Study and Analysis of HTLS Conductors for Increasing the Thermal Loading of 220 kV Transmission Line

In the present scenario, demand of electricity is increasing drastically across the country in order to revolutionize development in industrial, agriculture and commercial section. As a consequence, the amount of power transfer capacity has to be enhanced on overhead transmission lines. However, the existing lines are gaining their utmost critical limits of ampacity and sag. This complication has become very predominant to obtain reliable, secure and economic operation of power system. In India, ACSR conductors are generally used in overhead transmission lines for transmission of power. The higher power transferability in existing lines, reduction in losses and optimization of Right of Way of electrical network are the requirement of the today's power system network. New generation high-performance conductors would help in electric power delivery system for efficient transmission of energy by way of enhancement of power flow per unit of Right of Way and reduction in losses under normal as well as under critical conditions can help in resolving the issues like growing congestion in existing corridors of transmission/distribution network and Right of Way problems. Low-resistant conductor-AL59 alloy conductors and high temperature low sag (HTLS) conductors can be used for re-conductoring of existing lines to mitigate the overloading issues. Several HTLS conductors like STACIR, ACSS, ACCC, TACSR, etc., are available in the market. Selection of HTLS conductor is also an important parameter for re-conductoring of any transmission line. This paper discusses the issues of overloading of transmission line and mitigation by re-conductoring through HTLS conductors. A case study is described by re-conductoring of several HTLS and AL59 conductors, and optimum solution is proposed for avoiding overloading of transmission line.