Tingling sensation while in Substation 1

[pmdykstra]

I've been working in the utility industry for the past 11 years. Up until about 3 and 1/2 years ago I was a field employee and was in or near high voltage substations almost daily. More recently, I've been in an office enviornment with occasional trips to the field. Recently (in the past year or so) I've noticed that when I'm in a 345kV yard (or 220kV) I experience tingling sensations in my arms and other parts of the body (most nocticabley arms), while someone standing right next to me feels nothing. Why the change? It's a very unsettling feeling, I am not breaking an clearance rules, I am simply talking about walking through the yard and when I get within a certain distance (haven't measured) I can definitely feel it.

 

[rhatcher]

I have felt an electric field while doing a DC high potential test on a ship that was in a shipyard for repairs. There were a few people in the small compartment to witness the test. At about 20kV or so I heard one of the witnesses say that he could feel the field. I looked up from the high potential tester to see him holding his arm pointed towards the cable end that was being tested.

I reached out in the same direction and felt as if I was sticking my hand into an invisible bubble of tingling energy. I reached in to about the middle of my forearm and the sensation was greatest at my hand and decreased back to an 'edge of the bubble' at about the middle of my forearm.

For a fleeting moment I thought about how cool it was to feel an electric field and then I realized how foolish it was to be poking around in the field. Everyone pulled back and the test continued.

At about 30kV the cable arced about two feet through the air to the steel deck. The cable was pretty long and pretty capacitive so the arc was almost like a little lightning bolt.

I do remember that the ambient conditions were very, very hot and very, very humid. I do not recall if there was any obvious source of ozone at the time such as a thunderstorm or nearby welding operations.

I have never felt an electric field like that before or since. Of course, I have also not seen an arc like that through open air at any voltage. This does not include a switching arc, this means a breakdown voltage arc across air.

 

[gigahertz]

Cap Banks on or off?

 

[rhatcher]

no caps. just a 900-1000' cable in metallic conductor where the entire run was faced with a perfect ground conductor, ie. the metallic conduit was attached every few feet to an almost perfect ground return path provided by the steel hull and frame of the ship.

I am saying that the installation produces a big capacitive effect even though there are no actual capacitors present.