Powergrid Corporation of India, Limited, an Indian government entity, is the only agency responsible for transmission of power across the country. In its current five-year plan, the Indian government has set the target “Power for All by 2012”. In India, where efficiency of power transmission is now approximately 52 %, the enhancement of transmission capacity will play a vital role in achieving the target.

 

The major part of Brazil’s energy is generated by hydroelectric power plants. The hydrographic conditions in the North of Brazil possess large capability for generating hydroelectric power to cover the energy demand in the South.
In 2006, after the first two North-South Interconnection lines from the years before had proved successfully, the Brazilian Electricity Regulatory Agency (ANEEL) awarded a third parallel line, North South Interconnection III. In the middle section of the transmission line from Colinas (Tocantis) down to Serra da Mesa II (Goiás) power had to be transmitted over an enormous distance of 696 km. This Lot B, the longest part of the three Lots, was awarded to INTESA, a consortium of Eletronorte, Chesf, Engevix and a private investor. To avoid losses and voltage stability problems in Lot B Siemens supplied in a consortium with Areva five Fixed Series Capacitors (FSCs), Line Protection and substation HV equipment. Siemens as the consortium leader installed four FSCs at Eletronorte´s substations Colinas, Miracema and Gurupi and one at Furnas´ substation Peixe II within a delivery time of 14 months. So an interconnection between north and south was indispensable.

 

In summer of 2005, Siemens was awarded the Fengjie Series Compensation System located in Wanzhou 500 kV ac-network, Fengjie County, Wanzhou District. Fixed Series Compensation (FSC) was found as the appropriate solution for an increase of power transfer capability with the existing lines and to stabilize the interconnected networks by reducing the connecting line impedance.

 

In September 2004 Siemens succeeded in winning the contract for the refurbishment of two series capacitor installations at Edisons Eldorado Substation southwest of Boulder City, Nevada. As a result of new power generation installed in the Las Vegas area the fault duty on the 500 kV transmission network is above the design ratings of the existing equip-ment and therefore the two series capacitors “Lugo” and “Moenkopi” at the Eldorado Substation need to be replaced.

 

In August 2002 Siemens succeeded in winning a series capacitor contract with Dominion Virginia Power.
To accommodate increased power generation at the Bath County Pumping Station, Dominion had to add two series capacitors to the Virginia 500 kV network in the Bath County Area. Each of the two transmission lines from the Bath County Pumping Station, one leading to the Lexington substation and the other leading to the Valley substation have been equipped with a fixed series capacitor of 60 % compensation level.
The Valley FSC has been in commercial operation since November 13th 2003 and the Lexington FSC has been in commercial operation since December 2nd 2003.

 

In May 2002, Siemens received the turnkey contract from OTRACO to install two series capacitor banks in the MOTRACO network. MOTRACO is an independent transmission company owned in equal shares by three utilities: EdM from Mozambique, SEB from Swaziland and ESKOM from South Africa. The MOTRACO network consists of two 400 kV transmission lines from ESKOM (Camden and Arnot substation) to the Maputo substation. The transmission line from Camden to Maputo is intersected by a 400 kV busbar in Swaziland at Edwaleni II substation.
The bulk of the energy which is transferred via these transmission lines is for the Mozal aluminum smelter in Maputo. The capacity of the aluminum smelter will be increased. Therefore also the lines have to be upgraded to cope with the increased power demand. As part of this upgrade, Siemens supplies the two fixed series capacitor banks. One bank is installed directly in Maputo substation in the Edwaleni-Maputo line. The second FSC is installed in Barberton substation approximately halfway between Arnot power station and Maputo substation close to the city of Barberton, in the Republic of South Africa. Both FSCs have been in commercial operation since mid April 2003.

 

TCSC Serra de Mesa, Brazil

Brazil's national energy holding Electrobrás had planned to connect the northern with the southern power networks for a long time. Finally, the heavy increasing demand for electric energy in the south decided the issue to build the North-South Interconnection line.
The network in the south, south-east, central and mid west regions supplies energy to the area of the country south of the capital, Brasilia, and the network in the north and northeast provides energy to the areas north-east of Bahia to Belém on the Amazon delta.