Electric Energy Engineering

ELEN 0372
Chapter (5)

Overhead Transmission Lines Equivalent Circuits

Introduction
 All transmission lines in a power system exhibit the electrical
properties of resistance, inductance, capacitance and conductance.
 These parameters are essential for the development of transmission
line models used in power system analysis.
 The resistance and inductance, uniformly distributed along the line,
form the series impedance, as shown in figure (1).
 The conductance and capacitance , uniformly distributed along the
line, form the shunt admittance, as shown in figure (1).

Figure (1): Representation of transmission line

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 Classification of Transmission Line
1- Short-length transmission line: less than about 80 km long.
2- Medium-length transmission line: between 80 km and 240 km long.
3- Long-length transmission line: longer than 240 km

 It is required to develop formulas to calculate the voltage, current,

and power at any point on a transmission line.
 For long transmission line, the general equations relating voltage
and current on a transmission line recognize the fact that all four of
the parameters of a transmission line are uniformly distributed
along the line.
 However, lumped parameters which give good accuracy for short
and medium transmission line are used.

Short-length Transmission Line

 For short transmission line, shunt capacitance is so small that it
can be omitted entirely with little loss of accuracy.
 The equivalent circuit of a short transmission line on a per-phase
basis is shown in figure (2), where IS and IR are the sending-end
and receiving-end currents, respectively, and VS and VR are the
sending-end and receiving-end line-to-neutral voltages.

Figure (2): Equivalent circuit of a short transmission line on

a per-phase basis.
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 The total series impedance of the line is obtained by multiplying the
series impedance per unit length by the line length.

where r and L are the per-phase resistance and inductance per unit
length, respectively and l is the line length.
 If a three-phase load with apparent power SR(3φ) is connected at the
end of the transmission line, the receiving-end current is obtained by:

 The phase voltage at the sending end is given by:

 The sending-end current and the receiving-end current are equal.

 The transmission line may be represented by two-port network as

shown in figure (3) and the above two equations can be written in
terms of the generalized circuit constants of the transmission line
which commonly known as the ABCD constants.

or in matrix form Figure (3): Two-port representation

of a transmission line.

 Comparing the equations of VS and IS with the general form equations

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 In general, ABCD constants are complex numbers. A and D are
dimensionless, and the dimensions of B and C are ohms and mhos
or Siemens.
 For a symmetrical two-port network (the transmission line is the
same when viewed from either sending end or receiving end), the
following two equations are valid.

 Voltage regulation of a transmission line may be defined as the

difference in the voltage at the receiving end between conditions
of no load and full load and expressed as a percentage of the full-
load voltage of the receiving end.

 At no load condition, IR = 0 and

Therefore, for a short transmission line

 Voltage regulation is a measure of line voltage drop and depends

on the load power factor.
 The lower the value of the voltage regulation for a transmission
line the better.
 Once the sending-end voltage is calculated, the sending-end
apparent power is obtained by:

 The transmission line efficiency is given by:

where PR(3φ) and PS(3φ) are the total real power at the receiving end and
sending end of the transmission line, respectively.
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Example (1):
A 220 kV, 60 Hz, three-phase transmission line is 40 km long. The
resistance per phase is 0.15 Ω/km and the inductance per phase is
1.3263 mH/km. The shunt capacitance is negligible. Use the short
line model to find the voltage and apparent power at the sending
end and the voltage regulation and efficiency when the line is
supplying a three-phase load of 381 MVA at 0.8 power factor
lagging at 220 kV.

Solution:
The series impedance per phase is

The receiving-end voltage per phase is

The apparent power at the receiving end is

The receiving-end current is

The sending-end voltage per phase is

The sending-end line to line voltage magnitude is

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 The apparent power at the sending end is

Voltage regulation is

Transmission line efficiency is

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The Medium-Length Line

 The shunt admittance, usually pure capacitance, is included in the
calculations for a line of medium length.
 If the total shunt admittance of the line is divided into two equal
parts placed at the sending and receiving ends of the line, the
circuit is called a nominal π, as shown in figure (4).

Figure (4): Nominal π circuit of a medium-length transmission line.

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 From KCL, the current in the series impedance, IL is given by:

 From KVL, the sending-end voltage is given by:

Substituting IL, yields

 The sending-end current is:

Substituting VS and IL, yields

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 Comparing the equations of VS and IS with the general form

 For a symmetrical two-port network (the transmission line is the

same when viewed from either sending end or receiving end), the
following two equations are valid.

 Voltage regulation of a transmission line may be defined as:

At no load condition, IR = 0 and

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Example (2):
A 230 kV, three-phase transmission line has a per phase series
impedance of z = 0.05 + j0.45 Ω/km and a per phase shunt
admittance of y = j3.4 × 10-6 Siemens/km. The line is 80 km long.
Using the nominal π model, determine the transmission line ABCD
constants. Find the sending-end voltage and current, voltage
regulation, the sending-end apparent power and the transmission
efficiency when the line delivers 200 MVA, 0.8 lagging power
factor at 220 kV.

Solution:

The line impedance and shunt admittance are

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The ABCD constants of the nominal π model are

The receiving-end voltage per phase is

The apparent power at the receiving end is

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The receiving-end current is given by

The sending-end voltage per phase is

The sending-end line-to-line voltage magnitude is

The sending-end current is

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The sending-end apparent power is

Voltage regulation is

Transmission line efficiency is

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 The Long Transmission Line
 For the short and medium length lines, reasonably accurate models
were obtained by assuming the line parameters to be lumped.
 For long transmission lines and for a more accurate solution, the
exact effect of the distributed parameters must be considered.
Figure (5) shows one phase of a distributed transmission line.
Lumped parameters are not shown because the impedance and
admittance are distributed uniformly throughout the length of the
line.

Figure (5): Schematic diagram of a transmission line showing one

phase and the neutral return with distributed parameters.
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 The relation between the sending end and the receiving end of
the transmission line is

 Comparing the equations of VS and IS with the general form

 In order to solve the equations, the hyperbolic functions must be

evaluated. Since γl is usually complex, the hyperbolic functions
are also complex and can be evaluated as follows:

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Example (3):
A three-phase 60 Hz transmission line has a per phase series
impedance of z= 0.1 + j0. 5145Ω/km and a per phase shunt admittance
of y = j 3.173 × 10-6 Siemens/km. The line is 370 km long. The load on
the line is 125 MW at 215 kV with unity power factor. Find the
voltage, current and apparent power at the sending end, the voltage
regulation and the transmission efficiency of the line.

Solution:
The series impedance and shunt admittance per phase are
0.1 j 0.5145 0.5241 ∠79 Ω⁄k m
j 3.173 10 3.173 10 ∠90 Siemen s⁄k m

γ 370 0.5241 3.173 10 ∠ 79 90 ⁄2

γ 0.4772 ∠84.5 0.0456 j0.475

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The characteristic impedance is

z 0.5241
Z ∠ 79 90 ⁄2
y 3.173 10

Z 406.4 ∠ 5.5 Ω

The receiving-end voltage per phase is

215 ∠0
V 124.13 ∠0 kV
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The apparent power at the receiving end is

∅ 125 ∠0 125 j0 MVA

The receiving-end current is given by

∗
∅ 125 10 ∠0
I ∗ 335.7 ∠0 A
3 3 124.13 ∠0

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 cosh cosh cosh cos sinh sin

cosh 0.0456 cos 0.475 sinh 0.0456 sin 0.475

0.8902 0.02086 0.8904 ∠1.34

sinh sinh sinh cos cosh sin

sinh 0.0456 cos 0.475 cosh 0.0456 sin 0.475
0.04056 0.4578 0.4596 ∠84.93

A cosh 0.8904 ∠1.34

B sinh 406.4 ∠ 5.5 0.4596 ∠84.93 186.78 ∠79.43

sinh 0.4596 ∠84.93

C 0.001131 ∠90.43 Siemens
406.4 ∠ 5.5

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The sending-end voltage per phase is

0.8904 ∠1.34 124.13 ∠0 186.78 ∠79.43 335.7 10 ∠0

110.525 ∠1.34 62.702 ∠79.43 122 j64.223
137.87 ∠27.76 kV
The sending-end line-to-line voltage magnitude is

3 137.87 238.8

The sending-end current is

0.001131 ∠90.43 124.13 10 ∠0 0.8904 ∠1.34 335.7 ∠0

140.39∠90.43 298.9 ∠1.34 297.765 147.376
332.24 ∠26.33

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The sending-end apparent power is
S ∅ 3V I ∗ 3 137.87 ∠27.76 332.24 10 ∠ 26.33
137.417 ∠1.43 MVA 137.374 MW j3.429 MVAR

Voltage regulation is
V 238.8
V , 215
A 0.8904
Percent VR 100 100 24.7%
V , 215

Transmission line efficiency is

∅ 125
η 100 100 91%
∅ 137.374

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