SF6 or Vacuum Circuit Breaker?

You can select either SF6 or Vacuum breakers but both have advantages and disadvantage.

For SF6 Breakers there is one Red, Yellow and green lamp to indicate the SF6 pressure inside the breaker. You need to check the SF6 gas pressure inside the Breaker every month to ensure that the SF6 gas is still O.K. For Vacuum Breaker you don't need to do it because the Vacuum breaker is completed seal.

If SF6 breaker gas pressure is less, you can fill it back. But for Vacuum Breaker, if the vacuum inside the breaker leaks you can't vacuum it.

For maintenance cost you need to stand by a cylinder of SF6 gas inside your substation for filling. But for Vacuum Breaker you don't need it.

In over all, in the maintenance cost, I believe that SF6 Breaker is still cheaper than the Vacuum Circuit Breaker because Vacuum Circuit Breaker does have any limited operation life. For Vacuum Circuit Breaker, there is limited operation life. You need to change all the Vacuum breaker poles if the operation life is up.

I don't know what is your intake voltage in this case, for us, we use SF6 Circuit breakers for all the 11KV system and Vacuum Circuit Breaker for 33KV system.

Hope this information can help you.

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The maintenance of OCB and MOCB is very cumbersome job and need regular attention and are prone to fire hazard . We had major accidents in our substations due to OCB which prompted us to change over to SF6 and VCB in all our modernisation programs and new substations. We have provided SF6 breakers for our 33 KV substations and VCB for 11 KV substations. These Breakers are in operation for the past 15 years. My experience with these breakers are very high rating due to minimal maintenance cost.

The SF6 circuit-breaker, interrupters which have reached the limiting number of operations can be overhauled and restored to 'as new' condition. In practical experience under normal service conditions the SF6 interrupter never requires servicing throughout its lifetime.Vacuum-circuit breaker have a 'sealed for life' design. If your requirement is for 11v KV substation I strongly recommend for VCB . They are cheaper in that voltage range.You can have a comparative study of SF6 and VCB in the following link

http://www.panickker.net/article6.htm

If you are working in India there are good number of reputed electrical manufacturers supplying VCB like Siemens , Jyoti, Cromton, Southern Switcher ,and many more.

The question is not which one, VCB has a limitation in the maximum voltage/ current that it can handle. You know thet the Vacuum works only on the capacity of the vacuum to quench the arc, But at the moment of break/make, ionisation/ plasma is created by the metals of the contactor, which will self feed the arc.

The Blast of SF6 breaks this plasma by cooling it/ removing the ions and allowing them to re-combine.

Assuming that you are working at alow enugh load and voltage (original being MOCBs) I think VCB is a good enough choice for you.

Can I have a list of the SF6 Circuit Breaker manufacturers in India?