Half-wavelength transmission lines for connecting power plants in Amazon region to the Brazilian system

Large hydroelectric power plants are planned or under construction on the Amazon basin, located in the north region of Brazil. However, the main load centers in Brazil are located on the southeast and northeast regions, far from these generation sites by 2500–3000 km. These projects bring new challenges for power system engineers in terms of designing and operating transmission lines for very large distances and capacity, creating the opportunity for innovative solutions. HVDC would be the natural solution but it is still expensive. Conventional AC transmission would be unfeasible due to the enormous need for reactive power compensation. Under this scenario, an alternative transmission technology comes to light, the half-wavelength AC transmission line. In this paper, three half-wavelength transmission corridors are studied for the interconnection of Belo Monte Power Plant, located on the State of Para, to the Brazilian interconnected system through Assis Substation, on the State of Sao Paulo, with a total distance of 2664km. Losses, voltage profile, level of reactive power compensation, solutions for the voltage control on both sending and receiving ends, insertion of loads or generation at intermediate points, are among the analyzed aspects for different loading and interchange scenarios.