Simulation of Lightning Transients on 110 kV

overhead-cable transmission line using ATP-EMTP

Kresimir Fekete
1
, Srete Nikolovski
2
, Goran Knezevi
3
,

Marinko Stojkov
4
, Zoran Kova
5

#
Power System Department, Faculty of Electrical Engineering Osijek
K. Trpimira 2B, 31000 Osijek, Croatia
1
kresimir.fekete@etfosr.hr
2
srete.nikolovski@etfos.hr
*
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Slavonski Brod
I. B. Maurani 2, 35000 Sl. Brod, Croatia
4
marinko.stojkov@gmail.com
Croatian Transmission System Operator
K. Franje Shepera 1A, 31000 Osijek, Croatia
5
zoran.kovac@hep.hr

AbstractDue to construction of a highway in the eastern part
of Croatia, a new 110/x kV substation was built with two parallel
connecting underground cables. Cables were connected to
already existing 110 kV overhead lines. At the place where the
transition between overhead lines and cables is made, surge
arresters were installed. In this paper lightning stroke at the
grounding wire on the overhead line and its impact on
underground cables were studied. Transient program
Electromagnetic Transients Program (ATP-EMTP) is used to
create a model of the system and to perform simulation of the
transient process during lightning stroke. The results of the
simulation are briefly presented and discussed in the paper.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the process of designing new facilities in the power
system (substations, cables, overhead lines etc.), lightning
overvoltages are important from the viewpoint of the
insulation and surge arrester coordination. Due to construction
of the highway in the eastern part of Croatia, a new 110/x kV
substation was built with two parallel connecting underground
cables as well. Cables were connected to already existing 110
kV overhead lines. A more detail presentation of the system is
presented in Chapter II. At the place where the transition
between overhead lines and cables is made, surge arresters
were installed. In order to make surge arrester coordination it
is necessary to investigate the impact of lightning
overvoltages.
It is very hard to observe the lightning overvoltages
experimentally, and thus a numerical simulation is used to
investigate it. The EMTP has been widely used for the time
domain transient solution. It was first developed at Bonneville
Power Administration (B.P.A.) from Dommels basic work
[1]. Nearly all system components can be represented by built-
in elements in ATP-EMTP like overhead lines with line and
ground wires and towers as well as underground cables [2]. In
this paper ATP-EMTP is used to create a model of the power
system and to simulate lightning stroke at the grounding wire
on the overhead line and its impact on underground cables and
surge arresters.
The structure of this paper is as follows: first, a brief
explanation, regarding the part of the transmission system
where the new substation and cables are built, is given. The
main features of the ATP-EMTP model and method are
explained in Chapter III. In Chapter IV, simulation and results
are presented. Based on the results, the conclusion is given in
the last chapter.
II. DESCRIPTION OF THE POWER SYSTEM
The part of the Eastern Croatian transmission system that is
studied in this paper is shown in Fig.1. The new substation TS
110/20 kV Djakovo 3 is supplied from two substations TS
220/110 kV Djakovo and TS 400/110 kV Ernestinovo. The
new substation is modelled only with passive load. At the
place where overhead line and cable are connected, ABB
Pexlim Q surge arresters are installed.


Fig. 1. Single line diagram representing the part of the transmission system
that is studied
Parameters of the 110 kV overhead lines which are made of
Al/Fe conductors with cross sections 240/40 mm
2,
and
underground cables type NEXANS which has a cross section
of 1000 mm
2
are shown in Table I.

978-1-4244-5794-6/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE 856
TABLE I
PARAMETERS OF THE OVERHEAD LINES AND CABLES
Overhead line
Conductor type Series resistance
(/km)
Series inductance
(mH/km)
1 conductor/phase,
240/40 Al/St
0.1188 1.0565
Underground cable
Conductor type Series resistance
(/km)
Series inductance
(mH/km)
Al 0.0251 0.346

All necessary data about the power system have been
obtained from the Croatian Electric Utility HEP
Transmission System Operator. The cable is presented in Fig.
2, and its model in the ATP-EMTP model for cables and
overhead lines is presented in Fig 2.









Fig. 2. Dialog box for cable/line model in ATP-EMTP
A more detailed explanation about overhead lines, tower
construction, and surge arresters is presented in the following
chapters.
III. ATP-EMTP MODEL AND METHOD
The modeling method for the back flashover analysis used
in this paper is based upon various publications in this field
[3], [4]. In this chapter the model of tower, transmission line,
underground cable, surge arrester and lightning current will be
explained.


A. Tower
The height of 110 kV tower used in this paper is 31.9 m.
The layout of one typical 110 kV tower is shown in Fig. 3.
The distances are given in meters.


Fig. 3. Layout of a typical 110 kV tower
The tower is represented by four lossless Constant-
Parameter Distributed Line (CPDL) models [5] as illustrated
in Fig. 4, where

Z
t1
tower top to the upper phase = upper phase to middle
phase = middle phase to lower
Z
t4
lower phase to tower bottom.

CPDL model is characterized by surge impedances Z and
travelling time . Values of surge impedances are [3]: Z
t1
=
220 and Z
t4
= 150 . Distance between top of the tower
(grounding wire GW) and the tower bottom is h = h
1
and h
2
,
h
3
and h
4
are distances between ground and phases starting
with upper phase respectively.
The propagation velocity of a travelling wave along a
tower is taken to be equal to the light velocity, c
0
= 300 m/s
[3]. The tower travelling time is given by the following
equation:

0
h
c
=

(1)
Because footing impedance is represented by a linear
resistance (R
f
) it is recommended to take into account
frequency-dependent effects for wave propagation along the
tower. It is done by adding an RL parallel circuit to each part,
857
as shown in Fig. 4 in order to represent travelling wave
attenuation and distortion [3].


Fig. 4. A model circuit of a 110 kV tower
The values of resistance (R) and inductance (L) are defined
in the following equations [3]:

; 2
i i i i i
R R x L R = =
(2)
( )
1
1 2 3
4 1
2 1
ln
t
Z
R R R
h x

= = =

(3)
4
4
4
2 1
ln
t
Z
R
h

=



(4)
where:

1
=
4
= 0.89 attenuation along the tower.

Values for resistance (R) and inductance (L) in our study
are: R
1
= 15.54 , R
2
= 17.66 , R
3
= 15.9 , R
4
= 33.48 ,
L
1
= 3.285 mH, L
2
= 3.733 mH, L
3
= 3.36 mH and L
4
= 7.076
mH.
A tower footing impedance is modelled as a simple linear
resistance R
f
= 10 .
B. Number of Towers
Five towers of a part of a line route to substation TS
400/110 kV Ernestinovo and five towers of a part of line route
to substation TS 220/110 kV Djakovo are represented
including all line circuits. The total number of towers is ten.
Direct lightning stroke at the grounding wire to tower #2 is
analysed. Fig. 5 represents the model of only one part of the
analysed power system.

Fig. 5. Part of the ATP-EMTP model of the analysed system
858
C. Arrester
In order to protect cable from lightning overvoltages zinc
oxide surge arresters ABB Pexlim Q are installed at the place
where overhead lines and cables are connected. In the model
used in this study nonlinear branch model is used with its
input V-I characteristic to represent surge arrester. Protective
V-I characteristic [6] of surge arrester is illustrated in Fig. 6.



Fig. 6. Protective V-I characteristic of a surge arrester
D. Transmission Lines and Cables
The parameters of transmission lines and cables with
ground return are highly dependent on the frequency.
Accurate modelling of this frequency dependence over the
entire frequency range of the signals is of essential importance
for the correct simulation of electromagnetic transients [7].
Models which assume constant parameters (e.g. at 50 Hz)
cannot adequately simulate the response of the line over wide
range of frequencies that are present during transient condition.
In most cases constant-parameter representation produces a
magnification of the higher harmonics of the signals and, as a
consequence, a general distortion of the wave shapes and
exaggerated magnitude peaks [7].
ATP-EMTP offers possibility to use various frequency-
dependent line models [5]. In this paper J. Marti frequency-
dependent line model [7] is used to represent overhead
transmission lines and cables. The grounding wire is
represented like a phase wire, which is connected to the top of
the towers.
E. Lightning Current and Impedance
The lightning stroke is modelled by a current source and a
parallel resistance, which represents the lightning path
impedance as shown in Fig. 7.


Fig. 7. Lightning stroke model consisting of a current source and lightning
path impedance
The Heidlers function [8] is used to represent lightning
current waveform:

2
( / ) 0 1
1
( / )
( )
( / ) 1
n
t
n
I t
i t e
t

=
+

(5)
where:
1/
1 2 2 1
( / )( / )
n
e

=
(6)
and:
I
0
= lightning current peak;

1
= time constant determining current rise-time;

2
= time constant determining current decay-time;
n = current steepness factor.

In this paper values for Heidlers function parameters are as
follows: I
0
= 100 kA,
1
= 1.2 s,
2
= 61.7 s and n = 7. Fig. 8
shows the lightning current waveform used in this paper.


Fig. 8. Lightning current waveform used in this paper
The impedance of a lightning path is represented as a
parallel resistance to a current source. The resistance value is
taken to be 400 , which was derived by Bewley [9].



859
IV. SIMULATION AND RESULTS
The simulation is performed in order to investigate proper
work of the surge arrester when a lightning stroke at tower #2
has appeared. As mentioned before, the lightning current peak
used in the simulation is 100 kA. The simulation time
parameters are:
- simulation time T
max
= 0.001 s,
- simulation step T = 1E-8 s.

Results of the simulation will be presented in the following.
A. Voltage at the Point of the Lightning Stroke
Fig. 9 presents overvoltage at the point of lightning stroke
i.e. at the grounding wire of the tower #2. The peak value of
the overvoltage is 6 MV.

Fig. 9. Voltage at the point of lightning stroke on grounding wire
Lightning surges that are induced on the phase conductors
due to back flashover across 110 kV insulator strings are
shown in Fig. 10. As it can be observed, the highest
overvoltage peak (i.e. 5 MV) is induced at phase A, which is
closed to the grounding wire. Induced overvoltages on phases
B and C are almost the same (peak value is 2 MV).


Fig. 10. Voltage at phase wires of the affected tower
B. Voltage and Current of Surge Arrester
At the point where surge arresters are installed, voltage and
current are computed. Fig. 11 shows voltage at the point
where surge arresters are installed. It is important to notice
that only results for surge arresters that are installed between
cable 1 and overhead transmission line from TS 110/20 kV
Djakovo 3 to TS 400/110 kV Ernestinovo are taken into
consideration in this paper. The reason for this is the location
of the lightning stroke. The influence of the lightning stroke
on the second surge arrester that is installed between cable 2
and overhead line to TS 220/110 kV Djakovo is disregarded in
this paper. As can be observed from the Fig. 11, the maximum
voltage between phases and ground is 100 kV.


Fig. 11. Voltage at the point where surge arresters are installed
Currents of surge arresters in the moment when it lead the
current are shown in Fig. 12. The highest peak value has
phase A because overvoltage of phase A is the highest (see
Fig. 9). It can be observed that surge arresters worked
according to their input V-I characteristics and in that way
protecting underground cables from surges, which will be
shown in the following subchapter.


Fig. 12. Current of surge arresters
860
C. Voltage at the end of Cable 1
It can be seen in Fig. 13 that during a transient process
there are no dangerous overvoltages at the end of cable 1. The
maximum value of voltage is 80 kV.

Fig. 13. Voltage at the end of the cable 1
It was interesting to see the value of induced voltage on the
grounded shield for cables which are grounded at both ends, at
the tower where the overhead line enters into the ground and
at the grounding network in TS 110 kV Djakovo 3. The cable
shield is grounded at four places in the buried track and is
connected to copper wire with resistance R=0.0665 ohm and
inductance L=0.23 mH.
The induced voltage on the cable shield at TS Djakovo 3 is
presented in Fig. 14. It is less than 50 V and does not present
any security problems.


Fig. 14. Induced voltage on the grounding shield of cable





V. CONCLUSION
A flashover analysis has been performed for a 110 kV
overhead line which is connected to 110 kV underground
cables. Between the overhead line and cable, a surge arrester
is installed. The cable shield is well grounded at both ends of
the cables with a copper wire. The function of the surge
arrester and influence of the lightning stroke on a cable are
observed. As simulation results indicate if a surge arrestor
works properly there will be no dangerous overvoltage
affecting the underground cable shield.
Further work on this study will be based on different
lightning current waveforms, like CIGRE concave waveform
[10]. Also, the influence of different stroke locations, tower
structures and the cable length, as well as a detailed influence
of lightning stroke on the grounding system and cable shield
are interesting subjects for further analysis.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Authors wish to acknowledge Laszlo Prikler for his
contribution in developing the model of overhead
transmission line and tower in EMTP. The paper is supported
by the Croatian Transmission System Operator HEP TSO
Osijek.
REFERENCES
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Transients in Single-and Multiphase Networks, IEEE Trans. Power
Apparaturs and Systems, vol. PAS-88, pp. 388399, April 1969.
[2] H. W. Dommel, EMTP Theory Book, Bonneville Power Administration,
conversion into electronic format by Canadian/American EMTP Users
Group in 1995.
[3] A. Ametani, and T. Kawamura, A Method of a Lightning Surge
Analysis Recommended in Japan Using EMTP, IEEE Trans. On
Power Delivery, vol. 20, No 2, pp. 867875, April 2005.
[4] M. Kizilcay, and C. Neumann, Analysis of Backflashover Across 110-
kV Insulator Strings of a Multi-circuit Transmission Tower, in Proc.
European EMTP-ATP Meeting 2006, pp. 115-127, 2006.
[5] Canadian/American EMTP User Group, ATP Rule Book, Distributed
by the European EMTP-ATP Users Group Association, 2005.
[6] ABB documents 1HSM 9543 13-01en Edition Protection
characteristic of surge arrester PEXLIM-Q2, 2004.
[7] J.R. Marti, Accurate Modeling of Frequency-dependent Transmission
Lines in Electromagnetic Transient Simulations, IEEE Trans. Power
Apparaturs and Systems, vol. PAS-101, No 1, pp. 147157, January
1982.
[8] F. Heidler, J.M. Cveticand B.V. Stanic, Calculation of Lightning
Current Parameters, IEEE Trans. On Power Delivery, vol. 14, No 2,
pp. 399597, April 1999.
[9] B. V. Bewly, Travelling Waves on Transmission Systems, New York:
Dover, 1963.
[10] CIGRE WG 33-01, Guide to Procedures for Estimating the Lightning
Performance of Transmission Lines, Technical Brochure, October,
1991.

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