International Journal of Computer Communication and Information System ( IJCCIS)

Vol2. No1. ISSN: 09761349 July Dec 2010

Effective Placement of Surge Arrester During Lightning

1
G. Radhika, 2Dr.M.Suryakalavathi and 3G.Soujanya
1
Sr. Assistant Professor, VNR VJIET, radlalitha.g@gmail.com
2
HOD-EEE, JNTUniversity, munagala12@yahoo.co.in
3
EEE Dept, VNR VJIET, soujanyavemula@yahoo.co.in

Abstract Lightning interference occurs mainly on equipment. Lightning has been one of the important
overhead lines and has been a problem since the problems for insulation design of power systems and it
early days of electricity supply. Over voltages which is still the main cause of outages of transmission and
occur on the lines, travel towards the terminal or distribution lines [4]. A complete awareness of the
substation, and can damage, particularly the parameters of lightning strokes is essential for the
expensive equipment such as power transformers. prediction of the severity of the transient voltages
The lightning surge causes the travelling waves and generated across power apparatus either by a direct
the temporary increase in voltage in the stroke to the power line/apparatus, or by an indirect
transmission line system. Lightning is the most stroke. However, no two lightning strokes are the same.
harmful for destroying the transmission line and
Because of lightning traveling waves are produced
setting devices so it is necessary to study and analyse
in the system. These traveling waves cause the
the temporary increase in voltage for designing and
temporary increase in voltage in the transmission line
setting the surge arrester. Arresters provide
system. The increase in voltage is harmful for the
protection to equipment by limiting the voltage
insulator of lines and devices connected to the
across the equipment terminals in the presence of a
transmission line. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze
surge on the system. This voltage limiting
such increase in voltage in order to design the surge
characteristic of arresters is the primary feature of
arrester (or the insulator) suitable for the investment,
an arrester in most cases, and the reason for its
the good performance of the system and the reliability
existence. The voltage limiting characteristic has
of transmission line system. During the seven years
several names and has even changed over the years.
between 1998 and 2004, 81 direct lightning strokes to
In this work Metal-Oxide Surge Arrester is used.
phase conductors were observed. The number is based
This project presents the PSCAD/EMTDC based
on the first stroke for multistroke events and excludes
transient modelling of a three phase transmission
some data for which parameters could not be estimated.
line circuit for analysing their performance during
All of the lightning strokes were observed in the
lightning. The method used to analyze the increase
summer. It is essential for electrical power engineering
in voltage due to lightning was done by using the
to reduce the number of outages & services &electric
application called PSCAD/EMTDC. This software
supply. There fore it is necessary to protect the power
could be used to analyze electric system in different
apparatus from over volts in electric system, namely
aspects, including transition state and steady state.
lighting over voltages & switching over voltages.
Therefore, it could be used to analyze the
Lighting over voltages is a nature natural phenomenon
transmission line system. Circuit model is developed
while switching over voltages originates in the system
for a three phase model and the same is used for
itself by the connection &disconnection of circuit
simulation studies. This study generalizes the
breakers contacts or due to initiation or interruption of
modelling details and performing the analysis of
faults. Switching over voltages is highly damped over
lightning surge on surge arrester placement using
voltages.
the PSCAD/EMTDC software. The outcome of this
paper would be the effect of surge arrester The magnitude over voltages appearing on
placement in terms of voltage level measured at transmission lines does not depend on the line design
particular points. & hence lightning performance tends to improve with
increasing insulation level ,i.e. with system voltage on
Keywords Lightning, Surge Arrester, Insulation
the other hand, switching over voltages are proportional
Co-ordination, PSCAD/EMTDC.
to operating voltage.
I. INTRODUCTION
Lightning strokes hitting towers, conductors or any
Lightning is a major cause of overhead line faults. object line the neighboring of a transmission line can
Between 5% to 10% of the lightning-caused faults are produce abnormal current/voltage waves along
thought to result in permanent damage to power system conductors (phase and/or shield wires) as well as along
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Vol2. No1. ISSN: 09761349 July Dec 2010

steel towers. Due to these phenomena, over voltages are transmission line interfaces, lightning surge circuit, line
produced and electric arcs (between two or more impedance, stray capacitance of the equipments,
conductors as well as between phase conductors and the transformer. Figure 1 shows the modeling arrangements
tower structure) may appear, if insulation breakdown of the system. A 10KA surge with impulse of 8/20s is
voltage is reached. Back flashover occurs when taken. In general lightning is represented by a current
lightning stroke terminates on the overhead ground wire source of negative polarity. The transmission of a
or tower. A stroke that so terminates forces currents to travelling wave at junction points of equal impedances
flow down the tower and out on the ground wires. Thus in a transmission line is of great importance in
voltages are built up across the line insulation. If these transmission systems. Sometimes a voltage rise or build
voltages equal or exceed the line critical flashover up of voltage can occur depending on the type of the
voltage (CFO), flashover occurs [4]. Study on back impedance at transition points. In the above proposed
flashover is very important to is very important to model station 2 was terminated with a transformer,
evaluate lightning performance as majority of lightning whose solution can be obtained using the Laplace
strokes terminate on shield wire than phase conductor. transforms rather than using operational calculus. The
transmitted wave reaching the transformer will be either
The objectives of this study are to protect the
a double exponential or a damped sinusoidal wave and
power system equipments from lightning and determine
the steepness of the wave front gets reduced. Herein the
the effect of surge arrester placement. This will be done
line terminated with a transformer is taken as an
by comparing the voltage level measured close to the
parallel L-C combination [6].
transformer with the suggested basic insulation level
(BIL) value used by the utility. Over voltages could be calculated by lightning
current (I0) and line surge impedance (Zs). The circuit is
The ideal approach to study the transient
shown in Fig. 1. Therefore over voltage due to lightning
phenomena in a power system is to capture and record
(V0) in fig. 1 is as follows [1].
the transients using wide bandwidth transducers and
recording equipment and then analyse these waveforms i
Over voltage = z0
However, capturing transient signals this way 2
representing all possible scenarios is not realistic. An 10
alternative technique is to simulate the power system
using a suitable electromagnetic transient program V0 = 2 *350
PSCAD/EMTDC. The Power System Computer Aided V0 = 1750kV
Design (PSCAD/ EMTDC) programs available in the System with over voltage is simulated using
market today present the power systems components PSCAD/EMTDC software, and circuit with surge
while keeping the complexity of the models to a arrester is also simulated for finding the best position of
minimum. the surge arrester by changing the length of
II. MODELLING OF THE SYSTEM transmission line T3 to 90m, 60m, and 30m.
III. ARRESTER MODELLING
When specifying a metal-oxide arrester model for a
study, the accuracy of the simulation is improved when
the arrester characteristic is chosen to be consistent with
the frequency or time-to-crest of the voltage and current
expected during system perturbations [5].This concept
is key to modelling because metal-oxide arresters are
frequency-dependent devices, i.e., the voltage across
the arrester is a function of both the rate of rise and the
magnitude of the current conducted by the arrester. In
order to obtain metal-oxide arrester characteristics for a
wide range of wave shapes a number of different
Fig.1. Selected Model current test wave shapes have been used [2].
Lightning on phase line of transmission line system
might cause insulation breakdown of important devices.
Therefore, this occurrence must be avoided as much as
possible. The way to reduce the risk is the use of
Lightning arresters. The proposed model is a long
transmission line includes, transmission lines T1,T2,T3,

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International Journal of Computer Communication and Information System ( IJCCIS)
Vol2. No1. ISSN: 09761349 July Dec 2010

100 d
R0 = ohm = 145 ohm
n
100 n
C= pF = 68.97 pF
d

Fig.2. Arrester Model

The inductor L0 in the model represents the
inductance associated with magnetic fields in the
immediate vicinity of the arrester.
The resister R0 is used to stabilize the numerical
integration when the model is implemented on a digital
computer program.
Capacitor c represents the terminal-to-terminal
capacitance of the arrester.
The inductance L1 and resister R1 of the model
Fig.3. V-I Relationships for Non-Linear Resistor
comprise the filter between two non-linear resisters.
Part of Model
This section details the determination of the metal
Figure 3 is used to determine the initial
oxide model parameters for a one column arrester with
characteristics of the nonlinear resistors A0, and A1.
an overall length of 1.45 meters. The discharge voltage,
Each of the V-I points for the nonlinear resistors is
V10, for this arrester is 248kV for a 10kA, 8 x 20s
found by selecting a current point and then reading the
current wave shape.
relative IR in pu from the plot. This value is then
A. Arrester Information Required multiplied by (V10/l.6) to determine the model discharge
d - Length of arrester column in meters (use overall voltage in kV for the associated current. This scaling
dimensions from catalog data) from pu to actual voltage is done by the application of
the following formula to the "Relative IR" pu voltage
n - Number of parallel columns of metal-oxide disks found for that current as given in Figure 3[2].
v10 - discharge voltage for a l0kA, 8 x 20S current, in
For A0, the
kV
Discharge KV = [Relative IR in pu for A0 (i)] *
B. Lumped Parameter Elements
[V10/1.6]
Using the equations presented here, the initial
values for Lo, Ro, L1, RI & C are determined as For the above arrester, the associated V-I voltage for
follows[2] a l0kA current for the nonlinear resistor, A0, is determined
by reading the "Relative IR" for a 10kA current from
15 d Figure.3 Examination of the plot shows that the
L1 = H
n "Relative IR" for a 10 kA current is 1.9pu. Therefore
Here, d = length of arrester column in meters the discharge kV for A0 associated with l0kA is [2]
=1.45m 248
Discharge KV = 1.9*
n = number of parallel column of metal 1.6
oxide disks Discharge KV = 294.5
15 d Similarly, For A1, the
L1 = H = 21.75 H
n Discharge KV = [Relative IR in pu for
15 d A1 (i)]*[V10/1.6]
R1 = ohm = 94.25 ohm
n Discharge KV = 1.55*(248/1.6)
0. 2 d Discharge KV = 240.25
L0 = H = 0.29 H
n TABLE 1 : V-I CHARACTERISTICS FOR A0
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Vol2. No1. ISSN: 09761349 July Dec 2010

Is(KA) V(pu) V0(KV)

1 1.68 256.31
2 1.74 268.16
4 1.80 277.42
6 1.82 280.49
8 1.87 288.21
10 1.90 292.82
12 1.93 297.43
14 1.97 303.62
16 2.00 308.23
18 2.05 315.95
20 2.10 323.65 Fig.4. System with Over Voltage
TABLE 2 : V-I CHARACTERISTICS FOR A1

Is(KA) V(pu) V1(KV)

1 1.68 207.0
2 1.74 220.0
4 1.80 228.1
6 1.82 231.18
8 1.87 235.81
10 1.90 238.89 Fig.5. Waveform of Over voltage

12 1.93 240.43
14 1.97 243.51
16 2.00 245.05
18 2.05 246.60
20 2.10 248.14

V0, V1 are the discharge voltages of A0 and A1 Non-

Linear resistors respectively. Discharge voltage is
nothing, but the voltage that appears across the
terminals of an arrester during passage of discharge
current.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
The selected model is connected with transmission
lines, lightning surge circuit and transformer. Digital
simulation is done by using PSCAD/EMTDC software Fig.6. System with Surge Arrester
and the results were presented here. System with over
voltage is shown in Figure 4. The output over voltage
of the system is shown in Figure 5. The Over Voltage is
1784KV. To reduce the over voltage and to protect the
system equipments Metal-Oxide Surge Arrester is used.
The system with surge arrester and waveforms for arc
current and waveform of discharge voltage are shown
in Figures 6, 7, 8 respectively. The discharge voltage of
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the arrester is 303KV.
 International Journal of Computer Communication and Information System ( IJCCIS)
Vol2. No1. ISSN: 09761349 July Dec 2010

Fig.7. Waveform of Arc Current Fig.11. Output Voltage Waveform for placing the
Surge Arrester 60m away from the Transformer

Fig.12. Output Voltage Waveform for placing

Fig.8. Output Voltage Waveform when Arrester is the Surge Arrester 30m away from the Transformer
set
By moving the surge arrester the arc current and
voltages before transformer is shown in Table 3.
TABLE 3 : SIMULATION RESULTS

Surge arrester is set Arc current Discharge

at (kA) Voltage (kV)
Before the 9.91 303
transformer
30m away from the 9.91 387.85
transformer

60m away from the 10 409.67

transformer

90m away from the 10 425.53

Fig.9. Model for placing the Surge Arrester 90m transformer
away from the Transformer
Table3 shows the results for different arrester
positions. Surge Arrester is placed 30m, 60m and 90m
away from the transformer. The output voltages
387.5KV, 409.67KV and 425.53KV respectively.
V. CONCLUSION
A detailed proposed model was successfully
presented. As system over voltage is very high, it shows
that the lightning surge can be very dangerous even at
low value of current if there is no surge arrester is in
Fig.10. Output Voltage Waveform for placing operating or used for protection. This over voltage is
the Surge Arrester 90m away from the Transformer reduced by using the Metal-Oxide Surge Arrester. In
the proposed model the distance between arrester and
transformer was set at 90m, 60m and 30m. The
respective output voltages are 425.53KV, 409.67KV

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Vol2. No1. ISSN: 09761349 July Dec 2010

and 387.5KV. According to the simulation results, at

such distances the surge arrester did not work best
because these distances were too far from the
equipment to be protected, making the traveling waves
resound due to the increase in traveling range. Hence
overall results have demonstrated the importance of
having a right location of surge arrester placement. The
best way to prevent surge is to set the best distance, that
is to say, to set the surge arrester as close as possible to
the equipment to be protected, as fail to do so will cause
a significant damage to the equipment.
REFERENCES
[1] N. Mungkung, S. Wongcharoen., Tanes Tanitteerapan, C.
Saejao, D. Arunyasot, Analysis of Lightning Surge
Condition Effect on Surge Arrester in Electrical Power System
by using ATP/EMTP Program, World Academy of Science,
Engineering and Technology 28 2007
[2] IEEE working group 3.4.11 Application of surge protective
devices subcommittee Surge protective devices committee,
Modeling of metal oxide surge arresters, Transactions on
Power Delivery, Vol. 7 No.1, January 1992
[3] M.Z.A. Ab Kadir and A.M. Azmi Impact of Lightning Surge
on Surge Arrester placement in high voltage substation,
Journal of Applied Science 8 (18):3298-3301,2008
[4] M. Z. A. Ab Kadir, J. Sardi, W. F. Wan Ahmad, H. Hizam, J.
Jasni, Evaluation of a 132 kV Transmission Line Performance
via Transient Modelling Approach, European Journal of
Scientific Research ISSN 1450-216X Vol.29 No.4 (2009), pp.
533-539
[5] Jan Takami, member, IEEE, Shigemitsu Okabe, Member,
IEEE, and Eiichi Zaima, Member, IEEE, Study of Lightning
Surge Overvoltages at Substations Due to Direct Lightning
Strokes to Phase Conductors, IEEE Transactions on Power
Delivery, Vol 25, No.1, January 2010.
[6] Extra High Voltage AC Transmission Engineering , Rakosh
Das Begamudre

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