Nelson River DC Transmission System

With Nelson River Bipole a system of two Canadian High voltage direct current transmission lines ( HVDC) is referred to, by the lying in northern Manitoba converter stations Gillam (Radisson Converter Station) and Sundance ( Henday Converter Station), nearby in the hydropower plants generated electrical energy to the located in Winnipeg converter station Rosser ( Dorsey Converter station) transfer. It can be used on two parallel line routes bipolar power lines, which are hung on most guyed pylons.

Bipole 1

The bipole 1 leads from Gillam (Radisson Converter Station) to Rosser ( Dorsey Converter Station). It has a length of 895 miles and can transmit a power of 1.62 GW at a bipolar voltage of ± 450 kV. For the converters mercury arc rectifiers were originally used, which were taken between March 1971 and October 1977 in stages. The line worked in the early days with lower voltage and lower power. In the 1990s, were at one pole of this line said mercury vapor rectifier, which were the largest mercury arc rectifiers in the world with a blocking voltage of 150 kV and a maximum current of 1800 A, replaced by thyristors.

Bipole 2

The bipole 2 leads from Sundance ( Henday Converter Station) to Rosser ( Dorsey Converter Station). It is equipped with thyristors. The length of the line of Bipol2 is 937 km. The bipole 2 can transmit a power of 1.8 GW at a bipolar voltage of ± 500 kV.

The Nelson River Bipole 2 was put into operation in two stages. In the first stage, 1978, the transmission power was 900 MW at a voltage of 250 kV. Only since 1985, the system is ready for operation at full power.