www.ijape.

orgInternationalJournalofAutomationandPowerEngineering(IJAPE)Volume2Issue4,May2013
234
AMethodofCalculatingtheCharacteristic
ParametersofLightningOvervoltage
JianshengLi,JunLiang
SchoolofElectricalEngineering,ShandongUniversity,JinanCity,ShandongProvince,China
Email:lijiansheng@mail.sdu.edu.cn

Abstract
In order to protect the equipments and make rules for
lightning protections, its essential to record accurate
lightningovervoltagewaves.Theuseofserialreactorswhich
are intended to limit large current brings new problems for
measuring the lightning overvoltage. This paper analyzes
the change of the lightning overvoltage through the serial
reactor and the bus, and concludes that the overvoltage at
the entrance of the transformer cant reflect the invasion
voltage of the substation well. In review of the position of
the arrester in the substation, a method for calculating the
lightning overvoltage is presented by using the leakage
current of the arrester, and reverse iterative method is put
forward in the calculation of the PINCETI model. The
leakage current of 110kV arrester is simulated with ATP
EMTP and the amplitude and steepness of the lightning
overvoltage are calculated, which verified the effectiveness
oftheproposedmethod.
Keywords
MOA; Lightning Overvoltage; Leakage Current; Nonlinear
Resistance;ReverseIterativeMethod
I nt r oduc t i on
With the development of power system, the height of
the overhead transmission lines continues to increase
and the possibility that power outages are caused by
lightning is also increasing. Accurate lightning
overvoltage waveforms can help us to analyze the
reason of accidents, and improve insulation
coordination[12].
There are a few ways to get invaded overvoltage
waveforms,buttheyhavesomedefects.PTsandCVTs
dont have excellent transient characteristics [3],
capacitancedividersmaybringpotentialdangers[45],
extravoltagesensorsmaycausethegroundlinebreak
[6], and the method that the voltage is calculated
according to leakage current doesnt reflect the
invadedvoltage[7].
The use of serial reactors can limit short circuit
currents, while they change the propagation
characteristics. This paper analyzes the influence of
bus and serial reactors and simulates it using ATP
EMTP.
MOA (Metal Oxide Arrester) are widely used in
power system to limit overvoltage and protect
electrical equipments for its excellent performance.
Because the arrester is the first equipment that the
overvoltage goes through, a method to calculate
lightning overvoltage using the leakage current is
presented and is verified by ATPEMTP simulation
results.
The Pr opagat i on of Over vol t age I n St at i on
The capacitive and inductive equipments, the
distributedcapacitanceofequipmentsandthemutual
capacitance between equipments can impact on the
spreadofthelightningovervoltage[89].
1)TheEffectofCapacitance

(A)THESCHEMATICDIAGRAMOFLIGHTNING
OVERVOLTAGETHROUGHCAPACITANCE

(b)Theequivalentcircuit
FIG.1PROMULGATIONCHARACTERISTICSOFLIGHTNING
OVERVOLTAGEWAVEATTHESHUNTCAPACITOR
AsshowninFig.1,whenthelightningovervoltage
passes the capacitor C, according to Peterson Law,
the refracted voltage can be calculated from
InternationalJournalofAutomationandPowerEngineering(IJAPE)Volume2Issue4,May2013www.ijape.org
235
formula(1):
/ 2
2 2 2 1
1 2
2
(1 )
t T
q q q
Z
u i Z u e
Z Z

= =
+

1
Where:
1 2 1 2
/ ( ) T Z Z C Z Z = + .
2)TheEffectofInductance

ATHESCHEMATICDIAGRAMOFLIGHTNING
OVERVOLTAGETHROUGHINDUCTANCE

BTHEEQUIVALENTCIRCUIT
FIG.2PROMULGATIONCHARACTERISTICSOFLIGHTNING
OVERVOLTAGEWAVETHROUGHSERIALINDUCTOR
When the lightning overvoltage passes the serial
inductor L, the refracted voltage can be calculated
accordingtoformula(2)
/ 2
2 2 2 1
1 2
2
(1 )
t T
q q q
Z
u i Z u e
Z Z

= =
+

2
Where:

1 2
/ ( ) T L Z Z = + .
3)ATPEMTPSimulation
Amodelof110kVsubstationisbuiltasFig.3[10].It
has three lines and Line3 has serial reactor L.
Where: the reactor L=3H and the distributed
capacitance of the bus C=0.006F. Line 3 is struck
at0.001sandthevoltagewaveformsmonitoredare
presentedinFig.4.(uaisthevoltageatarresterand
utisatthebolsterofthetransformer).

FIG.3THESCHEMEOFA500KVSUBSTATION

FIG.4THELIGHTNINGOVERVOLTAGEWAVEATTHE
POSITIONOFTHEARRESTERANDTHETRANSFORMER
In Fig.4, the voltage waveforms are very different
in amplitude and steepness monitored at the two
placesandthevoltageatthebolstercantreflectthe
invaded voltage of the substation. So, a method to
calculate the characteristic parameters using
leakagecurrentofMOAisposted.
Cal c ul at i on of t he Char ac t er i st i c Par ame-
t er s of Li ght ni ng Over vol t age
The amplitude and steepness are the most important
parameters of lightning overvoltage, which can direct
to analyze the cause of malfunction and make
protectionrules.Theleakagecurrentcanbemeasured
by current sensors and a method named reverse
iterativemethodispostedtocalculateovervoltage.
1)TheMeasurementofLeakageCurrent
As shown in Fig.5, the system includes three parts
[1115]: current sensor, data acquisition and
transmission module and data analysis module.
When the voltage across arrester is too high, the
leakage current gets high and the relationship
between voltage e measured by secondary coil
induced in coil and the leakage current can be
calculatedasformula(3)(4)
0
2
NS d dB di
e NS
dt dt r dt

t
= = = - 3
0
2 r
i edt
NS
t

=
}
4
Where:
evoltageinducedinthesecondarycoil;
ileakagecurrent;
Nturnsofsecondarycoil;
Bfluxdensityaroundthegroundline;
Sareaofsecondarycoil;
rradiusofsecondarycoil;
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236

fluxinsecondarycoil;
0

permeabilityofair.

FIG.5ONLINEMONITORINGSYSTEMOFLEAKAGECURRENT
OFARRESTER
2)MOAModels
Two models of MOA are shown in Fig.6, IEEE
model and PINCETI model. The parameters of
IEEE model are more difficult to determine, and
the parameters of PINCETI model onlydepend on
test parameters [1618]. In this paper, the
overvoltage across the arrester is calculated on the
baseofPINCETImodel.

aIEEEModel

bPINCETModel
FIG.6SIMPLIFIEDMODELOFZINCOXIDEARRESTERS
In PINCETI model, R equals 1M; The u~i
characteristics of nonlinear resistances A0 and A1
are shown in Fig.7; To calculate L0 and L1,
equations(5)(6)canbeused:
1 1/ 2 8/20 8/20
1
( )[( )/ ( )]
4
r T r r n
L U U U U =
5
0 1/ 2 8/20 8/20
1
( )[( )/( )]
12
r T r r n
L U U U U =
6
Ur1/T2representstheresidualvoltageat10kAfast
front current surge (r1/T2s); Ur8/20 represents
theresidualvoltageat10kAfastfrontcurrentsurge
withar8/20sshape;Unistheratedvoltageofthe
arrester.

FIG.7THECHARACTERISTICSOFA0ANDA1(THEVOLTAGEIS
INP.U.REFERREDTOTHEVR8/20)
3)TheMathematicalModeloftheArrester
In PINCETI model, equations (7)(11) can reflect
the relationship between the voltage across the
arresterandtheleakagecurrent.
0 0 0
( ) u f i =
7
1 1 1
( ) u f i =
8
1
1 0 1
di
L u u
dt
=
9
0 1
0 0
( ) d i i
L u u
dt
+
=
10
0 1
u
i i i
R
= + +
11
Where: f0 f1 represent the u~i function of
nonlinear resistances A0 and A1; u is the wanted
variable.
4TheCalculationofVoltage
A method named reverse iterative method is put
forwardinordertocalculatethevoltage.Thebasic
ideaofreverseiterationmethodis:inFig.8,ifxand
y has the same variation, y has only one value in
correspondwithx.Accordingtotheerrorsbetween
calculated and measured data, a penalty factor is
introducedandycanberecalculateduntiltheerror
iswithintheallowablerange.

FIG.8THECIRCUITCONTAININGNONLINEARRESISTANCE
InternationalJournalofAutomationandPowerEngineering(IJAPE)Volume2Issue4,May2013www.ijape.org
237
InFig.9,frepresentsthefunctionbetweentheinput
and output data. If f is monotonous, x has one
valuetosatisfythatyequalsyref[19].

FIG.9ANALYSISOFBACKWARDSITERATIVEMETHOD
In Fig.6 (b), if i1 increases, i also increases. The
parameters in PINCETI model can be calculated
usingreverseiterativemethod.
At any time k, the specific solution steps are as
follows.
Divideu~icurvesofA0andA1intonsegments,
discrete formulas (9)~(11) and assume that each
segmentislinear.
Assign i1 an initial value i1(k) and determine
which segment i1(k) belongs to. If i1(k) belongs to
m1,thenthevoltageacrosstheresistanceA1is
1 1 1 1 10 1
1 10 1 11 1 10 1 11 1 10
( ) ( ( )) ( ( )
) ( ) / ( )
m
m m m m m
u k f i k u i k
i u u i i
= = +
-
12
Where: i1m10u1m10i1m11u1m11
representthestartandtheendofsegmentm1.
Calculate voltages across the nonlinear resistor
A0andtheinductorL1:
1 1
1 1
( ) ( 1)
( )
L
i k i k
u k L
t

=
A
13
0 1 1
( ) ( ) ( )
L
u k u k u k = +
14
Ifu0(k)belongstom0,thecurrentthroughA0is
0 0 00 0 0 00
0 01 0 00 0 01 0 00
( ) ( ( ) )
( ) / ( )
m m
m m m m
i k i u k u
i i u u
= + -

15
Where: i0m00u0m00i0m01u0m01
representthestartandtheendofsegmentm0.
CalculatethecurrentthroughL0andthevoltage
acrossL0:
0 0 1
( ) ( ) ( )
L
i k i k i k = +
16
0 0
0 0
( ) ( 1)
( )
L
i k i k
u k L
t

=
A
17
Calculatelightningvoltageu
0 0
( ) ( ) ( )
L
u k u k u k = +
18
Calculateleakagecurrent
0
( ) ( ) ( ) / i k i k u k R = +
19
Iftheerrorbetweeni(k)andiref(k)isnotwithin
the allowable range, according to equation (20),
correct i1(k), and repeat the above calculation
processes until the error is small. Where is the
penaltyfactor.
1 1
( ) ( ) ( ( ) ( ))
ref
i k i k i k i k o = + -
20
Thevalueuinprocessiswhatwewant.
EMTP Si mul at i on
1)ParametersofArrester
A 110kV transmission system is simulated using
ATPEMTP. The type of MOA is Y10W5100/248,
andits electrical characteristicsare shown in Tab.1
[20].(voltagesareinkV)
TAB.1MEASUREDELECTRICALPARAMETERSOFMOA:Y10W5
100/248
Un Ur U
c
U30/60,0.5k
A
U45/90,0.5k
A
U45/90,1k
A
U45/90,2k
A
11
0
10
0
7
3
211 203 213 217

U8/20,5k
A
U8/20,10k
A
U8/20,20k
A
U4/10,40k
A
U4/10,65k
A
U1/5,10k
A
231 248 272 316 365 273
In Tab.1, Un is the rated voltage of the system; Ur
is the rated voltage of MOA; Uc is the continuous
operatingvoltageofMOA;Ur1/T2,Iamprepresents
theresidualvoltageforsurgecurrentimpulsewith
Iampamplitudeandr1/T2sshape.
ThecharacteristicsofA0andA1inPINCETImodel
areinTab.2.
TAB.2VACHARACTERISTICSOFA0,A1
I/kA 0.01 0.1 1 2 4
U/kV 217.0 238.0 260.4 269.7 279.0
190.5 199.0 210.8 221.6 229.4

6 8 10 12 14 16
282.1 289.9 294.5 299.1 305.3 310.0
232.5 237.2 240.3 241.9 245.0 246.5
2)Results
After the line was struck by lightning, the arrester
discharged to release lightning energy. And the
leakagecurrentmeasuredisshowninFig.10.
www.ijape.orgInternationalJournalofAutomationandPowerEngineering(IJAPE)Volume2Issue4,May2013
238

FIG.10THELEAKAGECURRENTOFTHEARRESTER
In Fig.11, the voltages calculated and measured
across the arrester in shown (blue dotted line
represents the calculated data and the red line
representsthemeasureddata).

FIG.11THECOMPARISONBETWEENTHECALCULATEDDATA
ANDTHETRUEDATA
The two parameters amplitude and steepness of
the lightning overvoltage are in Tab.3. The
steepnessisrepresentedbythetimeofrise.
TAB.3THECOMPARISONOFTHECHARACTERISTICSBETWEENTHE
CALCULATEDDATAANDTHETRUE
Calculated
data
Measured
data
Error
Amplitud
e
2.267610
5
V 2.273310
5
V 0.25%
Time of
rise
3.50510
4
s 3.50310
4
s 0.057
%
In Tab.3, the parameters of the lightning
overvoltage can be calculated correctly with the
methodpresentedinthispaper.
Conc l usi on
Thispapersimulatesandanalyzestheimpactofserial
reactor and bus, and concludes that the voltage at
bolter of transformers cant reflect the lightning
overvoltage invaded; In order to calculate the
lightning overvoltage, a method named reverse
iteration method is posted; The voltage calculated
with this method is very similar to the real voltage,
andthismethodisverifiedeffective.
The method presented in this paper can calculate the
amplitude and steepness of the lightning overvoltage
correctly, which is helpful to analyze malfunction
reasonandmakeprotectionmeasures.
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Jiansheng Li was born in China in 1986 and received B.S.

degree in electrical engineering form Shandong University,
China in 2008. Currently, he is doing research in Shandong
University as a graduate student. His research interests
include power transformer monitoring, arrester monitoring
andconditionmaintenance.