How to customize your overhead line?

We've now introduced expanded options for customizing your substation and overhead line. We'll teach you the best practices for these features.

In this article, we will present the new features that were developed for overhead line design. This allows you to find a more flexible solution that meets your requirements.

Customize your overhead line

You will now be able to define your own overhead line (OHL). All you need to do is to set up the values and choose the preferred components used for your OHL.

Define values

There will be three values to define:

1. Capacity overestimation: So far, RatedPower estimates the capacity automatically based on the plant design. But you can increase this value to adapt to your needs, and the designing of the OHL will be based on this over-estimated capacity. 

2. Number of circuits: You will be able to change the number of circuits to be used for your OHL, either 1 (Simplex) or 2 (Duplex).

3. Number of conductors per phase: You can decide how many conductors to include per phase, you can choose from 1 up to 4. 

Choose components

You will be able to select your preferred phase conductors, earth wire, and tower shape. 

• Phase conductor: You can choose to either use AAAC (Aluminum composed conductors) or ACSR (Aluminum and steel composition). We provide you with a range of conductors for each one which is used widely in the industry. 
  
  
• Earth wire: RatedPower provides you with various fiber optics earth wires to choose from.
  
  
• Tower shape: You will have 6 options for your tower shapes depending on how many circuits you have. 
  In the case where you have a double-circuit transmission line, each circuit consists of three conductors corresponding to six phases, you will have three types of tower shapes for these phases. 
  If you have a single circuit, there will be three phases in total corresponding to three tower shapes. 
  
  
  

The calculation and design will be based on the inputs you set, more information on the considerations of each input can be found in our updated methodology with the new features here.

You can now define exclusion zones over your OHL. RatedPower will take these into consideration when placing the different towers. Whenever viable, no towers shall be placed in these restricted areas.

Sometimes, this may not be. In such cases, the spotting towers will be placed in the RAs, however, a warning message will be shown in the OHL drawing as can be seen below.

It is also possible to have an OHL crossing above an available area. In such cases, RatedPower will automatically define a restricted area around it (check the image below). This RA will have a certain buffer from each side of the OHL based on the voltage level as follows:

• From 5kV to 132kV: 10m on each side
• From 133kV to 400kV: 20m on each side
• Above 400kV: 30m on each side

The same criteria mentioned before will apply here. RatedPower will try to avoid placing spotting towers in these RAs as much as possible. A warning message will appear in the OHL drawing if it’s not possible to respect these exclusion zones.

For any other questions or more information regarding this topic, you can contact us at: support@ratedpower.com