At the Dorsey Converter Station there are three 13.8 kV,
300 MVA, 900 rpm synchronous condensers installed in
1990/91 and operating at 2.6 kV/mm. The contract required
minimum voltage endurance as defined by a straight line on
a graph of log electric stress versus log time of 10.7 kV/mm
at 10 h and 7.8 kV/mm at 500 h. While this requirement
was met these Roebel stator bars did not meet the voltage
endurance requirement of 30 kV 400 hours specified by
IEEE Std 1553 Schedule A as is shown by Figure 1 of [30]
which also provides 35 kV endurance results on the same
population. The short circuit ratio required by the HVDC
conversion equipment was an overriding consideration
which prevented a design with stator bars having a lower
electric stress. A mitigating factor may be the operation in
hydrogen at 200 kPa (gauge) which tends to suppress
partial discharge. One of these units has twice survived
mechanical damage to the end arms of stator bars. The
more recent incident occurred in August 2009 when a piece
of triangular shaped file was left inside the air gap
following an overhaul. A ground fault involving C-phase
occurred 3 days after the return to service at the location
shown in Figure 20. A total of 3 bars had been damaged in
this location at the connection end (CE) with electrical
positions as indicated in Table 12. The largest file fragment
found was 25 mm long.
Repairs were made using a mica-epoxy paste at the
copper followed by fully cured mica paper tape bonded
with brushed on epoxy resin. Following curing of the resin
the stress control coating had to be renewed. A one minute
60 Hz hipot test was made on the repaired winding as
indicated in Table 13. As B-phase had failed at the patch it
was necessary to fully replace this patch. The subsequent
successful 60 Hz hipot was limited to 18 kVrms. Maximum
as left E/M (TVA) probe readings at CE were 2 mA (Slot
72), 11 mA (Slot 76) and 6 mA (Slot 78) for a test voltage
of 8 kVrms. Direct-voltage ramp tests on each phase to -31
kVdc showed evidence of possible delamination for Bphase,
but this had disappeared when the test was repeated
in 2014 possibly reflecting a complete cure of the resin.