Abstract
THE public and industry now use electricity so largely that any interruption in the continuity of the supply is a serious matter which needs careful consideration. Two factors that accentuate this need are first the increasing growth and interconnexion of generating plant, leading to increased risk of serious damage on the occurrence of a fault, and secondly the increasing tendency to faults occasioned by the extended use of overhead lines for longdistance interconnexion and for supplying rural areas. In a paper on this subject read to the Institution of Electrical Engineers on January 6 by H. W. Clothier, B. H. Leeson and H. Leybourn, a full statement of the problem is given, and the best way of countering the risks run are considered for the various methods-of supply. Particulars are given of high-speed small-oil-volume switches capable of breaking the circuit by utilizing in improved ways well-tried principles, and of an automatic reclosing 132 kilovolt oil circuit-breaker with an arc-duration of only one cycle of the current at full rating. It is claimed that when a fault has developed in a component of a supply system provided with protective safeguards of the automatic instantaneous protection type and fast-acting circuit-breakers, very little damage if any is done to the faulty component and there is practically no interruption to the supply. If a fault were to develop in an unprotected component of a supply system, the sustained feeding of power into it would probably lead toa serious breakdown and fire, with the risk of a long-maintained interruption of the supply. Occurrences of this nature have taken place during the last few years due, for example, to leakages from transient faults on overhead lines and leakages due to fires resulting from sustained arcing on unprotected apparatus. These risks are uneconomic and should be guarded against by safeguards of the type described in this paper, adequate to protect the network from damage.
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Safeguards Against Interruptions of the Electric Supply. Nature 141, 111–112 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/141111c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/141111c0