CORONA PERFORMANCE OF A COMPACT 230-KV LINE

Permitting requirements and the acquisition of new rights-of-way for t ransmission facilities has in recent years become increasingly difficu lt for most utilities, including Puget Sound Power and Light Company. In order to maintain a high degree of reliability of service while bei ng responsive to public concerns regarding the siting of high voltage (HV) transmission facilities, Puget Power has found it necessary to mo re heavily rely upon the use of compact lines in franchise corridors. Compaction does, however, precipitate increased levels of audible nois e (AN) and radio and TV interference (RI and TVI) due to corona on the conductors and insulator assemblies, Puget Power relies upon the Bonn eville Power Administration (BPA) Corona and Field Effects computer pr ogram to calculate AN and RI for new lines. Since there was some quest ion of the program's ability to accurately represent. quiet 230-kV com pact designs, a joint project was undertaken with BPA to verify the pr ogram's algorithms. Long-term measurements made on an operating Puget Power 230-kV compact line confirmed the accuracy of BPA's AN model; ho wever, the RI measurements were much lower than predicted by the BPA a nd other programs. This paper also describes how the BPA computer prog ram can be used to calculate the voltage needed to expose insulator as semblies to the correct electric field in single test setups in HV lab oratories.