IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2016 - 80

These completed refurbishments
have extended the lifetime of the installations
beyond the typical 20-40 years.

successful refurbishment versus having a separate, custom
solution for each individual site. The single mobile unit is a
more economical solution and simply requires more engineering and design at the planning stages of the project to be
adaptable. The final design is shown in Figure 5.
While the mobile SVC was designed to be adaptable
to all of the different sites, the layouts for the cabling and
mobile SVC were customized. This involved preparing the
site in advance to guarantee a smooth transition and operation from the site SVC to the mobile SVC. Siemens and
its partner, O'Donnell Griffin, kept site preparation outages within the desired 48 hours with careful planning and
coordination. One stage of the site preparation involved
installing high-current cables to the gates of the HV area
for quick connection between the mobile SVC valves and
the site reactors. The cabling consisted of separate bundles
of six individual 600-A cables for each connection. A total
of six connections were required between the three thyristor valves and the existing busbar. The bundled cables are
shown in Figure 6.
The use of a mobile SVC minimized the time each of the
SVCs was unavailable to the rail system during the refurbishment process. The outage time was 48 hours to cut out
the existing SVC and connect the mobile SVC. While the
four-six week refurbishment was taking place, the mobile
SVC would stand in to support the electrical railway network. After the refurbishment was completed, another
48-hour outage occurred to disconnect the mobile SVC and
cut in the newly refurbished SVC. The mobile SVC was then
moved to the next site.
The largest SVC on the railway line was at the Coppabella site and was the last to be refurbished. The equipment and components of the mobile SVC were installed at
Coppabella because keeping the mobile SVC operational
would not make economic sense, and the other eight refurbishments were already completed. The Coppabella SVC
refurbishment did not follow the same 48-hour downtime
schedule as the others. The total downtime was six weeks
to remove the equipment from the mobile SVC and perform
the refurbishment.
A creative and flexible economic approach fulfilled the
refurbishment needs of Powerlink. The mobile SVC was
a huge success, and it allowed for outage times within the
desired 48 hours. The electrical railway network was never
constrained during the almost three-year refurbishment process for all ten SVCs. The project deployed an innovative
march/april 2016

solution in combination with proper design, planning, and
testing for the duration of the project.

Conclusions
Refurbishments of aging electrical infrastructure bring their own
set of challenges with regards to planning, design, and execution. Two refurbishments performed by Siemens were outlined
to provide some insight and examples. The Transpower HVdc
link in New Zealand had high seismic design requirements,
working within constrained switchyards and maintaining supply
of the existing HVdc link during construction of the new pole 3.
The Queenlands railway SVC refurbishments in Australia were
challenging due to the need for a short 48-hour shutdown time,
size constraints in the switchyards, and the need for a flexible
solution applicable to all of the SVCs. These completed refurbishments have extended the lifetime of the installations beyond
the typical 20-40 years, allowing them to continue performing
their task without a complete replacement of the site.

For Further Reading
D. Brady. (2013). Siemens Completes HVDC Link for New
Zealand. [Online]. Available: http://www.siemens.com/
press/en/feature/2013/energy/2013-09-hvdc.php
M. Zavahir, I. Hunt, K. Martin, P. Hoby, C. Cartzsch,
A. Ludebuehl, and U. Kindler. (2011). Design Aspects of
the Integration of the New Zealand HVDC Pole 3 Project.
[Online]. Available: http://www.ptd.siemens.de/Cigre_
AUS_2011_Colloquium_Paper_8.pdf
Transpower. (2010). Transpower Project Flyer-HVDC
Inter-Island Link Pole 3 Project. [Online]. Available: https://
www.transpower.co.nz/sites/default/files/publications/
resources/HVDC%20Pole%203%20Project%20Flyer.pdf
Siemens. (2007). Siemens SVC References-2007 Railways and Nebo [Online]. Available: http://www.energy.
siemens.com/us/en/power-transmission/facts/static-varcompensator-classic/references.htm#content=2007%20
Railways%20%26%20Nebo%2C%20AUSTRALIA
Siemens AG. (2006). Siemens Article-Power Transmission and Distribution, HVDC/FACTS Highlights. [Online].
Available: http://www.ptd.siemens.de/artikel0612.pdf

Biographies
Brian Gemmell is with Siemens, Cary, North Carolina.
Matthew Korytowski is with Siemens, Cary, North Carolina.
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http://www.siemens.com/ http://www.ptd.siemens.de/Cigre_ http://https:// http://www.transpower.co.nz/sites/default/files/publications/ http://www.energy http://www.siemens.com/us/en/power-transmission/facts/static-var http://www.ptd.siemens.de/artikel0612.pdf

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