IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 27, NO.

4, OCTOBER 2012

1991

Effect of Externally Gapped Line Arrester Placement on Insulation Coordination of a Twin-Circuit 220 kV Line
Thinh H. Pham, Steven A. Boggs, Fellow, IEEE, Hironori Suzuki, Member, IEEE, and Toshiya Imai
AbstractApplication of externally gapped lightning arresters (EGLAs) to a twin circuit 220 kV transmission line was simulated using Alternative Transients Program/Electromagnetic Transients Program. The lightning current to the tower top as well as to phase conductors was estimated using the electrogeometric model. Increasing the number of phases on which EGLAs were installed in one circuit reduces the likelihood of back ashover. Installing EGLAs on the three phases of one circuit has two advantages, viz., 1) eliminating double circuit outages and 2) preventing lightning-induced back ashovers for strikes to the tower top 200 kA. However, EGLAs on one circuit cannot improve lightning performance related to the shielding failure when the unprotected circuit is hit. EGLA duty varied little with the number of phases on which EGLAs were installed, which indicates that the required EGLA rating is unlikely to depend on the number of phases on which EGLAs are installed. Index TermsElectromagnetic Transients Program/Alternative Transients Program (EMTP)/(ATP), externally gapped line arrester (EGLA), insulation coordination, transmission line.

I. INTRODUCTION IGHTNING performance is one of the most important aspects of transmission line design, as most transmission line outages are caused by lightning. Lightning can strike the shielding wire (mid-span or tower top) to create back ashovers or strike a phase conductor as a result of shielding failure. Shield wires, in combination low footing resistance, improve the lightning performance of a transmission line, and the application of line arresters provides an additional increment of protection. Such arresters come in two forms, gapless [1], [2] and externally gapped (EGLA) [3], [9], [10]. The main advantage of an EGLA is reduced size and weight, as clearing of the series gap after a lightning event removes the arrester from the line so that thermal stability of the metaloxide varistors (MOVs) after the lightning event is not an issue. In some cases, transmission
Manuscript received September 15, 2011; accepted February 04, 2012. Date of publication September 07, 2012; date of current version September 19, 2012. This work was supported in part by the Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF). Paper no. TPWRD-00783-2011. T. Pham is with Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam (e-mail: thinh.pham@ims.uconn.edu). S. A. Boggs is with the Electrical Insulation Research Center, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269 USA (e-mail: steven.boggs@ieee.org). H. Suzuki and T. Imai are with the Surge Arrester Department, Hamakawasaki Operations, Toshiba Corporation, Kawasaki-ku 210-0862, Japan (e-mail: hironori.suzuki@toshiba.co.jp; toshiya.imai@toshiba.co.jp). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPWRD.2012.2205729

line arresters can replace shielding wires while improving the lightning performance of the transmission line [2]. The lightning performance of a transmission line depends on its conguration (voltage rating, tower height, single or twin-circuit, footing resistance, etc.), the probability density for lightning current rise time and amplitude, and the ground ash density. A utility must consider many issues when contemplating installation of line arresters, such as the acceptable frequency of line outages, the towers most prone to lightning strikes, and the cost/benet of installing line arresters. Installing line arresters is a tradeoff between the reduction in the expected line outage rate and capital expenditure. Greatest protection can be achieved by installing a line arrester across every insulator of each circuit. However, this solution is costly and sometimes unnecessary, as the tower conguration and footing resistance are not uniform along the transmission line, and the grounding ash density varies with location. In this paper, we compute the lightning performance of a twin-circuit 220 kV transmission line as a function of EGLA placement on one circuit using EMTP simulations with the lightning current estimated from the electrogeometric model. Lightning is assumed to hit a tower top or phase conductor of the worst case tower, that is, one whose conguration is likely to determine the lightning performance of the entire transmission line. II. ELECTROGEOMETRIC MODEL (EGM) The number of lightning strokes to the shielding wires and phase conductors is estimated using the electrogeometric model , in m, of lightning strike distance [4]. The strike distance, depends on the lightning current, , in kA, according to (1) 6.72 and 0.8 for lightning to a shielding wire where 6.048 and 0.8 for lightning or phase conductor, and to earth. For a vertical stroke, the shielding wire and phase con, in meters, for each ductor have a specic exposure width, value of lightning current. The exposure width for shielding and phase conductors is determined as shown wires in Fig. 1. The number of strokes to shielding wire or phase conductor per year is computed by integrating the exposure width, D(I), over the current range times the probability of that current [8] (2)

0885-8977/$31.00 2012 IEEE

1992

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 27, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2012

Fig. 1. Tower conguration (left) and its equivalent EGM model to determine expose width of shielding wire and phase conductors. The parameters r (I), r (I), and r (I) are computed from (1) and are used to compute the values of D and D , which are the exposure widths which enter into ((2) and (3)). The indices c, s, and e stand for conductor, shielding wire, and earth. Figure adapted from [8].

Fig. 3. Maximum shielding failure current of as a function of tower height determined using EGM. The protection angle remains constant, as determined from the tower conguration of Figure 3. Only the base section of the tower varies with changes in tower height. Fig. 2. Transmission line lightning stroke frequency as a function of lightning current based on the EGM model and computed for tower height of 60 m. The assumed ground ash density is 10 per km -year. The lightning frequency to the shielding wire is split into two parts, which correspond to low and high values of lightning current. Low lightning current can terminate on either the shielding wire or phase conductors, while high lightning currents can only terminate at a shielding wire.

current which can terminate on a shielding wire or phase conis the lightning current probability density distriductor, bution which has a lognormal form [11] (4)

For a line protected by two shielding wires which are separated by a distance , (2) [8] becomes

(3)

where study,

is the ground ash density, 10 per km -year in this is the length of the line, is maximum lightning

where 1.33 and 61.1 for 20 kA, and 0.605 and 33.3 for 20 kA. Fig. 2 shows the frequency of strokes to shielding wires and phase conductors per 100 km-year for a 60 m high tower as computed using EGM. For large lightning current, the strike distance increases to the point that a strike can only terminate on shielding wires or earth. In the present tower conguration, the probability of shielding failure is relatively small and can occur only for relatively low currents, that is, 28 kA for the upper

PHAM et al.: EFFECT OF EXTERNALLY GAPPED LINE ARRESTER PLACEMENT ON INSULATION COORDINATION

1993

Fig. 4. Transmission line to be modeled. In the simulation, spans from tower 12 and 67 are included along with their matching impedances which avoid reections from the ends. The phase conductor is ACSR 330 2 (aluminum conductor steel reinforced), the shielding wire (SW) is TK-70 and OPGW-82 (optical ground wire).

phase and 9 kA for the lower phase. As a result, the number of strokes to shielding wires (Fig. 2) is divided into two parts, one corresponding high current strokes, which can terminate only on a shielding wire or tower top, and the other corresponding to the portion of low current lightning strokes which terminate on a shielding wire, although in this current range, a stroke can also terminate on a phase conductor. Greater tower height results in greater exposure width which increases the probability of very high current strokes to the tower top and shielding wires. Increased tower height shifts all curves in Fig. 2 toward the top right corner. Maximum shielding failure current increases linearly with tower height (Fig. 3), which suggests that computation of lightning performance should be carried out as a function of tower height, for both lightning to the top of the tower and shielding failure. From such computations, the maximum shielding failure current can be computed as a function of tower height for use in simulations. For the tower conguration of the present 220 kV transmission line (Fig. 3), a maximum shielding failure current of 30 kA is reasonable, from which the required EGLA rating can be estimated. III. 220-kV TRANSMISSION LINE AND EMTP MODELS The twin circuit 220 kV transmission line section shown in Fig. 4 was analyzed. The transmission line section includes 6 phase conductors, 2 shielding wires, and 6 spans of 400 m each between 7 towers. Each phase consists of two conductors bundled with a separation of 40 cm. Insulators are normally protected by arcing horns with an air gap of 2.19 m except where replaced by an EGLA which has a series gap of 1 m. A frequency dependent J-Marti model of 8 conductors was used to simulate each span of the transmission line. In order to avoid reections from the ends of the model, the power sources are connected to the ends through a resistance matrix which repreHz. As lightning can strike the sents the line impedances at line at any time during a power frequency cycle, the power frequency voltage is included in the simulation at 0 degrees for the upper phase, the superposition of which on the lightning strike results in the lower potential difference between the cross arm

Fig. 5. Potential difference across the upper phase insulator of the stricken tower when lightning strikes the top of tower 4 for various values of adjacent tower footing resistance. The footing resistance of stricken tower is 20
, and the lightning current is 100 kA with linear ramp waveform (2/70 s).

and the upper phase conductor than for the middle and lower phases, which results in greater probability of the ashover of the lower and middle phase insulators than the upper phase insulator. However, this difference only changes the order in which the phases ash over but not the total number of phases which ash in a given simulation, which is the most important parameter when implementing EGLAs in a transmission line. The tower is represented by four lossless transmission lines, and the footing impedance of each tower is a simple resistance as suggested in [6]. The ashover of the EGLA series gap or the arcing horn gap is simulated by the Motoyama model for reasons discussed in [5], [7]. Tower footing resistance varies along a transmission line depending on the soil resistivity. When lightning strikes to the tower top or the phase conductor, the overvoltage across an insulator depends on both the footing resistance of the stricken tower and that of the adjacent towers. Fig. 5 shows the dependence of overvoltage across an insulator of the stricken tower on

1994

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 27, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2012

TABLE I INSULATORS WHICH FLASHOVER AS A FUNCTION OF 2/70 S LIGHTNING CURRENT AMPLITUDE FOR LIGHTNING TO THE TOP OF TOWER 4 WITH 60 M TOWER HEIGHT, 30
FOOTING

the footing resistance of adjacent towers, given a 20 footing resistance for the stricken tower and lightning current of 100 kA (2/70 s, triangular waveform). Increased footing resistance of adjacent towers results in a moderate increase of the overvoltage in wave tail of all three phases. The overvoltage wave front during which ashover of the EGLA gap (or arcing horn) is likely to occur [5] does not change with the footing resistance of adjacent towers, as twice the electromagnetic propagation time between towers is comparable to the voltage rise time. This behavior suggests that simulation with a constant footing resistance along the transmission line is a reasonable approach to study the lightning performance of the transmission line. In an actual 220 kV transmission line, the footing resistance is usually less than 10 and rarely exceeds 30 except at a few locations such as hard mountain rock. For new transmission lines, the footing resistance is usually kept around 5 . A footing resistance of 30 used in many of the present simulations is therefore reasonable for estimating the worst case lightning performance of the transmission line. IV. SIMULATION RESULTS A. Towers on Which Flashover Occurs Without Arresters In order to estimate the impact of lightning on the transmission line without the use of surge arresters, EMTP simulations were performed on the line segment for lightning currents to the tower top ranging from 50 kA to 300 kA and for 10 kA to 30 kA to the upper phase conductor as a result of shielding failure. In case of shielding failure, ashover occurs on the stricken phase only up to 30 kA. The adjacent phases of the stricken tower and the upper phase of the adjacent towers do not ash. Table I shows the towers and phases on which breakdown occurs as a function of lightning current to the tower top. Lightning to the top of tower 4 (or any other tower) causes ashover of insulators only if the lightning current is 80 kA (2/70 s). As a result of the transmission line symmetry, an 80 kA strike has a high probability of causing a double circuit outage. Above 90 kA, ashover occurs on two phases of the stricken tower. Most of lightning energy is dissipated through these two phases so that the third phase does not ash. As noted in Section III, ashover of middle and lower phases is the result of the assumed power frequency phase at the time of the lightning strike. For a 120 kA lightning strike to the tower top, ashover can occur on all three

phases of the stricken tower. Above 170 kA, ashover occurs on at least the two adjacent towers. Above 180 kA, the contribution of power frequency voltage to the total overvoltage is negligible in comparison with that of lightning current. Therefore insulators of upper and middle phases of adjacent towers break down following ashover of all three phases of the stricken tower. At very high lightning current, insulators of all three phases of two adjacent towers ashover. B. Simulations in the Presence of Surge Arresters Based on the discussion in the previous section, installation of lightning arresters is necessary to avoid insulator ashover for lightning strikes greater than 80 kA to tower top and 10 kA to a phase conductor. As indicated in Section II, the maximum shielding failure current is greater for a strike to the upper and middle phases, and installation of a surge arrester on these phases prevents shielding failure-induced ashovers. Since the position of stricken tower is random, surge arresters should be installed on the upper and middle phases of one circuit over the entire transmission line. Simulations without surge arresters installed indicate that installation of surge arresters on two upper phases may prevent back ashover of the 220 kV transmission line up to 120 kA to the tower top (Table III), for a footing resistance 30 . Above 120 kA, a surge arrester is necessary on each phase of every tower to avoid back ashover. In this section, data are reported for simulations with EGLAs on circuit 1. The number of EGLAs is increased from one per tower (installed on the upper phase only) to three per tower (installed on all three phases of circuit 1). Tables IIIV document the improvement in lightning performance for the twin circuit 220 kV transmission line as a function of the number of EGLAs installed on one circuit. Installing EGLAs on the upper phase of one circuit does not improve the lightning performance of the transmission line signicantly, as insulator ashover on the stricken tower increases from 80 kA without an arrester to 90 kA with one EGLA installed per tower. Above 100 kA, insulators of middle and lower phases in second circuit (without surge arresters) ashover (Table II). The presence of EGLAs on the upper phase of one circuit increases the strike current at which a double circuit ashover occurs from 80 kA without EGLAs to 120 kA with EGLAs on the upper phase of one circuit.

PHAM et al.: EFFECT OF EXTERNALLY GAPPED LINE ARRESTER PLACEMENT ON INSULATION COORDINATION

1995

TABLE II FLASHOVER OF INSULATORS AND OPERATION OF SURGE ARRESTERS AS A FUNCTION OF 2/70 S LIGHTNING CURRENT AMPLITUDE FOR LIGHTNING TO THE TOP OF TOWER 4 WITH 60 m TOWER HEIGHT, 30
FOOTING RESISTANCE, AND EGLAS INSTALLED ON THE UPPER PHASE OF CIRCUIT 1

TABLE III FLASHOVER OF INSULATORS AND OPERATION OF SURGE ARRESTERS AS A FUNCTION OF 2/70 S LIGHTNING CURRENT AMPLITUDE FOR LIGHTNING TO THE TOP OF TOWER 4 WITH 60 m TOWER HEIGHT, 30
FOOTING RESISTANCE, AND EGLAS INSTALLED ON UPPER AND MIDDLE PHASES OF CIRCUIT 1

TABLE IV FLASHOVER OF INSULATORS AND OPERATION OF SURGE ARRESTERS AS A FUNCTION OF 2/70 S LIGHTNING CURRENT AMPLITUDE FOR LIGHTNING TO THE TOP OF TOWER 4 WITH 60 m TOWER HEIGHT, 30
FOOTING RESISTANCE, AND EGLAS INSTALLED ON ALL THREE PHASES OF CIRCUIT 1

Installing EGLAs on upper and middle phases of one circuit protects the insulators of both circuits from ashover up to 120 kA to the tower top. Flashover of the lower phase, which is not protected by an EGLA, occurs only after ashover of two phases of second, unprotected circuit for lighting currents greater than 130 kA. Thus installation of EGLAs on the upper and middle phases of one circuit prevents a double circuit outage up to 130 kA. Where the probability of lightning currents above 120 kA is negligible, installation of EGLAs on only the upper two phases of one circuit may be justied. For the transmission line in question, the frequency of greater than 120 kA lightning current to a shielding wire is about 7 per 100 km-year (Fig. 2), which means 0.8 times per year for a 10 km transmission line, which is relatively low given that most of towers on an actual 220 kV transmission line are likely to be closer to 40 m high rather than to 60 m assumed before, with only a small fraction of the towers near 60 m. Above 150 kA, ashover occurs across the lower phase insulators of circuit 1 and all three phases of circuit 2 (Table III).

Installing EGLAs on all three phases of circuit 1 does not eliminate insulator ashover completely. At 150 kA lightning current to the tower top, insulators of the middle and lower phases of circuit 2 of the stricken tower ashover (Table IV). The advantage of installing EGLAs on all three phases compared to installing them on only two phases is that the probability of a double circuit ashover is reduced to near zero, as one circuit is totally protected by EGLAs. To protect the line against ashover for lightning currents above 150 kA to the shielding wire, each phase of both circuits must be protected by an EGLA. As mentioned in Section III, reducing the assumed footing resistance to 5 or 10 , in combination with installation of EGLAs, improves lightning performance of the transmission line substantially. Fig. 6 shows the lightning current threshold above which ashover occurs on at least one insulator, as a function of footing resistance. At 30 footing resistance with EGLAs on all three phases of one circuit, a 120 kA of lightning strike does not cause insulator ashover. For a footing resistance of 5 , this current increases to 200 kA. The frequency of

1996

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 27, NO. 4, OCTOBER 2012

TABLE V FLASHOVER OF INSULATORS AND OPERATION OF SURGE ARRESTERS AS A FUNCTION OF 2/70 S LIGHTNING CURRENT AMPLITUDE FOR A LIGHTNING STRIKE TO THE UPPER PHASE OF TOWER 4 WITH 60 m TOWER HEIGHT, 30
FOOTING RESISTANCE, AND EGLAS INSTALLED ON ALL THREE PHASES OF CIRCUIT 1

Fig. 6. Lightning current threshold above which insulator ashover occurs as a function of footing resistance, for four cases: without EGLAs, EGLAs installed on the upper phase of one circuit, EGLAs installed on the upper and middle phases of one circuit, and EGLAs installed on all three phases of one circuit for the 60 m tower. Lightning strikes to the top of tower 4.

Fig. 7. EGLA discharge current as a function of lightning current for a different number of phases of one circuit on which EGLAs were installed, for 60 m tower height and 30
footing resistance. Lightning strikes to the top of tower 4.

a 200 kA lightning strike in our case is 0.01 per year-100 km, which is very small. The lightning performance of the transmission line, as dened by the lightning current threshold for insulator ashover, increases gradually with the number of phases on which EGLAs are installed, which suggests that installation of EGLAs on all phases of a twin circuit, 220 kV transmission line may not be necessary, except at a few towers with very high footing resistance. For relatively low footing resistance, installing EGLAs on all phases of one circuit is sufcient to inhibit insulator ashover from lighting to the tower top or to the shielding wire. Increasing the number of EGLAs installed on one circuit changes EGLA duty slightly. Fig. 7 shows the effect of the number of EGLAs on the maximum discharge current through an EGLA for a 60 m tower with 30 footing resistance. The discharge current through the EGLA on the upper phase of circuit 1 of the stricken tower is greatest for the entire range of lightning current, from 50 kA to 300 kA. The variation in discharge current with the number of EGLAs installed is negligible up to 200 kA. The maximum energy absorbed by an EGLA on circuit 1 increases with the number of EGLAs installed on one circuit (Fig. 8), and the effect of the number of EGLAs is more pronounced at high lightning current. Absorption energy nearly triples when the number of EGLAs is increased from 1 to 3. However, the absorption energy is always below 200 kJ, the rating of the lightest duty EGLA employed in 220 kV transmission lines.

Fig. 8. Worst case energy absorbed by an EGLA installed on one circuit as a function of lightning current for a differing number of phases of one circuit on which EGLAs were installed, for 60 m tower height and 30
footing resistance. Lightning strikes to the top of tower 4.

Although installing EGLAs on three phases of one circuit at every tower can protect the transmission line from back ashover up to 150 kA, it does not provide equally complete protection against shielding failure. A lighting strike to a conductor not protected by an EGLA (i.e., any phase of circuit 2) results in approximately the same overvoltage as if the line were not protected by EGLAs. For lightning to a phase conductor protected by an EGLA, the simulations indicate that up to 30 kA, only the EGLAs of the stricken phase operate at the stricken tower and two nearest towers (Table V). Fortunately,

PHAM et al.: EFFECT OF EXTERNALLY GAPPED LINE ARRESTER PLACEMENT ON INSULATION COORDINATION

1997

the frequency of shielding failures is relatively low in this tower conguration (i.e., half that shown Fig. 2) since one circuit is already protected by EGLAs. V. CONCLUSION Simulations were performed for a twin circuit, 220 kV transmission line to estimate the effectiveness of EGLAs as a function of the number of EGLAs installed, increasing from 0 (without EGLAs) to 3 (EGLAs on all three phases of one circuit). The EGM model was used to estimate the lightning frequency to the tower top (or shielding wire) and to phase conductors. In case of lightning to a tower top, installing EGLAs on one or two phases of one circuit improves the lightning performance of the transmission line substantially. However a double circuit outage can still occur at very high lightning current, and/or with high footing resistance. Installing EGLAs with appropriate rating on all three phases of one circuit reduces the likelihood of a double circuit outage to near zero for lightning to tower top, but insulator ashover on the unprotected parallel circuit still occurs for very high lightning current and/or high footing resistance. Installing EGLAs on one or more phases of the second circuit should be considered at towers with high footing resistance ( 10 ), which is unusual for most transmission lines. The number of EGLAs installed on one circuit has a small effect on the maximum duty of a single EGLA (discharge current and energy absorption) which suggests that the same rating EGLA should be selected over the entire transmission line no matter how many EGLAs are installed per circuit. The lightning current and strike frequency for shielding failures (strikes to a conductor) is much lower than for strikes to the shielding wires and tower top. However, a lightning strike to a phase conductor can cause insulator ashover on the stricken phase if it is not protected by an EGLA, although a double circuit outage is unlikely to occur if EGLAs are installed on each phase of one circuit. Given the very low probability of shielding failure, the risk of a single circuit outage may be worth taking. REFERENCES
[1] T. Wakai, N. Itamoto, T. Sakai, and M. Ishii, Evaluation of transmission line arresters against winter lightning, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 684690, Apr. 2000. [2] Y. Matsumoto, O. Sakuma, K. Shinjo, M. Saiki, T. Wakai, T. Sakai, H. Nagasaka, and H. Motoyama, Measurement of lightning surges on test transmission line equipped with arresters struck by natural and trigged lightning, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 9961001, Apr. 1996. [3] S. Furukawa, O. Usuda, T. Isozaki, and T. Irie, Development and application of lightning arresters for transmission lines, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 21212128, Oct. 1989. [4] H. R. Amstrong and E. R. Whitehead, Field and analytical studies of transmission line shielding, IEEE Trans. Power App. Syst., vol. PAS-87, no. 1, pp. 270281, Jan. 1968.

[5] T. Pham, S. Boggs, T. Pham, and S. Boggs, Flashover of arcing horn in transient simulation, presented at the IEEE Int. Symp. Elect. Insul., San Diego, CA, Jun. 59, 2010. [6] A. Ametani and T. Kawamura, A method of a lightning surge analysis recommended in japan using EMTP, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 867875, Apr. 2005. [7] H. Motoyama, Experimental study and analysis of breakdown characteristics of long air gaps with short tail lightning impulse, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 972979, Apr. 1996. [8] A. R. Hileman, Insulation Coordination for Power Systems. Boca Raton, FL: CRC, 1999. [9] R. Hernandez-Corona and G. Regaldo-Contreras, Performance of 230 kV transmission lines applying externally gapped type arresters, presented at the IEEE/Power Eng. Soc. Transm. Distrib. Conf. Expo., Atlanta, GA, Oct. 28Nov. 2, 2001. [10] T. Shigeno, Experience and effectiveness of application of transmission line arresters, in Proc. IEEE/Power Eng. Soc. Transm. Distrib. Conf. Exhibit.: Asia Pacic, Oct. 2002, pp. 610. [11] IEEE Guide for Improving the Lightning Performance of Transmission Lines, IEEE Standard 12431997, 1997.

Thinh H. Pham received the B.S. degree in power system engineering from Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1996, the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Grenoble Institute of Technology, Grenoble, France, in 2001, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from University of Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, in 2005. Since 2006, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Power Systems, Hanoi University of Science and Technology. From 2009 to 2011, he was with the Electrical Insulation Research Center (EIRC), University of Connecticut, as a Visiting Professor and then a Postdoctoral Fellow. His research interests focus on transient phenomena and insulation coordination in power systems and dielectric properties of insulation subjected to high elds.

Steven A. Boggs (F92) was graduated with a B.A. degree from Reed College, Portland, OR, in 1968, and the Ph.D. and MBA degrees from the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, in 1972 and 1987, respectively. He spent 12 years with the Research Division of Ontario Hydro. He was elected an IEEE Fellow for his contributions to understanding of SF -insulated systems. From 1987 to 1993, he was Director of Research and Engineering at Underground Systems, Inc. He is presently Director of the Electrical Insulation Research Center and the Research Professor of Materials Science, Electrical Engineering, and Physics at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, and Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Toronto.

Hironori Suzuki (M12) was born on June 29, 1959. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics from the University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, in 1982 and 1984, respectively. In 1984, he joined Toshiba Corporation, Kawasaki, Japan. Since then, he has been engaged in the development of zincoxide elements and surge arresters. Currently, he is an Assistant Secretary of the standard committee for metaloxide surge arresters with the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.

Toshiya Imai was born in Hyogo Prefecture, Kansai, Japan, in 1966. He received the B.S. degree in inorganic material engineering from Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, Japan, in 1989. He joined Toshiba Corporation, Kawasaki, Japan, in 1989. Since then, he has been engaged in the development of zincoxide elements and metal-oxide surge arresters.