Conference Papers

Advances in Lightning Protection and Grounding Systems for Power Systems

M.M. Drabkln, Lightning Eliminators & Consultants, Inc. Roy B. Carpenter, Jr., Lightning Eliminators & Consultants, Inc.

Paper No 04 A3 0-7803-8298-6/04/$20 00 020041EEE

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Advances in Lightning Protection and Grounding Systems for Power Systems

M M Drabkm and Roy B Carpenter, Jr. Lightning Eliminators & Consultants, Inc Boulder, Colorado, USA
Abstract: Power lines outages caused by lightning present a serious engineering problem. Design of overhead power lines with an acceptable level of lightning protection for regions with high density of lightning flashes and high specific resistivity of the soil can be a challenging task. In many cases, shield wires and lightning arresters are widely used means for this purpose, but do not provide the total compliance with the required number of line outages due to lightning and may be not cost effective. This paper describes an alternative method of lightning protection for overhead power lines. The enhanced zone of protection provided by multi-point lightning protectors installed on the poles instead of shield wires will cover most of the span. Implementation of chemically charged grounding rods together with the multi-point protecton will decrease the number of back flashovers causing the trip off of the line or eliminate them, depending on final earthing resistance.. 1 : Introduction
With the growing importance of the quality of electric power supplied to all categories of customers, industrial, commercial and residential, development of protective systems and devices becomes increasingly critical in improving reliability of electric power. Considerable attention is given to lightning protection of power lines .to achieve acceptably low lightning outage rates. Lightning cloud-to-ground discharges can cause ovewoltage on an overhead power line by either direct stroke into the line or by stroke into the ground or into the nearby object in close vicinity of the line. The higher the nominal system voltage, the less sensitive the line is to the induced overvoltages. In the case of a direct lightning stroke into a power line there are three possibilities to consider, i.e., stroke into phase conductor, stroke into a pole, or a stroke into an overhead shield wire (OHSW) in the span. A stroke into a phase conductor usually trips off a power line because a relatively low magnitude of the lightning current (usually less than 10 kA) is sufficient to produce overvoltage exceeding the lines BIL. This is a common case for power distribution lines, which are built without OHSW. Sub-transmission and transmission power limes are usually built with one or two OHSW. Direct stroke into OHSW requires substantially higher magnitude of the lightning current to produce back flashover. The total number of the power h e insulation flashovers due to lightning is the sum of flashovers caused by indirect strokes and by direct strokes into phase conductors, into poles or into the OHSW close to pole and in vicinity of the middle of a span. Flashovers due to the direct lightning strokes to the OHSW present 90 to 95 percent of the total number of the line flashovers for operating voltages of 13.4 kV or less.

2. Lightning strokes into a pole

When lightning strikes into a pole of the shielded power line the lightning current at the point of attachment is divided into three parts: current flowing downward through the pole into the pole foot resistance, q d currents flowing to the adjacent poles via the OHSW. Assuming 400 Ohms as a typical value for the OHSW surge impedance, the share of the current through the pole will be 50, 80, 95 and 97.5 percent of the total lightning current for the pole footing resistances of 100, 50, 10 and 5 Ohms correspondently. The voltage applied to the line insulation during the lightning current flow through the pole into the foot grounding resistance will be equal to (I): AV = Vp- Vph..

11)

where: V, is the voltage at the pole and V,,., is the voltage at a phase conductor The voltage V, appeared at the pole consists of three components and can be calculated according to the (2) V, = I&

+ bdIddt + MldIddt

(2)

where: I, - the lightning current through the pole, or ground wire Z , - the pole footing surge impedance, - the inductance of the pole, or ground wire MI- the mutual inductance with the lightning channel. II - peak lightning current The voltage VPhhc consists of the working voltage, the voltage induced by the charge in the lightning channel, and the voltage induced by lightning current in the OHSW. Vph.. can be calculated according to (3)

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where: V,,

the average electric field at the ground level produced by the charge of the lightning channel, h, - height of the pole, k, - coefficient of coupling between the OHSW and the phase conductor A back flashover will occur if the voltage AV will exceed the impulse voltage strength of insulation. Table I presents the results of the sample calculation according to (I), (2) and (3) for a case of a 134 kV transmission line. The lightning current was assumed to be equal to 20 kA peak and with front duration equal to I ps, poles average height - 20 m, an average lightning electric field - 10 kV/m. The calculation were performed for three values of the pole foot grounding surge impedances - 100,50, 10 and 5 Ohms.
Table 1: Lightning stroke into a pole of I38 kV power line
,

E, -

- the system maximum working voltage,

The hack flashover and the following line trip off will definitely occur in the case of 100 and 50 Ohms footing surge impedance, because the stress on the line insulation will exceed the BIL of the line (typically 650 kV).

3. Reduction of poles grounding resistance

The sample calculations presented in Table 1 show that the voltage drop across the pole grounding resistance greater than IO Ohms is the dominant component of the total overvoltage caused by the direct lightning stroke the pole. Therefore, reduction of the grounding resistance will decrease the number of the line trips off due to direct strokes into the poles. In regions with high specific soil resistivity ( rocky or sandy grounds) the pole grounding resistance is often has values more than 50 or even in excess of 100 Ohms. Reducing it to the desirable low value using traditional grounding technique is often not possible considering cost and available space. In such cases the installation of the line arresters is usually chosen as an alternative solution [I]. There is, however, available the non-traditional grounding technique including the use of the conductive backfill materials, chemically charged grounding electrodes and combination of both. A conductive bacMiU material is a highly conductive earth substitute that can be placed around any type of the grounding

electrode. It is comprised of either various types of clays, carbon based materials, or blends of both. A chemically charged grounding electrode is a perforated copper tube, 2 to 2.5 inches in diameter, which is filled with a mixture of metallic salts. While the electrode is in the earth, the salts go into solution and seep out of the holes. Adding salts to soil increases its electrolyte content, thus reducing its resistivity and lowering the resistance of the grounding electrode. By surrounding a conventional grounding rod with a conductive backfill, the resistance of the rod can be reduced by approximately 50%. Still much better results can be obtained by using a combination of conductive bacldill and a chemically charged grounding electrode. The measurements of the grounding resistance of a combination of the chemically charge grounding rod with the conductive backfill mixture were conducted under direction of the National Electrical Grounding Resistance Project (NEGRP). Five locations, Chicago, Dallas. Las Vkgas, Virg$nia and Upstate New York, have been chosen and grounding electrodes of 27 different manufacturers have been installed. The resistance measurements have been conducted many times during the year during five-year test. According to the published NEGRFreports, the chemically charge rods had the lowest grounding resistance at every test conducted. The measured values of resistance of the chemically charged rods had also the lowest seasonal variations: the LEC CR-IOproved to be best of all. Because this non-traditional grounding technique creates much more efficient grounding electrodes, they do not require large area required by the conventional grounding rods or counterpoise. For example, in [ I ) the median earth specific resistivity was 531 Ohm-meter, and the median pole fwting resistance was 128 Ohms after the footing resistance was improved by driving either two or four additional conventional ground rods. The further improvement was limited due to the unavailability of space and high rock content in soil. The cost of non-traditional grounding methods is substantially lower than the cost of line lightning arresters. Using [I] as an example to compare costs, lightning arresters for three phases at one pole would cost about $USD 7,500, while using two chemically charged ground rods in conductive backfill would cost about $USD 1,300. The installation cost of lightning arresters includes time for a skilled lineman plus the probable necessity of bucket truck or other lifting equipment. The installation cost of the non-traditional grounding includes the time for a semi-skilled labor plus the use of a truck-mounted auger. Therefore, the installation cost also favors the non-traditional grounding methods. Overall, when combining both material and installation cost, the financial impact greatly favors improving lightning performance of

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power lines by .lowering footing resistance rather than installing the lightning arresters. The higher specific soil resistivity, the greater is the cost saving.

4. Multi-point lightning protector

Another cost effective way of reducing the number of the lightning induced into a power line tripouts is the use of the multi-point lightning protectors (An Ion Plasma Generator, IPG) installed on the poles of a power lines. The typical I P G is shown on Firmre 1

at vicinity of the IPG pushing the most of the voltage into the part of the air gap free of the space charge. The space charge produced by the IFG reduces the electric field below the IPG location, which leads to increasing the zone of protection compared to the zone of protection provided by a lightning rod installed at the same height. The comparative calculation of the protection for a lightning rod and IPG was performed by application of the rolling sphere method, which is widely used for this pupose a s , for an example, in [Z]. The radius of the protection zone at the ground level for the IPG can be calculated according to (4)

R,pC,o = J(h

R;,)(Nk)

-h2

\\\\

(4)

where: h - height of the installed IPG or lightning rod d,, - striking distance, determined by the peak of the lightning current in return stroke N - number of splines (points) of the 1PG k - shielding coefficient, R..o - radius of the protection zone at the ground level for the lightning rod of height h, calculated according to (5)

Rr . = ~

(5)

Rgwe I : Multi-point lightning prO(ect0~

IPG consists of many long thin metal splines wth

sharpened tip welded to the central rod and bended in such a manner as to produce a hemisphere. Having many points instead of just one as in the case of a conventional lightning rod substantially increases the device ability of intercepting the lightning strokes. Because of enhancement of the external electric field developed under influence of the charges in thunderstorm clouds, the corona current initiated from the I P G starts at relatively low value of the external elechic field. A space charge produced by the IPG has sufficient time to propagate for tens of meter inside the P G and the thundercloud cell. gap between the I The appearance of the local space charge with radius of several meters or even several tens of meter causes rhe redistribution of the electric field along the air gap. The space charge smoothes the electric field distribution

Installation of IPG of the appropriate height on the poles of a power lines can be considered as a sound alternative to using OHSW. The combination of the I P G with lowering footing resistance by the nonconventional grounding methods can be one of the least expensive and very technically effective method of achieving the total compliance of the power line lightning performance with the acceptable number of trips off due to lightning. For the power lines with the average length of the span about 150 m the IPG can effectively replace the OHSW without any reduction in the provided level of the line shielding from direct lightning stroke. Of course, other aspects of the power system performance have to be considered in making such a design decision.

4. Conclusion
The lowering of the footing resistance by implementation of the non-traditional grounding methods as well as installation on poles of the IPG can result in reduction of power line trips off due to lightning. The best technical and economical results can be achieved by combination of these proposed methods.

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This concept has been demonstrated at several locations within the USA and Ireland.

5. References
[I] T.A.Shon. et al.,"Applicationof Surge Arrestors to I15 kV Circuit" 1996 IEEUPES Conference Roceedings, pp. 276-282 [Zl IEEE Std 1243 -1997 IEEE Guide for Improving the Lightning Performance of Transmission Lines

Author address: M a r k M. Drabkin, Ph. D, P.E., and Roy B. Carpenter, Jr., Chief Technologist, Lightning Eliminators & Consultants, Inc., 6687 Arapahoe Rd., Boulder, Colorado, 80303, USA

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