Capacitor voltage transformer


A capacitor voltage transformer, is a transformer used in power systems to step down extra high voltage signals and provide a low voltage signal, for metering or operating a protective relay.

Components

In its most basic form, the device consists of three parts: two capacitors across which the transmission line signal is split, an inductive element to tune the device to the line frequency, and a voltage transformer to isolate and further step down the voltage for metering devices or protective relay.
The tuning of the divider to the line frequency makes the overall division ratio less sensitive to changes in the burden of the connected metering or protection devices. The device has at least four terminals: a terminal for connection to the high voltage signal, a ground terminal, and two secondary terminals which connect to the instrumentation or protective relay.
Capacitor C1 is often constructed as a stack of smaller capacitors connected in series. This provides a large voltage drop across C1 and a relatively small voltage drop across C2. As the majority of the voltage drop is on C1, this reduces the required insulation level of the voltage transformer. This makes CVTs more economical than the wound voltage transformers under high voltage, as the latter one requires more winding and materials.

Other applications

The CVT is also useful in communication systems. CVTs in combination with wave traps are used for filtering high-frequency communication signals from power frequency. This forms a carrier communication network throughout the transmission network, to communicate between substations. The CVT is installed at a point after Lightning Arrester and before Wave trap.