Circuit Breaker: Learn the Purpose, Cost, and Lead Time to Procure

Purpose of circuit breaker

Break the power flow
Contain the arcing within its chamber and extinguish it

Where you install the circuit breakers and the quantity depends on the bus configuration, as seen below.

circuit breaker install location in a ring bus station — *Circuit breakers (in yellow boxes) in a ring bus substation.*

*Circuit breakers (in yellow boxes) in a breaker and a half substation.*

What happens when you break a high voltage circuit without special provisions? Take a look below. Uncontrolled arcing is destructive and unsafe.

Circuit Breaker: Learn the Purpose, Cost, and Lead Time to Procure 1 — *Uncontrolled arcing from switching a live 500kV circuit*

Cost of circuit breaker

765kV 3000amp 40KAIC live tank gas breaker: ~$800,000
500kV 3000amp 63KAIC dead tank gas breaker: ~$400,000
345kV 3000amp 63KAIC dead tank gas breaker: ~$200,000
230kV 3000amp 63KAIC dead tank gas breaker: ~$165,000
138kV 3000amp 63KAIC dead tank gas breaker: ~$80,000
69kV 3000amp 40KAIC gas breaker: ~$50,000
35kV 3000amp 40KAIC gas breaker: ~$35,000
15kV 1200amp 16KAIC vacuum breaker: ~$26,000

You may be interested in switching capacitive or inductive loads using Independent Pole Operating (a.k.a. zero crossing) circuit breaker. 365kV+ breakers are inherently IPO. The synchronous controller costs an additional ~$20,000. To make 138kV breakers IPO, it costs roughly double.

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