2012 Paris Session

http : //www.cigre.org

C4.1

SC C4 System Technical Performance

PS 3: Lightning protection and insulation coordination as it
relates to new generation and transmission technology
Lightning invasion overvoltage study for UHVAC substation

S.SUN
G.TREMOUILLE
Alstom Grid
Alstom Grid
China
France
Shujie.sun@alstom.com
As transmission lines appeared at the beginning of the 20th century, the hazard of lightning on
transmission lines became obvious. With the increase of the operating voltage of transmission
lines of strategic voltage level and the corresponding increase of exposure to lightning
phenomena, the lightning overvoltage still and important issue.
Lightning strikes inject steep front current impulses to the overhead transmission lines, and
cause traveling waves which propagate along the overhead line and enter substations where
they cause lightning invasion overvoltages and pose a risk to any items of equipment
connected. It could be recognized as a dominant factor to determine the insulation level of a
substation. Thus the resulting over voltage must be compatible with the dielectric withstand of
the different equipments of substation.
With the increasing demand of power energy, the UHV power transmission technologies
attract all the attention of power utilities and manufacturers with distinct advantages in the
power transmission of large capacity and long distance. However, it also raises the challenges
on the lighting overvltage protection of UHV substations. This paper presented a lightning
invasion overvoltage study on 1000kV UHVAC substation based referring to the 1000kV
Jindongnan power transmission demo project in China.
Focus will be done on modeling, as simplification done for lower voltage level may no more
be accurate for UHV issues. Discussion will be made on the impact for several modeling axis
such as Corona, line insulator capacitance, frequency dependant model for tower footing,
power frequency pre-stressed overhead line and other points.
Necessary sensitivities studies will be carried out prior to the discussion, in order to have a
quantitive approach.
This study is carried out by electrical magnetic transient simulation software
PSCAD/EMTDC. Two kinds of lightning invasion over voltage are taken into account due to
the different position of the strike point:
One is back flashover referring to the lightning strikes on tower or shielding wire,
several distances from substation to lightning impact, will be investigated
.Another one is shielding failure which refers to the lightning strikes directly on the
overhead line conductor due to the shielding wire protection failure.
Based on 1000kV Jindongnan project data, the lightning impulse, overhead line, towers, GIS
and other relevant UHVAC equipments are have been modeled. The lightning invasion
overvoltage under different configuration cases of substation are simulated and analyzed.
In lighting invasion overvoltage study in GIS substation for traditional voltage level, the
power frequency voltage is not taken into account. However, for UHV GIS substation, this
power frequency voltage may cause effects on the lightning invasion overvoltage level.
Besides, with the ultral high voltage, the lightning surge of high amplitude will produce
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strong impulsive corona which has great influence on the progression of over voltage.
Therefore, the impulsive corona effect is also taken into account and discussed in this study.
Ur du parfoudre ?