Introduction to the Environmental Impact of and on Substations

Abstract

The environment is a key consideration in the design and lifetime management of substations. The environment affects the substation and the substation the environment. The effects can be in both cases immediate or develop in time. In case of the environment effects, it is usually a question about how the substation or its equipment will work under the environment in question. Examples of these kinds of effects of the environment on the substation and on substation equipment are such daily phenomena as ambient conditions to which temperature, solar radiation, wind, rain, snow, and accumulation of pollution on insulator surfaces belong. On the other hand, some of the environmental effects can occur much more sporadically but be very severe and cause significant damage and/or disruption. Examples of these are hurricanes, floods, wildfires, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. Already the given examples reveal that the effects can be very site specific and vary a lot from one site to the next within a country or within the substations belonging to a single grid owner/operator. We have learned to know best the effects of the environment on substations and their equipment in case of outdoor conditions. Consequently, an essential part of the design guides and different (technical) equipment specifications deals with the question of how the environment has to be taken into account already in the design phase of the substation and equipment selection. In indoor substations, the variation range of environmental factors is usually smaller than those for otherwise equivalent outdoor substations.