More and more generation facilities are installed far away from the load centers. Thus, long distance transmission is demanded, and with this regard DC transmission systems are of special interest. Transmission by overhead lines is a well-proven technology, but due to environmental concern and political decisions underground transmission systems are often requested. Besides DC cables, DC GIL are an interesting option. They enable transmitting high power by only one system in a small corridor only a few meters wide. GIL can be laid in a tunnel or directly buried in the soil. Meanwhile a lot of service experience has been collected with AC GIL technology, but no service experience is yet available with DC GIL. To close this knowledge gap and to investigate the long-term performance, a ±550 kV DC GIL prototype with a current carrying capacity of 5000 A is currently investigated in a HVDC test facility, both in directly buried and in above-ground installation. The test procedure follows the recommendations for long-term testing of gas-insulated systems, currently under preparation by Cigré JWG D1/B3.57. This report describes the test sample arrangements, the high-voltage and high current test equipment and the commissioning procedure for the DC GIL. It illustrates the UHF PD monitoring system installed and the method to identify possible PD defects. The investigated DC GIL is subdivided into two parts: While an above-ground installation is simultaneously stressed by voltage and DC current, a directly buried part of the DC GIL is stressed with DC current only in order to investigate soil mechanics, the temperature distribution in the GIL and in the soil as well as the performance of the backfill material. The report also presents first results gained on the directly buried arrangement for studying the soil mechanics.

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Paper number D1-107

Keywords: DC GIL, prototype installation test, UHF DC PD measurement, UHF monitoring, DC current injection, superimposed voltage testing, soil mechanics, soil temperature, soil-structure-interaction