Short-Term Dynamic Ampacity Forecasting for the Fully Insulated Busbar Taped Joint

Abstract

The prior research on dynamic thermal rating have not taken into account the joint that could potentially form a hot spot in the power system. This paper proposes a novel method for short-term dynamic ampacity forecasting of a fully insulated busbar taped joint. The first-order thermal network, in which the thermal parameters are identified through FEM thermal analysis, simplifies 3-D temperature field of the joint. The surface temperature of the busbar is used to extract environmental information based on the equivalence principle of boundary conditions. Time series modelling is employed to forecast short-term environmental changes over the course of the following hour. On this basis, a rolling forecasting of the dynamic ampacity can be realized. A dynamic thermal rating test was carried out to validate and improve the model. The measured joint conductor temperature is nearly but consistently below the temperature limit of 90°C during the whole test. This indicates that the dynamic thermal rating is successfully accomplished in the laboratory using the proposed algorithm, increasing the transmission capacity of the insulated busbar.