Staged Tests on the TVA - SCEC 500-kV Interconnection Between Johnsonville and West Memphis

A comprehensive series of field tests was made on the Tennessee Valley Authority-South Central Electric Companies´ (TVA-SCEC) 160-mile, 500-kV interconnecting line and associated terminal equipment. The tests included: energizing at controlled points on voltage wave and deenergizing shunt reactor compensated line with transient voltage limiting breaker; switching line and 1200- MVA transformer with a 161-kV transient voltage limiting breaker; applying solid persistent and transient arcing faults to line while carrying load; and high-speed reclosing after fault clearing. High- speed motion pictures were combined with oscillograms to obtain and relate data. The methods, instrumentation, and results are given in this paper.