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

Circuit Breaker

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.
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.

Lead time to procure circuit breaker

~6 months

Information on cost and lead-time are rough estimates – contact vendor with your equipment specifications for actual figures.

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Circuit Breaker: Learn the Purpose, Cost, and Lead Time to Procure 2

Substation Major Equipment

It's only stupid-simple, let's begin.

In a distribution substation, the available ground-fault current on the low side of the step-down transformer is excessive, over-dutying the switching equipment. What is your cost-effective solution to reducing the fault current?
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A transformer develops an internal fault. Which device would you install on the transformer high-side to interrupt fault current?
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Which combination of devices would you use to implement power line carrier?
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What's the purpose of a conventional power transformer?
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An industrial facility is plagued with voltage flicker (due to harmonics) and poor power factor at the service entrance. Which device would you install to fix both issues?
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You are building an interconnect station, tying wind farm generation to the power grid. At the substation, the sources are tied through a tie-breaker. Which device would you install to make sure the sources are synchronized?
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For which event should a surge arrester operate? Check all that apply.
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