Can this be real?

[bphgravity]

Video of Hugh Arc at Substation

Edited to replace the link.

[ September 12, 2005, 06:22 PM: Message edited by: charlie b ]

 

[iwire]

Re: Can this be real?

I don't know but it sure is cool looking.

 

[pierre]

Re: Can this be real?

There is another site that shows this same video. It seems that the closure mechanism fails quite often, so they set a camera up to photograph this.

 

[MJJBEE]

Re: Can this be real?

I saw this in a power engneering class I took a few years ago. My instructor said they were testing a switch w/o opening the breaker first. So this can happen under the right conditions. He had mulitiple diffrent videos of this type of arc from lots of high voltage equipment.

 

[beanland]

Re: Can this be real?

Movie is valid. Current is only the excitation current going down a high voltage power line, no load on the line. Capacitive coupling to ground is enough to cause this current. It may only be on the order of 3-10 Amperes. Looks like a 230-500kV line.

 

[EEPeder]

Re: Can this be real?

I can confirm validity ... this picture is from my utility, it's 500kv on a very long line. This particular disconnect uses several lower voltage 'interrupter' units in series to break the arc of the line charging current. One of the interrupter units had failed and the remaining interrupter was unable to break full voltage so the external arc occurred repeatedly on operation until someone got a clue and figured out what was going on...