a difference of
less than 1
o
C. Thus they may virtually be viewed as being identical. The coincidence of the two
temperatures also indicates that the time stamps are consistent between DTR-A and DTR-B. In
addition, as one may expect, a diurnal pattern can be observed for both the air temperature and the
solar radiation with a peak in a daytime and a valley during the nighttime.

Figure 4 presents the measured electrical current from DTR-C (with legend I[C]) which was compared
with the monitored electrical currents at the two terminal stations namely; Walters and Burrard
substations (with legends PI1 and PI2, respectively). Once again, it is obvious that the three currents
compare reasonably well with each other in terms of their magnitudes and trend well with time.

100
200
300
400
500
01/01/2010 0:00 06/01/2010 0:00 11/01/2010 0:00 16/01/2010 0:00 21/01/2010 0:00 26/01/2010 0:00 31/01/2010 0:00
Date
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

(
A
)
I[C] PI1 PI2


Figure 4: Time-trends of three monitored electrical currents as obtained from DTR-C (noted as I[C])
and the circuit transformers at the two terminal stations (noted as PI1 and PI2) for the month of
J anuary 2010.

5

4.0 ANALYSIS OF THE FIELD DATA: TO CALCULATE EFFECTIVE WIND
SPEED

A power lines thermal rating depends largely on the cooling effect due to the ambient air. The cooling
effect may be represented by an effective wind, in addition to the ambient air temperature.


0
10
20
30
40
50
01/01/2010 0:00 06/01/2010 0:00 11/01/2010 0:00 16/01/2010 0:00 21/01/2010 0:00 26/01/2010 0:00 31/01/2010 0:00
Date
E
f
f
e
c
t
i
v
e

W
i
n
d

(
m
/
s
)
0
100
200
300
400
A
c
c
u
m
.
P
r
e
c
i
p
.

(
m
m
)
Veff[A] Veff[B] Precip.

Figure 5: The variation of effective wind velocities (Veff[A],Veff[B]) from DTR-A and DTSR-B and
accumulated precipitation (Precip) with time for the month of J anuary 2010.


An effective wind, V
eff
, may be estimated by the following equation

W angle eff
V K V
7857 . 1

(1)

where K
angle
is the wind direction factor as defined in IEEE Std 738-2006 [7], and V
W
is the actual
wind speed, which may have an angle with the line orientation.

The effective wind is conceptually defined as the equivalent wind normal to the line orientation that
has the same cooling effect as the actual wind. Such an effective wind has been calculated from the
measured wind of DTR-A and presented in Figure 5 as the red curve with legend Veff[A].

The effective wind may also be back-calculated from DTR-B with its measured temperatures of the
cold and hot rods, by using the IEEE method for conductor temperature [7]. The results are also
presented in Figure 5 as the blue curve with legend Veff[B], for the same month of J anuary 2010.

It can be observed from Figure 5 that the effective wind calculated from DTR-B is generally higher
than the corresponding wind calculated from DTR-A. This difference may be explained by the fact
that the effective wind from DTR-A represents the cooling effect due to a pure wind, while the
effective wind from DTR-B may include the additional cooling effect due to precipitation, for
instance. This is evident in Figure 5 where the effective wind from DTR-B is much greater than the
corresponding wind from DTR-A when there is a precipitation (shown by the slope of the pink curve
in Figure 5). Figure 5 shows that the two wind speeds may remain different significantly even without
precipitation, presumably due to the other cooling effects such as fog etc., and are being investigated.





6

0
5
10
15
20
25
01/01/2010 0:00 04/01/2010 0:00 07/01/2010 0:00 10/01/2010 0:00 13/01/2010 0:00 16/01/2010 0:00
Date
T
e
m
p

(
o
C
)
0
10
20
30
40
50
E
f
f
e
c
t
i
v
e

W
i
n
d

(
m
/
s
)
Tc[C] Tc[B]
Ta[B] Veff[B]

0
5
10
15
20
25
16/01/2010 0:00 19/01/2010 0:00 22/01/2010 0:00 25/01/2010 0:00 28/01/2010 0:00 31/01/2010 0:00
Date
T
e
m
p

(
o
C
)
0
10
20
30
40
50
E
f
f
e
c
t
i
v
e

W
i
n
d

(
m
/
s
)
Tc[C] Tc[B]
Ta[B] Veff[B]


Figure 6: Comparison of measured conductor temperature Tc[C] from DTR-C and the calculated
conductor temperature Tc[B] from DTR-B for the month of J anuary 2010. Both the ambient air
temperature Ta[B] and the effective wind Veff[B] from DTR-B are also included.


5.0 ANALYSIS OF THE FIELD DATA: CONDUCTOR TEMPERATURE

Conductor temperature is a key parameter in determining a transmission lines thermal rating.
Conductor temperature was measured by DTR-C in this project. It may also be calculated either from
the weather data as monitored by DTR-A, or from the measured temperatures of cold and hot rods of
DTR-B, using the IEEE method for conductor temperature [7].

Figure 6 shows the comparison between the measured conductor temperature from DTR-C (the red dot
with legend Tc[C]) and the calculated conductor temperature from DTR-B (the blue curve with
legend Tc[B]) for the month of J anuary 2010. The two temperatures match, indicating that both of
the results (as well as the devices) are reasonably accurate. In particular, this agreement remains valid
for the scenarios where the conductor temperature is noticeably higher than the ambient air
temperature.

It can also be observed from Figure 6 that a greater cooling effect (as represented by a greater value of
the effective wind) tends to reduce the conductor temperature rise over the ambient air, as one may
expect. For example when the wind speed is low, there is a greater mismatch between the conductor
and ambient temperatures (see data near J an 4 2010).


7


0
5
10
15
20
25
01/01/2010 0:00 04/01/2010 0:00 07/01/2010 0:00 10/01/2010 0:00 13/01/2010 0:00 16/01/2010 0:00
Date
T
e
m
p

(
o
C
)
0
50
100
150
200
A
c
c
u
m
.
P
r
e
c
i
p
.

(
m
m
)
Tc[C] Tc[A]
Ta[B] Precip

0
5
10
15
20
25
16/01/2010 0:00 19/01/2010 0:00 22/01/2010 0:00 25/01/2010 0:00 28/01/2010 0:00 31/01/2010 0:00
Date
T
e
m
p

(
o
C
)
0
100
200
300
400
A
c
c
u
m
.
P
r
e
c
i
p
.

(
m
m
)
Tc[C] Tc[A]
Ta[B] Precip

Figure 7: Comparison of measured conductor temperatures Tc[C] from DTR-C and the calculated
conductor temperature Tc[A] from DTR-A for the month of J anuary 2010. Also given are the ambient
air temperature Ta[B] from DTR-B and the accumulated precipitation (Precip) from DTR-A.


Figure 7 presents the comparison between the measured conductor temperature from DTR-C (the red
dot with legend Tc[C]) and the calculated conductor temperature from DTR-A (the blue curve with
legend Tc[A]) for the month of J anuary 2010. It may be seen in Figure 7 that the conductor
temperature as calculated from DTR-A is generally greater than the measured one from DTR-C. This
is because no additional cooling effect (other than wind) is taken into account in determining the
conductor temperature from DTR-A. As a result, the calculated conductor temperature from DTR-A
tends to be much higher than the corresponding measured one from DTR-C when a precipitation is
present.

6.0 ANALYSIS OF THE FIELD DATA: AMPACITY

Determining the maximum allowable current, or ampacity, of a transmission line is the ultimate goal
of a dynamic thermal rating study. For this particular crossing, the DTR ampacity is defined to be the
allowable electrical current corresponding to a maximum conductor temperature of 66
o
C under the
actual weather conditions for a given time.




8

1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
01/01/2010 0:00 03/01/2010 0:00 05/01/2010 0:00 07/01/2010 0:00
Date
A
m
p
a
c
i
t
y

(
A
)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
A
c
c
u
m
.
P
r
e
c
i
p
.

(
m
m
)
DTR-A DTR-B
STR Precip.

0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
08/01/2010 0:00 10/01/2010 0:00 12/01/2010 0:00 14/01/2010 0:00
Date
A
m
p
a
c
i
t
y

(
A
)
50
100
150
200
250
A
c
c
u
m
.
P
r
e
c
i
p
.

(
m
m
)
DTR-A DTR-B
STR Precip.

Figure 8: Comparison of DTR ampacities from DTR-A and DTR-B for the first half month of J anuary
2010. Also given are the STR ampacity, as well as the accumulated precipitation from DTR-A.


Both DTR-C and DTR-D may not be used directly to calculate the DTR ampacity unless weather data
is taken from elsewhere. Thus, only DTR-A and DTR-B are used to calculate the DTR ampacity.
Figure 8 compares the two results for the first half month of J anuary 2010. Clearly, the DTR ampacity
from DTR-B is generally greater than the corresponding one from DTR-A. Again, this difference may
be attributed to whether the additional cooling effect is being considered or not.

In Figure 8, the static thermal rating is also given as the curve with legend STR. As expected, the
DTR ampacity well exceed the STR most of the time. It is also evident, however, from Figure 8 that a
DTR ampacity could be lower than the STR from time to time, indicating that use of STR is not
always on the conservative side.

7.0 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The following conclusions may be drawn from this pilot study.

DTR-A appears to give conservative ratings consistently over the trial period.
DTR-B appears to provide a reasonably accurate estimate of both conductor temperature and
DTR ampacity consistently over the trial period.
DTR-C appears to measure both the conductor temperature and the electrical current with a
reasonable accuracy.
9

10

DTR-D requires further study for the confirmation of its performance.

Based on this pilot study, DTR-A and DTR-B exhibited some advantages of being reliable, robust, and
maintainable. Thus, it is recommended that these two devices be investigated in greater depth in the
next phase by using a more controllable and adjustable test environment with the objective of
identifying their limits of capability.


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to acknowledge the other member of the project team, Dr. Ola Onifade, Chris
Francis, as well as co-op students, Kenan Hadzimahovic, and Adam Barnard. The authors gratefully
acknowledge the active participation of the vendors, the original project Sponsor Dr. J anos Toth, Ben
Dobranowski for providing valuable comments, as well as the Management at BCTC and BC Hydro
who supported and funded this work.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] A. K. Deb: Power Line Ampacity System: Theory, Modeling, and Applications. CRC Press
LLC, 2000.

[2] W. Z. Black: Real-time ampacity model for overhead lines. IEEE Trans. Power Apparatus &
Systems, vol. PAS-102, no. 7, J uly 1983.

[3] T. O. Seppa: Accurate ampacity determination: temperature-sag model for operational real time
rating. IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, vol. 10, No. 3, July 1995.

[4] B. Forbes, D. Bradshaw, and F. Campbell: Finding hidden capacity in transmission lines.
Transmission & Distribution World, September 01, 2002.

[5] Arteche: Temperature measurement sensor: SMT User Manual. Doc05/08-V2.0

[6] D. C. Lawry, and J . R. Daconti: Overhead line thermal rating calculation based on conductor
replica method. IEEE PES Transmission & Distribution Conference & Exposition, vol.3, 880-
885, September, 2003.

[7] IEEE: IEEE Standard for Calculating the Current-Temperature of Bare Overhead Conductors.
IEEE Std 738-2006, IEEE Power Engineering Society, 2006.