Lightning Protection of 1000 kV AC Power

Transmission Lines and Substations

1

Ria Agnes Jose, 2Ane Mary Xavier, 3Anjana Augustine k, 4Fincy johny,5Lakshmi V.P, 6Reshma V.D, 7T.D.Subha
1,2,3,4,5,6
VI Semester B.Tech, 7Assistant Professor,
Holy Grace Academy of Engineering, Mala,
1
riaagnesjose@gmail.com
7
tdsubha2010@gmail.com

AbstractIn combination with characteristics of the

lightning performance of UHV power transmission lines
and on analysing the experiences and lessons relating
excessively high lightning trip-out rate on 1000 kV
transmission lines in Japan and we have put forward
that one of the critical points in the key technical
research on 1000kV transmission lines in China should
be the reduction of lightning fault rate, and definitely
present the prevention of shielding failure flashover as
the main orientation in the research on lightning
protection.
The paper presents that the reduction of ground wire
shieldangle and distance of the gap with an appropriate
length is an important measure for reducing shielding
failure trip-out rate of 1000kV transmission lines.
Therefore, it is particularly necessary to pay attention
to the shieldingfailure flashover of the lines in
mountainous areas withbigger inclination of ground
along the lines. In this paper,authors introduce the
ground wire shield angles used forUHV transmission
lines in plain and mountainous areas inChina as well as
the operation situation of UHVtransmission lines in
China in recent two and a half years.Lightning trip-out
faults have never occurred up to the present time in
Chinas UHV transmission lines, thuspreliminarily
showing a good lightning performance.
The authors also introduce the method and principle
usedfor calculating lightning inrush overvoltage to
UHVsubstations in China and put forward that the
concurrentadoption of measures of both reducing the
maximumlightning current of shielding failure at the
incoming linesection and optimizing the arrangement of
lightningarresters to restrict the lightning inrush
overvoltage tosubstations, thus either meeting the
demand of restrictingovervoltage and reducing the
quantity of MOAs used.
Keywords-UHV, power transmission line, substation,
Lightning, intruding wave, overvoltage, 1000kV

1. LIGHTNINGPERFORMANCE OF UHV
POWER TRANSMISSION LINES
A. Features
The main two features in the lightning performance
ofUHV transmission lines1) The level of insulation
of UHVtransmission lines is high, sopossibility of
striking overhead ground wire and the topof towers to
result in the occurrence of back flashoverfailuresare

very less; 2) The height of towers for UHV

transmission
Lines is very high, therefore it is easy to result in
shieldingfailures.The operating experiences of UHV
transmission linesin the former Soviet Union
indicated that lightningstrip-out was the major cause
of transmission linestrip-out. During the period from
1985 to1994, the number of lightning trip-out on
UHVtransmission lines was 16, constituting 84% of
the totalnumber of strip-out. However, the major
reason causinglightning strip-out is that conductors
were strickendirectly by lightning strokes with
shielding failures. Theshield angle of ground wire in
the former Soviet UnionsUHV transmission lines
was excessively big (more than20), thus resulting in
excessively high strip-out rate oflightning shielding
failures .
The 1000kV transmission line in Japan is thedoublecircuit line on the same tower, which has
beenoperating at the voltage of 500kV. From 1993
when itwas put into operation to September 2007, a
total numberof 68 trip-out faults occurred on the
transmission line,among which 67 faults belong to
lightning trip-out,constituting 98% of the total tripout faults. This indicatesthat lightning shielding
failures are the main cause of thelightning trip-out
faults on UHV transmission lines,and the lightning
trip-out rate of UHV transmission linesis up to 0.94
times/100km-year in Japan (calculated withthe length
of double-circuit transmission line on the same
tower). One of the important reasons lies at the arcing
horns with a shorter gap distance (5.9m) used
forinsulator strings of transmission lines.Data
recorded by Chinas lightning locators indicate that
about 90% of the lightning trip-out faults on
500kVtransmission lines in China are resulted from
shieldingfailures.With still higher insulation level for
UHV transmissionlines, it will be more obvious that
the cause of lightningtrip-out is mainly shielding
failures. Therefore, when UHV transmission lines are
Constructed in China, lessons of the former Soviet
Unionand Japan should be specially drawn in this
aspect inorder to prevent conductors to be stricken by
lightning shielding failure.