CURRENT-LIMITING INDUCTORS USED IN

CAPACITOR BANK APPLICATIONS AND THEIR IMPACT

ON FAULT CURRENT INTERRUPTION

Terrance A. Bellei
Ernst H. Camm
S&C Electric Company
Chicago, Illinois

Gene Ransom
ComEd
Chicago, Illinois

180-T69

Current-Limiting Inductors Used in Capacitor Bank Applications and

Their Impact on Fault Current Interruption
Abstract Utilities often use in-line currentlimiting inductors for capacitor bank installations
to limit the severity of outrush currents from the
bank(s) into close-in line or bus faults. Because of
the very high inherent frequency of the currentlimiting inductors used in these applications,
circuit breakers used for protecting the capacitor
bank bus can be subjected to very severe transient
recovery voltages after the interruption of faults
limited by the inductors. The impact of currentlimiting inductors on circuit breaker interrupting
performance was demonstrated by a recent
incident involving a phase-to-ground fault in one of
four 138-kV, 57.6-Mvar capacitor banks at ComEds
Silver Lake Substation. A 138-kV, 2000-A circuit
breaker used for protecting two capacitor banks
was unable to interrupt the fault current because
of the severe transient recovery voltage produced
by a 1-ohm current-limiting inductor in the circuit.
This paper describes the details of the analysis
involved in identifying the sequence of events that
led to the circuit breaker being unable to interrupt
successfully and highlights the impact of currentlimiting inductors on fault current interruption in
capacitor bank applications.

I. INTRODUCTION
Current-limiting inductors are often connected in series
with shunt capacitor banks to limit the severity of outrush
currents into close-in bus faults. High-magnitude and
high-frequency outrush currents that would otherwise
occur can cause damaging overvoltages when line circuit
breakers reignite and subsequently interrupt at highfrequency current zeros [1]. The rate of rise of the
transient recovery voltage (TRV) which a line circuit
breaker will be subjected to during a close-in fault is
considerably lower than normal when a capacitor bank is
present, while the peak of the TRV is higher. The lower
rate of rise of the TRV will enable the line circuit breaker
to interrupt with a very short arcing time, thereby
increasing the possibility of reignitions in the circuit
breaker if the dielectric withstand capability of the
contact gap is exceeded after interruption with a small
contact gap.
The size of the current-limiting inductor is generally
selected to ensure that the product of the peak outrush
current and the frequency is less than 2  107 for generalpurpose circuit breakers [2, 3]. In back-to-back capacitor
bank applications, a single bank of three-phase currentlimiting inductors is usually used to limit outrush current
from two or more shunt capacitor banks.

While the current-limiting inductor reduces the

severity of the outrush current during close-in bus faults,
it also presents a severe TRV to the circuit breaker
protecting the capacitor bank(s) when a fault occurs in
the capacitor bank(s) or between the inductor and the
capacitor bank. This is due to the very high inherent
frequency of the inductors, which results in a very highfrequency oscillation on the load side of the circuit
breaker when it attempts to interrupt the fault current.
This paper describes the details of the analysis
involved in identifying the sequence of events that led to a
circuit breaker being unable to successfully interrupt
during a phase-to-ground fault in a 138-kV, 57.6-Mvar
capacitor bank in ComEds Silver Lake Substation.

II. BACKGROUND
In September 1999 extensive damage occurred to a
138-kV, 57.6-Mvar grounded-wye capacitor bank in
ComEds Silver Lake Substation. A 2000-ampere circuit
breaker, used to protect this bank and a second 57.6-Mvar
capacitor bank in parallel with it, was unable to interrupt
the associated fault current, causing the bus circuit
breakers to open to clear the fault. A 1-ohm currentlimiting inductor is connected on the load side of the
circuit breaker to limit outrush currents from the two
capacitor banks. Two additional 138-kV capacitor banks
are connected in a similar circuit arrangement on a second
138-kV bus. Each of the capacitor banks is switched
with a Circuit-Switcher equipped with 40-mH 5.5-ohm
pre-insertion inductors. See Figure 1.

Figure 1. Simplified one-line diagram of 138-kV circuit in

ComEds Silver Lake Substation.

Initial reports on the incident indicated that the event

occurred shortly after the capacitor bank in which the
fault occurred (bank #4) was de-energized. Another
capacitor bank (bank #2) was also de-energized a short
time prior to the incident. At the time of the incident the
normally open bus tie circuit breaker was closed.
Initial review of oscillograms of bus voltages and
circuit breaker phase currents suggested that the A phase
of the Circuit-Switcher used to switch the bank may not
have interrupted successfully during de-energization of
the bank. If this happened the high-speed disconnect
blade, which opens shortly after the interrupter opens
would have caused the pre-insertion inductor to be
inserted into the circuit. If a fault occurred in the
capacitor bank during that stage of the blade opening, the
pre-insertion inductor would have limited the initial fault
current substantially and failed thermally shortly
afterwards. At first glance, this theory appeared to be also
supported by the damage observed on the high-speed
disconnect blade and the pre-insertion inductor in the
faulted phase and the initial oscillograms of circuit
breaker phase currents. See Figure 2.

Closer examination of the event summary report

associated with the relay event recording indicated that
the RMS current values of the unfaulted phases were
actually increasing after the event was triggered. This was
contrary to what was expected as the unfaulted phase
currents were expected to decrease to zero after current
interruption if the event occurred during the opening of
the Circuit-Switcher. This led to a reconstruction of the
unfaulted current waveforms based on the relays event
recording. The resulting waveforms indicated that the
unfaulted phase currents were actually increasing from
RMS values representative of the RMS phase currents with
one bank on-line to that of two banks on-line. See Figure 3.
There is some evidence of increased current in the B phase
of the circuit breaker, which may have been caused by
damage to some of the B phase capacitor units resulting
from the damage in the A phase capacitor units.

Figure 3. Recorded B- and C-phase currents through

2000-A circuit breaker during incident at Silver Lake Substation.
Figure 2. Recorded phase currents through 2000-A circuit
breaker during incident at Silver Lake Substation.

III. ANALYSIS OF RELAY EVENT RECORDING

The initial analysis of the oscillograms of the SEL-251C
relay event recording indicated that a phase-to-ground
fault occurred in the A phase of the capacitor bank. The
fault current was initially limited to about 3.1 kA RMS by
the pre-insertion inductor, and increased to about 21 kA
RMS after thermal breakdown of the pre-insertion
inductor. It was also evident from the oscillograms that
the circuit breaker failed to interrupt the fault current as
the relay initiated a trip about 4 cycles after the start of
the event recording.

The reconstructed current waveforms of the unfaulted

phase currents indicated that the event actually occurred
during closing of the Circuit-Switcher used to switch the
capacitor bank. Based on the reported switching events at
the time of the incident it was concluded that the fault in
the capacitor bank might have been initiated by closing
into a bank with trapped charge voltage shortly after
opening the Circuit-Switcher. This possibility was further
investigated by developing an Electromagnetic Transients
Program (EMTP) simulation circuit model of the
installation and simulating the closing of the CircuitSwitcher into a capacitor bank with trapped charge
voltage. Figures 4 though 6 show the simulated capacitor
bank and 138-kV bus voltages, and the circuit breaker
phase currents when closing the Circuit-Switcher into a

bank with trapped charge voltage. The 138-kV bus

voltages and circuit breaker phase currents showed a
close correlation to that obtained from the relay event
recordings. The peak overvoltage at the capacitor bank
bus is approximately -284 kV on A phase (i.e., 2.52 per unit
of normal peak phase-to-ground voltage). The associated
high-voltage stress on the top rack of capacitor units may
have been sufficient to cause a flashover of the fuse links
protecting the capacitor units. The final fault current
value is higher than measured, most likely due to
differences in the actual available fault current during the
incident and that specified for the simulation.
Figure 6. 2000-A circuit breaker phase currents during
energizing with trapped charge voltage on the capacitor
bank. A full-blown phase-to-ground fault occurs in A phase
at 16 ms. The pre-insertion inductor is shorted out after
thermal breakdown at 50 ms. The B and C phases of the
2000-A circuit breaker interrupt after 80 ms.

IV. CIRCUIT BREAKER TRV ANALYSIS

Figure 4. Simulated capacitor bank phase-to-ground

voltages during energizing with trapped charge voltage on
the capacitor bank. A full-blown phase-to-ground fault
occurs in A phase at 16 ms. The pre-insertion inductor is
shorted out after thermal breakdown at 50 ms. The B and C
phases of the 2000-A circuit breaker interrupt after 80 ms.

Figure 5. Simulated 138-kV bus phase-to-ground voltages

during energizing with trapped charge voltage on the
capacitor bank. A full-blown phase-to-ground fault occurs
in A phase at 16 ms. The pre-insertion inductor is shorted
out after thermal breakdown at 50 ms. The B and C phases
of the 2000-A circuit breaker interrupt after 80 ms.

While the analysis of the relay event recording gave an

indication of the initial sequence of events, the cause of
the circuit breakers failure to interrupt was still not
known. Because of the presence of the 1-ohm currentlimiting inductor in the circuit, the effect of the inherent
frequency of the inductor on the TRV was the suspected
cause leading to further analysis. The effective
capacitance of current-limiting inductors, consisting of
the
terminal-to-ground
and
terminal-to-terminal
capacitances, are typically quite small (usually tens to a
few hundreds of picofarads). Consequently, these
inductors have a very high inherent frequency, which
could be on the order of tens to hundreds of kilohertz. If a
phase-to-ground fault occurs on the load-side terminals of
a current-limiting inductor, a voltage determined by the
magnitude of the fault current and the impedance of the
inductor develops across the inductor. When a sourceside circuit breaker in series with the inductor interrupts
the fault current, the voltage on the load side of the circuit
breaker will rapidly oscillate to zero. The voltage on the
source side of the circuit breaker will return to its
nominal power-frequency value through a low-frequency
oscillation, which is dictated by the effective source
inductance and effective system capacitance. The highfrequency oscillation on the load side of the circuit
breaker gives rise to a very severe TRV across the
contacts of the circuit breaker. The frequency of this
oscillation is determined by the inductance of the reactor
and the equivalent phase-to-ground capacitance on the
load-side terminals of the circuit breaker. The load-side
capacitance includes the effective capacitance of the
inductor, the capacitance of the length of bus between the
inductor and circuit breaker, and the phase-to-ground
capacitance of the circuit breaker.

The manufacturer of the current-limiting inductors was

contacted to obtain the actual capacitance of the
inductors installed at Silver Lake Substation. The
capacitance of the current-limiting inductors was
specified to be 81.7 pF phase-to-ground and 16 pF
terminal-to-terminal, yielding an effective capacitance of
97.7 pF. This capacitance, combined with the capacitance
of the buswork between the circuit breaker and the
current-limiting inductor, as well as the equivalent
capacitance of the circuit breaker, yielded a total effective
capacitance on the load side of the 2000-A circuit breaker
of 249 pF. The inductance of the current-limiting inductor
is approximately 2.65 mH, which yields a frequency of
oscillation on the load side of the circuit breaker of
approximately 196 kHz.
The EMTP simulation circuit model was used to
determine the peak TRV across the circuit breaker
contacts when interrupting the phase-to-ground fault
current. The resulting TRV is shown in Figure 7. The
initial TRV has a peak value of approximately 86.8 kV and
a time-to-peak value of approximately 2.55 microseconds,
giving an average rate of rise of recovery voltage of
approximately 34 kV per microsecond. For a 63-kA circuit
breaker the preferred ratings of rated transient recovery
voltage specified in ANSI C37.06 [3] include a peak voltage
of 255 kV, a time-to-peak of 310 microseconds, and an
initial rate of rise of recovery voltage of 1.8 kV per
microsecond at rated interrupting current. For a 45% fault
(i.e., for a fault limited to 28.2 kA by the 1-ohm currentlimiting inductor), the preferred TRV parameters include
a peak voltage of 281 kV, a time-to-peak of 89
microseconds, and an initial rate of rise of recovery
voltage of 1.8 kV per microsecond.

the most likely reason why the circuit breaker was unable
to interrupt the fault current involved during the incident
at Silver Lake Substation.
Review of the special circumstances of the fault
involved in this incident by the circuit breaker
manufacturer also led to the conclusion that the evolving
nature of the fault may have contributed to the inability of
the circuit breaker to clear the fault. The circuit breaker
uses an arc-assist interrupter unit, which develops a
pressure proportional to the magnitude of the fault current
to assist with extinguishing the arc during fault current
interruption. The gradual increase in the magnitude of the
fault current, initially limited by the current-limiting
inductor and pre-insertion inductor, resulted in insufficient
pressure in the interrupter to successfully interrupt the
current.
In order to limit the severity of the initial TRV across
the circuit breaker contacts, the use of a capacitor
connected in parallel with the current-limiting inductor
was considered. The capacitance value must be selected
such that the voltage acceleration associated with the
initial TRV is less than that resulting from the ANSIspecified rate of rise of recovery voltage of 1.8 kV per
microsecond. This translates into a limiting voltage
acceleration of 175 volts per microsecond2. For an initial
peak TRV of 86.8 kV, the frequency on the load side of the
circuit breaker must be limited to less than approximately
10 kHz in order not to exceed the specified rate of rise of
recovery voltage. This would require a capacitance of at
least 94 nF across the terminals of the current-limiting
inductors in each phase. A 100 nF capacitor per phase was
recommended to be used for this purpose.

V. CONCLUSIONS

Figure 7. Simulated initial TRV across A-phase contacts of

2000-A circuit breaker when interrupting capacitor bank
phase-to-ground fault current.

The TRV parameters during interruption of fault

current in this application greatly exceeded the ANSIspecified TRV time-to-peak and rate of rise values. This is

Current-limiting inductors applied to reduce the severity

of outrush currents from capacitor banks during close-in
bus faults can impact the interrupting capability of circuit
breakers used for protecting the capacitor banks. The
very high inherent frequency of the current-limiting
inductors can cause very severe transient recovery
voltages to occur across the opening contacts of the
circuit breaker during interruption of faults that involve
the current-limiting inductors.
The impact of current-limiting inductors on fault
current interruption was demonstrated by the incident
described in this paper. Care should be exercised in the
application of current-limiting inductors that are
connected directly on the load side of the circuit breaker
used for protecting the capacitor bank(s). If the inherent
frequency of the current-limiting inductor will result in a
rate of rise of recovery voltage across the contacts of the
circuit breaker that would exceed that specified in the
standards, additional capacitance must be connected on
the load side of the circuit breaker.

VI. REFERENCES
[1] L. van der Sluis, A.L.J. Jansen, Clearing Faults Near
Shunt Capacitor Banks, Presented at the 1990 IEEE-PES
Winter Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, February 4 - 8, 1990.
[2] Brian C. Furumasu, Robert M. Hasibar, Design and
Installation of 500-kV Back-to-Back Shunt Capacitor
Banks, in IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 7,
No. 2, April 1992.
[3] ANSI C37.06-1997, AC High-Voltage Circuit Breakers
Rated on a Symmetrical Current Basis Preferred
Ratings and Related Required Capabilities.
Terrance A. Bellei received his BSEE from Marquette
University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has been with
S&C Electric Company since 1974 and has held various
positions in R&D and the Power Systems Services
Division. He is currently Manager, Engineering Services,
in the Power Systems Services Division.
Within IEEE, he has served as a member of the High
Voltage Fuses Subcommittee, Working Group on External
Fuses for Shunt Capacitors, Working Group on Full-Range
Current-Limiting Fuses, and as the secretary of the
Working Group on Revision of Fuse Standards. He has
served as Chairman of a Task Force formed by the
Working Group on Revision of Fuse Standards. He was
also a former representative of S&C in the North America
Short-Circuit Testing Liaison (STLNA).
Ernst H. Camm received his BSc (Eng) degree in
Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the
University of Cape Town, South Africa in 1984 and his
MSEE degree from the Ohio State University in 1992.
From 1984 to 1990, he held various positions in Plant and
Project Engineering at S&C Electric Company. He is
currently a Senior Engineer in the Engineering Services
Department at S&C Electric Company.
Ernst has had extensive involvement in capacitor
switching transient and power quality analysis at S&C,
including analysis in the development of optimally sized
pre-insertion inductors for capacitor switching transient
mitigation. He is the author of and co-presenter of S&Cs
Seminar on Capacitor Switching Transients and Their
Impact on Your System. He is a member of the Switching
Transients Task Force of the IEEEs Modeling and
Analysis of System Transients Working Group and the
Shunt Capacitor Application Guide Working Group.
Gene Ransom received his BS degree in Electrical and
Electronic Engineering from the Illinois Institute of
Technology. He has been with ComEd since 1972 and has
held various positions in Transmission, Distribution, and
Substation engineering and construction. He is currently
Substation Engineering Manager for ComEd.