Core saturation effects of geomagnetic induced currents in power transformers

Saturation of the magnetic core of transformers in a power system is an important effect that can be attributed to solar Geomagnetic Induced Currents (GICs). This saturation can conduce to voltage-control problems, generating harmonic currents, and heating of the transformer internal components, leading to gas relay alarm/operation and possible damage. This paper presents an analog physical reduced scale model of GICs in power transformers. The instrumentation employed to carry out this study consists of a single-phase reduced scale transformer, a controllable current source, a resistive load and a data acquisition system. The work establishes not only that it is possible to model the behavior of magnetic variables and to extrapolate the results to large full size power transformers, but also provides insight into GICs generation and their effects on power transformers. Obtained results are related to the non-linear behavior of GICs due to asymmetric saturation of the magnetic core in the power transformer, where computational model simulation is not able to give acceptable outcomes. Results are discussed for several GICs magnitudes, which include voltage, current, harmonics waveforms, magnetic core point of operation, the behavior of the stray flow, instantaneous power and core temperature.