1

Introduction and Applications of mature many users’ approach to its application is still rather
unique. GIS is used in specific types of applications only.
Gas Insulated Substation (GIS) The reliability of GIS has markedly improved since its in-
troduction 35 years ago. The overall trend shows a reduced
Phil Bolin, IEEE Substations Committee failure rate for GIS commissioned after 1985. Consequently,
Hermann Koch, IEEE Substations Committee CIGRE distinguishes between GIS commissioned before 1985
and after 1985. Table II of the CIGRE report gives an over-
A. Overview view over this data [I-1].
The table below gives the voltage class and corresponding
voltage levels.
Gas-Insulated Substations (GIS) are in use world-wide TABLE I
since more than 30 years with in general very good experi- CIGRE SURVEY 2000
ences. GIS are most common in use in Japan, the largest single VOLTAGE CLASSES
GIS market in the world, in Europe, the Middle East, and also
the Far East and South East Asia. Voltage 1: 60 ≤ Un < 100 3: 200 ≤ Un < 300 5: 500 ≤ Un <700
class kV 2: 100 ≤ Un < 200 4: 300 ≤ Un < 500 6: Un > 700
In the USA, where this technology was founded, the suc-
cess of GIS is a limited one. There are two major reasons , one
The outdoor GIS population represents about 43% of the
in that available space did not give high pressure to use GIS,
total CB-Bay-Years.
as it was the case in Japan, Europe and places in Asia, and as a
Tables III and IV of the CIGRE report provide the major
second reason some design difficulties at the beginning 30
failure characteristics of the GIS.
years ago. Some of this first days equipment is still in service
due to the long living type of technology. One increasing trend is the involvement of circuit breaker
This tutorial is meant to present and teach about all the im- failure for the newer GIS observed at all voltage levels.
provements done in the design of GIS technology and to TABLE II
report about the excellent experiences with GIS in other CIGRE SURVEY 2000
countries. MAJOR FAILURE FREQUENCY (FF) - 2ND GIS SURVEY TOTAL POPULA TION
AND COMPARISON BETWEEN THE 1 ST AND THE 2ND SURVEYS RESULTS
Restricted availability of space for new substations and the
replacement of old equipment in cities and metropolitan areas GIS in total
indicate that in the near future also in the USA a larger 2 nd GIS survey 1 st GIS survey
number of GIS will be installed and operated. Voltage No. of CB-bay- FF CB-bay- FF
Class failures years years
This tutorial is dedicated to all engineers who are or might 1 27 56884 0.05 38471 0.13
be in charge of GIS technology today or in the future. 2 465 32048 1.45 23845 1.1
The tutorial was set up by professionals all round the world 3 138 16040 0.86 12955 1.1
of leading equipment manufacturer, turnkey project executer, 4 179 6371 2.81 4735 4.3
industry consultant, operator and experiences user of GIS. 5 49 4525 1.08 3453 4.2
6 12 200 6.00 80 14.0
B. Introduction to GIS 1 to 5 855 115868 0.74 83459 0.96
TOTAL 867 116068 0.75 83539 0.97
1) GIS Reliability IEEE GIS Tutorial GIS commissioned before 1.1.1985
This chapter addresses the reliability of GIS and provides a 2 nd GIS survey 1 st GIS survey
brief comparison to an AIS substation. This information is Voltage No. of CB-bay- FF CB-bay- FF
mostly based on CIGRE publications, in particular the latest Class failures years years
one from 1998. The details can be found in the Bibliography. 1 16 28669 0.06 21304 0.17
2 351 19504 1.80 16035 1.3
The first GIS’s were put in operation in 1967 in Switzer- 3 100 10362 0.97 8596 1.5
land and Germany. The GIS in Germany is still in operation, 4 110 3694 2.98 3287 4.4
whereas the GIS in Switzerland was recently decommissioned 5 32 3252 0.98 2532 3.7
after 35 years of operation without major fault or gas leak. The 1 to 5 609 65481 0.93 51754 1.18
utility made an assessment of the gas leak over the lifetime of GIS commissioned after 1.1.1985
2 nd GIS survey 1 st GIS survey
this first GIS and concluded that overall leakage rate was
Voltage No. of CB-bay- FF CB-bay- FF
about 0.4% per year. Class failures years years
US users were among the early adopters of the emerging 1 11 28215 0.04 9792 0.06
GIS technology in the 1970’s, however, bad experience with 2 114 12544 0.91 4605 0.6
immature designs resulted in a totally different view of GIS 3 38 5678 0.67 2636 0.4
4 69 2677 2.58 970 4.0
reliability between North America (in particular the United 5 17 1273 1.34 654 1.8
States of America) and the rest of the world. 1 to 5 246 50387 0.49 18657 0.51
Reliability, the economic advantages of reduced life cycle Notes :
cost and the physical compactness have resulted in the wide- Failure frequency (FF) = No. of Failures per 100CB-bay-years
spread use of GIS over the last 35 years.
Even though today’s GIS technology can be considered
 2

TABLE III Based on published failure rates for AIS and GIS substation
CIGRE SURVEY 2000
I DENTIFICATION OF MAIN COMPONENT INVOLVED IN THE FAILURE FROM GIS
by international organizations such as CIGRE it can be shown
VOLTAGE CLASS POINT OF VIEW that the failure rate of a six breaker ring bus in GIS is lower
than that of a nine breaker AIS in a breaker-and-a-half ar-
Main component involved GIS in total Class 2 Class rangement. There are several commercially available software
in the failure 3+4+5
(whole period) % % %
programs available to make these calculations. Below is a
Total number of answers 801 435 335 comparison of the failure rates of a six-feeder 230 kV GIS
(reported failures) =100% =100% =100% substation versus a nine-breaker AIS.
Circuit Breaker or Switch 43.4 (30.1) 54.7 29.9
Disconnector 17.9 (19.2) 17.2 18.2 6 Breaker GIS 230kV
Grounding Switch 4.4 5.3 3.6
Current Transformer 0.9 0.7 1.2
Voltage Transformer 5.6 (7.7) 6.2 4.8
Bus bars 5.5 (7.3) 3.7 6.9
Bus ducts and Intercon- 11.9 (17.2) 4.1 22.4
necting Parts
SF6/Air Bushing 3.6 0.9 6.9
Cable Box/Cable Sealing 3.5 4.4 1.8
Power Transf. Interface 0.9 0.2 1.8
Chamber/Bushing
Surge arrester 0.7 0.5 1.2
Other 1.7 2.1 1.5

TABLE IV
CIGRE SURVEY 2000
I DENTIFICATION OF MAIN COMPONENT INVOLVED IN THE FAILURE FRO M GIS 9 Breaker AIS 230kV
AGE POINT OF VIEW(5 MOST INVOLVED COMPONENTS)

Main component involved GIS in total GIS before GIS after

in the failure 1.1.1985 1.1.1985
(whole period) % % %
Total number of answers 801 562 239
(reported failures) =100% =100% =100%
Circuit Breaker or Switch 43.4 42.2 46.2
Disconnector 17.9 18.5 16.3
Voltage Transformer 5.6 4.4 8.4
Bus bars 5.5 5.7 5.0 Failure outages
Bus ducts, Intercon. Parts 11.9 14.4 5.9 OF (1/yr) OD [h/yr]
Line 1 0.0214 0.117
The worldwide experience with GIS as documented by sev-
Line 2 0.0214 0.117
eral organizations including CIGRE, IEEE etc. indicates that
GIS has a lower failure rate than a comparable AIS substation. T1 0.0214 0.117
AIS 1 1/2
Users in North America might dispute this fact. There are still T2 0.0214 0.117
cb
many first generation GIS in operation, which never lived up T3 0.0214 0.117
to their promise. As a consequence GIS is still viewed with T4 0.0214 0.117
skepticism and often not considered as a default choice. It
0.702
should be noted that also in North America GIS commissioned
after 1985 shows similar failure rates as observed by CIGRE
during the last worldwide GIS survey. Line 1 0.0081 0.072
There is no question that a GIS compared with the same Line 2 0.0081 0.072
configuration in AIS will always be more expensive if looked T1 0.0081 0.072
at first cost only, unless special conditions exist such as land
GIS ring T2 0.0081 0.072
availability and/or cost, soil conditions, environment etc. But
as a substation builder one should not compare a GIS and AIS T3 0.0081 0.072
in the same configuration, but define the required availability T4 0.0081 0.072
of the substation first and then look for the substation configu- 0.432
ration that meets those requirements. As an alternative, the
availability of the AIS substation in a particular configuration The expected outage frequency of the GIS feeders is 2.5 times
can be used. Then the substation builder should evaluate a GIS less than in AIS
AIS feeder: 47 yrs! GIS feeder: 123 yrs.
configuration, which meets this base availability.
The expected outage duration of the GIS feeders is 1.6 times
less than in AIS.
The result of this reliability study is shown in the table be-
 3

low. Based on the failure rate the 6 breaker GIS ring bus sub- The importance of quality and reliability of all kind of
station is superior to the 9 breaker AIS in a breaker-and-a- half switchgear equipment has become an ever increasing topic
scheme and should be the preferred choice due to all the over recent years. Quality and reliability are the result of a
advantages of GIS. complex process which includes design, manufacturing, deliv-
ery and erection and after sales service.
2) Design Features Quality and reliability have to be already an integral part of
The use of SF6 within the power delivery system is mainly development activities. Reliability starts with the right design,
driven by gas -insulated switchgear. There are single phase and followed by the choice of the suitable materials, using the
three phase encapsulated designs. For the distribution voltage relevant testing procedures and the appropriate manufacturing
level up to 145/170 kV mainly three phase enclosures are techniques and all that accompanied by a stringent quality
used. For higher voltage levels single-phase encapsulation is a control. Using the very latest procedures for computer aided
standard. design, optimization of parts and components and failure
In the last years the development of SF6 insulated switch- mode effective analysis (FMEA), dynamic calculations of arc
gear was mainly aimed at reducing the use of material and e xtinction and drive behavior accompanied by quality checks
costs while maintaining the extremely high reliability. are well known methods to meet the users’ expectations.
After the design stage, materials and components are sub-
Main steps of the development were as follows: jected to thorough development tests. In this respect particular
• progress of circuit-breaker technology, which allowed to significance is given to long-term strength even at extremely
reduce the number of interrupter units despite increasing high numbers of operations, as well as resistance to all kinds
breaking capability of environmental influences. Due to the dominance of me-
• progress of casting and machining technology of alumi- chanical failures, major components such as drive mechanisms
num casted parts, which allowed the use of minimized are tested on a hydraulic test rig independently from the
shapes and volumes switchgear but using the previously measured loads given as
• use of computerized production and testing equipment stress level. Thousands of operating cycles will be performed
with high quality standards in just a few hours. In this way the components can be
• design of integrated components with several functions subjected intentionally to a higher load than encountered in the
such as combined disconnect and grounding switches
switchgear itself during normal operation in order to
within one gas compartment
determine their safety reserves. This method of testing is
• use of intelligent monitoring and diagnostic tools to post-
proven for contact systems, operating rods, drive components
pone maintenance activities and avoid unnecessary tasks
etc. and has enabled considerable improvement in their
reliability.
As a result very compact GIS substations designs are available
on the market with the following changes in comparison to These development tests will be followed by prototype
older equipment: testing, comprising mechanical, power, dielectric, heat run and
• up to 98% of space reduction in comparison to air insu- environmental tests even such as seismic testing, up to the
lated switchgear limits, on several test objects in parallel.
• up to 75% reduction of SF6 volume Although specified very clearly, type tests were run at dif-
• delivery of completely sealed and tested bays up to ferent levels. For some manufacturers it is already common
245 kV practice today to conduct up to 10000 operations or even more
• leakage rates down to less than 0.5% per compartment on one or several test objects for mechanical type testing.
and year Furthermore, it is also specified by several utilities to extend
the number of successful short circuit interruptions beyond the
110 requirements of the applicable standards for power type test-
[%]
100 ing.
90
The testing during development and type tests are per-
80
70 formed in the manufacturer’s own certified test fields or, if
60 requested, in independent laboratories.
50
Special attention will be given to the life time behavior of
40
30 insulating material. Especially for the GIS insulators an exten-
Size of building
20 Space requirement sive test program has been in place ever since the first delivery
10 Packing volume of GIS.
0
68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84 86 88 90 92 94 96 98 As a result of tests and more than 35 years of service expe-
Year
Fig. I-14. Progress of GIS Development (145 kV)
rience it can be concluded that the life time of GIS insulators
will reach more than 50 years without a failure, and that they
The mean time between failures according to international are nearly insensitive to aging.
statistics (IEC; CIGRE) has reached levels of 400 to 1000 Many years of experience in switchgear design and usage
years depending on the kind of switchgear and its voltage have allowed to optimize test and measurement techniques to
level. the appropriate severity of the duty of the components with
 4

respect to their material and functional characteristics. duces the contours. This experimental model can be used for
All these activities were accompanied by parallel theoreti- mechanical and dielectric tests and eventually for the manu-
cal calculations and ever more exact definitions of require- facturing of casting pattern. For the dielectric tests the models
ments. are coated with silver.
Manufacturing has also changed. A customer’s order will The effective dielectric design receives considerable sup-
be entered into an electronic data processing system, which port from basically two field distribution analyzing programs:
details the substation down to the components and finally into the equivalent charge method and the finite element method.
the single parts. The steps of the manufacturing processes are Values of field strength along given contours are one result
defined by a process map and accompanied by quality obtained, minimum-maximum distribution the other. The field
assurance milestones to make sure that the same level of distribution analysis programs are linked to the CAD system
reliability will be reached with every single piece of and allow iteration procedures for the optimization of the di-
equipment. The interdependence of manufacturing processes electric design.
in terms of technical specifications, used materials, available The development of ever smaller and more compact sub-
machinery, logistics and personnel is highly complex. The stations seems to be limited by the needs of the utilities for
optimal point has been reached when the module meets all the convenient service and maintenance access. However, such
technological demands while being produced in few and small equipment offers the advantage that it can be shipped as
simple manufacturing steps. complete, factory assembled and pre-filled double-bays
The long time service experience and extensive tests have (245 kV) and triple-bays (145 kV) with shortest erection time
shown that there is no difference between three-pole and sin- on site.
gle-pole bus arrangements. In general the bus conductors are A further possibility offered by the space saving design is
arranged symmetrically with insulating and supporting ele- the installation within a container for mobile use.
ments like spacers made of cast resin. The circuit diagram in following figure describes the feed
The enclosures nowadays are no longer made of steel but of back loop to development and production and is the basis for
aluminum alloy, which offers several advantages such as re- an efficient cost benefit optimization between user and manu-
duced weight, excellent gas tightness due to excellent sealing facturer of high voltage switchgear.
area surfaces, high corrosion resistance and negligible
resistive and eddy current losses.
The enclosure design is adequate to withstand the electrical Stresses Basic Realisation Application
arc. By extensive research and using the new technologies of Design and in
Verification Service
3D-CAD and finite element method (FEM) the enclosure has
been designed and optimized including testing the worst case
scenarios. The result is a level of safety far greater than that Field
required by the IEC and IEEE standards. Experience

The design of a modern GIS substation looks similar to the

fig ures given above without significant differences between Monitoring Maintenance

the individual manufacturers. Failure

Rates/
However, today’s activities hint at future changes. The fol- Reliability
lowing paragraphs provide some highlights of the future Fig. I-15. Field Experiences - Feed Back for the Development
trends of GIS development.
New techniques such as 3D CAD as a computerized design
tool, finite-element method for the mechanical safety of enclo-
sures and housings, stereo-lithography for producing test mod-
els, and field distribution calculation for the predetermination
of the dielectric stress allow optimizing the components of the
HV equipment very precisely.
With the use of 3D CAD-systems 3-dimensional modeling
is simple, and the data can be used basically for mechanical
and electrical optimization. The same data is also the basis for
the computerized machining process and measurement system
of quality control.
The finite element method is an ideal tool for complex
components or shapes in the design and for the calculation of
critical areas of component stressing either on internal loads
such as pressure or on external loads such as seismic activities.
Stereo-lithography is a method for the manufacturing of
testing models based on 3D CAD design. It is made from
photopolymer and semi-cured with a UV laser, which pro-
 5

C. Applications
1) Jacksonville, Florida, USA
Ratings
Ur 138 kV
Ir 2500 A
UBIL 650 kV
Is 40 kA

Fig. I-20 Taylor Street

3) Puget Sound, Bow Lake Substation,

USA
Ratings
Ur 145/115 kV
Ir 2000 A
Fig. I-19. Jacksonville, USA UBIL 650 kV
Is 40 kA
The single line shows a ring bus with 4 bus coupling bays
and 16 feeder bays.
The bus coupling bays allow to separate the ring bus in up
to 4 segments.
Each feeder bay has a circuit breaker, grounding switches
before and after the circuit breaker, towards the ring bus and
towards the in- and outgoing line.
Disconnectors are placed at each feeder bay towards the
ring bus, towards the in- and outgoing line, and on each side
of the circuit breaker of the coupling bays.
The use of GIS to solve the single line requirements allows
a very compact substation as this bird‘s eye view shows.
Easy to see the 4 feeder bay sections and the 4 couple bays,
two at the end and two in the middle.
Fig. I-21. Puget Sound, USA
The local control cubicles are placed at the center
walkway. The Puget Sound Project at Bow Lake Substation in
The GIS substation is placed inside buildings which fits Oregon USA.
nicely into the neighborhood. Beside the overhead lines This outdoor GIS solution is placed on a small spot in the
nothing reminds the public that there is a 138 kV switchyard. residential and office neighborhood in an often used 4
The compactness of GIS and its modular structure allows breakers, two overhead line feeders and two cable feeders.
the use of small buildings and offer a space saving solution. The design voltage is 145 kV and the operation voltage
today is 115 kV with a current rating of 2000 A.
2) Taylor Street, Chicago, USA, ComEd
The Plan View shows the physical arrangement of the GIS
Ratings
ring bus with 6 circuit breakers, two overhead line connections
Ur 362 kV
Ir 4000 A and two cable connections.
UBIL 950 kV The size of the installation is about 6 m by 10 m. The
Is 63 kA outdoor GIS is three phase insulated.
In this side view it can be seen how the GIS is positioned
on the steel structures and how the overhead line is connected
to the three phase insulated GIS.
The small size and the metallic encapsulation offer great
advantages of GIS in locations like Puget Sound. Safety to the
public is given by GIS because of its metallic enclosure. Even
 6

if someone (children searching for their play ball) is jumping Fig. I-23. Termobahia
over the fence he is not in immediate danger.
The small size of the GIS equipment also improves the Modules have been selected by customer as optimized
esthetics of this outdoor installation. solution for retrofitting the existing AIS substation.
There is no advanced condition monitoring installed.
4) Sargans Substation - Switzerland Potential Transformers have been installed on the module
Ratings itself.
Ur 110 kV
Ir 2500 A 6) Braintree
UBIL 650 kV Ratings
IS 40 kA Ur 115/13.8 kV
Ir 2000 A
UBIL 550 kV
Is 31,5 kA

Fig. I-22. Sargans, Switzerland

Mainly due to very small footprint and also for aesthetic Fig. I-24. Braintree
purpose.
There is no advanced condition monitoring installed. 7) Barbana
Relative cost is high for 110 kV substation. Ratings
Transformers are located into the building and connection Ur 145 kV
between GIS and transformer is through indoor SF6/Air Ir 2000 A
bushing. UBIL 650 kV
That is an interesting possibility for 115 kV stations in the Is 40 kA
US as it enables to have the surge arresters mounted
conventionally.

5) Termobahia - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Ratings
Ur 245 kV
Ir 2000 A
UBIL 1050 kV
IS 40 kA

Fig. I-25. Barbana

The GIS and Transformers are located under an public

park. The substation supplies the inner city with energy