PROTECTION OF TELECOM.

EQUIPMENTS INTRODUCTION: Telecommunication has become a vital network in todays world and it must be protected from its outages by all possible means. Though the reasons for failure/disturbances of telecom. Network may be many but principally it may be classified in main two categories:- (a) due to abnormal voltages, and (b) Due to abnormal currents. While abnormally high currents may even result into fire , the other noticeable disturbances could be listed as follows: Disruption of the signalling circuit which sets up the communication channel, Superimposition of noise in the voice frequency band of analogue system, Introduction of error signals in digital systems, Malfunctioning of signalling system due to raised earth potential, and Insulation breakdown of the telecom. Cable due to dangerously high earth potential. Abnormal currents are generally protected by the overcurrent relay and/or fuses whereas there is no protection provided for abnormally high voltages. The causes for these abnormally high voltages are also beyond our control which are occuring due to Lightning and Switching Surges. In this note we shall focus our attention to minimise the damages occuring due to lightning and switching surges. PHENOMENA OF LIGHTNING AND SWITCHING SURGES: Lightning strokes are classified into two groups (i) Direct and (ii) Induced. The Direct stroke is the most severe one however they are rare and only the induced strokes occur on transmission/ distribution/ telephone lines. The current from the ground by the main return strokes may have a peak value of 25 KA and rates of rise may be as high as 100 KA/ s. The interval between the repeated strokes may be from 0.6 ms to 500 ms with an average of 30 ms. From the field data, it was indicated that 50% of lightning stroke currents have a rate of rise greater than 7.5 KA/ s, and for 10% strokes it exceeded 25 KA/ s. The duration of the stroke currents above half the value is more than 30 s. Switching Surges occur due to making and breaking of electric circuits with circuit breakers in power system having large inductances and capacitances. The overvoltages may go as high as six times the normal power frequency voltage. Some of the reasons for switching surges may be attributed as follows: De-energisation of transmission lines, cables, shunt capacitors, etc. Disconnection of unloaded transformers etc. Energisation of reclosing lines and reactive loads etc. Sudden switching off of loads Short circuits and fault clearances Resonance phenomena like ferro-resonance etc.

The relative magnitudes of the overvoltages may be about 2.4 p.u. in the case of transformer energising and 1.4 to 2.0 p.u. in switching transmission lines. The collected records from the field data indicate that the probability of a switching surge exceeding 3.0 p.u. value is about 10% for uncontrolled surges. For controlled surges, the probability of exceeding 2.0 p.u. value is <0.1%.

R. Sharma (BSNL Electrical Zone Patna)

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION: Looking into its vulnerability we may focus our attention on the various power-feeding arrangements on which our Telecom. Equipments operate. They may be classified as (i) Single phase L.T. Supply (ii) 3-phase L.T. Supply and (iii) H.T. Supply. We Shall consider each of them separately. Normally the Telephone Exchanges are equipped with the Primary protection as GDT and the Secondary protection as the Series and Shunt Elements as shown in the diagram below. The main function of the GD tubes is to clamp the line voltage to a reasonable limit and thus shunts a large current say upto several hundreds
SUBSCRIBER LINE UNIT

EXTERNAL LINE FROM EXCHANGE

GDT

Series Elements

SHUNT ELEMENTS

amperes to the earth. But it fires too slowly and at the same time its firing voltage is normally in excess of 1500 volt. The function of the Secondary protection is to tackle the residual voltage passed by the GD tubes. This may be either the transient voltage or the longer duration overvoltage that could not be sufficient to trigger the GD tube. The series elements also limit the power under fault conditions. Thus we see that there is no emphatic protection available as such so far as the lightning and switcing surges are concerned. When we use the LT supply system we neither provide the lightning arrester nor the surge arrester and thus our equipment is exposed to a higher risk. Also once this surge takes place at the time of fault then situation further worsens. For example, the effect of ground fault (with effectively grounded system) may result into rise in voltage of the healthy phase to the tune of 1.4 p.u. Thus to select a surge arrester we are required to be careful about its voltage class as well. An example to this effect is given below Single phase supply system: Nominal System Voltage Highest System Voltage Highest System Voltage to Ground Expected Switching Surge Overvoltage Thus Surge arrester selected shall have a rating as follows: : 250 Volts : 281 Volts : 397 Volts : 620 Volts

R. Sharma (BSNL Electrical Zone Patna)

: >281 Volts (in case of DEHN+SOHNE may be DEHNguard type 320) Front of wave spark-over voltage : >620 Volts (in this case it is 1500 Volts) Discharge Voltage at 5KA (8/20 s imp current wave) : 1500 Volts However once we are using 3 Phase LT Supply System the effect of ground fault may be pronounced and we may have to take care for that also as a probability. An example to this effect shall suffice: Nominal System Voltage (phase to phase) Highest System Voltage Highest System Voltage to Ground Highest System Voltage to Ground under fault Expected Switching Surge Overvoltage Thus Surge arrester selected shall have a rating as follows: : 320 Volts (in case of DEHN+SOHNE may be DEHNguard type 320) Front of wave sparkover voltage : 1250 Volts (in this case it is 1500 Volts) Discharge Voltage at 5KA (8/20 s imp current wave) : 1750 Volts. Rating So far as the HT supply system is concerned, in case we provide the same to the L.T. Side though safeguarding of the Telecom. Equipments may be expected but the power equipments remain unprotected and as such H.T. Lightning arrester with proper insulation coordination has to be provided to avoid outages of the power equipments. Similar calculation may be done and accordingly the selection can be done. However, it is a costly proposition since every time it clears a surge it fails and hence its cost economics may be worked out. PRIORITY OF INSTALLATION: Since it shall be a time consuming as well as costly affair the installation has to be got done in a phase-wise manner. This can be easily achieved by assigning higher priority to those areas which are more lightning prone compared to other. A table in this regard is being given for some important places (risk factor for which may also be calculated) of the country as below: Sl No 1 2 3 4 Name of Place Annual Thunder storm days 24 11 10 1 Sl No 5 6 7 8 Name of Place Annual Thunder storm days 26 20 12 30 : 250 Volts : 281 Volts : 397 Volts : 322 Volts : 869 Volts

Rating

Agra Ahmedabad Ahmednagar Ajamgarh

Ajmer Akola Alibag Aligarh

R. Sharma (BSNL Electrical Zone Patna)

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

Allahabad Alleppy Ambala Ambikapur Amritsar Anantapur Andul Asansol Aurangabad Baharaich Balasore Bangalore Bareilly Barmer Belgaum Bellari Bhavnagar Bhopal Bhubaneshwar Bidar Bijapur Bikaner Bombay Burdwan Calcutta Car Nicobar Chaibasa Chandball Cherapunji Chikalthana Chindwara Chloht Coimbatore Cuddlore Daltonganj Damamu Darbhanga Darjeeling Deesa Delhi Dharamsala Dhubri Dibrugarh Dohad

51 57 9 39 49 27 81 71 36 31 81 45 34 12 31 22 11 44 46 16 9 10 18 33 70 10 74 75 49 24 27 7 40 37 73 4 10 20 7 30 13 8 70 17

53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

Dras Dumka Dwarika Fatehpur Gadag Gaya Gonda Gonda Gopalpur Gorakhpur Gulbarga Gulmarg Guna Gwalior Hajaribagh Hanamkonda Hassan Hissar Honawar Hoshangabad Hoshmoode Hyderabad Imphal Indore Jabalpur Jagdalpur Jaipur Jalpaiguri Jammu Jamnagar Jamshedpur Jhalawar Jhansi Jharsuguda Jodhpur Kalingapatnam Kanker Kankroli Kanpur Kanyakumari Kargil Karwar Kathmandu Khammam

3 63 5 24 21 38 22 10 34 11 34 53 33 53 73 43 76 27 5 37 39 28 49 34 50 38 39 68 26 6 66 40 20 85 23 26 37 36 26 60 2 27 74 26

R. Sharma (BSNL Electrical Zone Patna)

97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140

Kharagpur Kharauti Kochin Kodaikanal Kohima Kota Kurnool Leh Lucknow Ludhiana Machhilipatnam Madras Madurai Mahabaleshwar Mahol Mainpuri Malda Mangalore Meerut Metagaon Minicoy Miraj Moradabad Motihari Moun Abu Mukteshwar Mussorie Mysore Nagapatnam Nagpur Nasik Neemuch Nellore Nizamabad Nowgong Ongoli Ootcamund Palghat Pamban Panchmarhi Parbhani Pathankot Patiala Patna

76 32 63 82 34 27 29 2 10 12 20 47 39 14 46 23 50 36 13 20 25 36 38 4 53 61 44 15 45 17 23 18 36 59 25 24 35 5 30 32 4 26 33

141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184

Penda Dam Phalodi Porbander Port blair Pune Puri Purnea Raichur Raipur Rajganjpur Rajkot Ranchi Ratnagiri Rentichintala Roorkee Sabour Sagar Sagar Island Salem Sambalpur Satna Seoni Shillong Shimla Sholapur Sibsagar Sikar Silchar Skarou Srinagar Surat Tejpur Thiruchirapalli Titagarh Trivandrum Tuticorin Udaipur Umarla Vadodra Varanasi Vellore Vengurla Verawal Vishakhapatnam

56 14 3 62 22 33 52 17 34 1 12 34 6 47 76 76 36 41 65 67 41 51 75 40 23 103 17 33 5 54 4 27 41 24 48 14 34 37 8 51 25 39 3 20