Surge Phenomena

Abstract

UNTIL the advent of the Grid erected by the Central Electricity Board during the years 1928-33, there were very few high-voltage distribution lines in Great Britain. Most of the electricity used was generated in the immediate neighbourhood and distributed by cable networks so that electrical disturbances of atmospheric origin could not affect the supply system. This situation was changed in two directions when the 132-kv. network of transmission lines was erected ; in the first place, the network itself was subjected to the effects of lightning discharges which could cause damage to insulators, switchgear and transformers, and secondly, surges on the high-voltage lines were transformed at generating and distributing stations and were passed on to the lower voltage distributing systems, which hitherto had been immune from externally produced surges. Thus the Central Electricity Board and the local electricity supply authorities became more painfully aware of the effects of surge phenomena and supplied a considerable impetus to the activities of the British Electrical and Allied Industries' Research Association in its general study of surges.

Surge Phenomena

Seven Years' Research for the Central Electricity Board (1933–1940). (Reference S/T 35.) Pp. viii + 426. (London: British Electrical and Allied Industries' Research Association, 1941.) 50s. net.