Simulation of Lightning Transients on 110 kV

overhead-cable transmission line using ATP-EMTP

Kresimir Fekete1, Srete Nikolovski2, Goran Knezević3, Marinko Stojkov4, Zoran Kovač5
#
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. Mažuranić 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

Abstract—Due to construction of a highway in the eastern part The structure of this paper is as follows: first, a brief
of Croatia, a new 110/x kV substation was built with two parallel explanation, regarding the part of the transmission system
connecting underground cables. Cables were connected to where the new substation and cables are built, is given. The
already existing 110 kV overhead lines. At the place where the main features of the ATP-EMTP model and method are
transition between overhead lines and cables is made, surge
explained in Chapter III. In Chapter IV, simulation and results
arresters were installed. In this paper lightning stroke at the
grounding wire on the overhead line and its impact on are presented. Based on the results, the conclusion is given in
underground cables were studied. Transient program the last chapter.
Electromagnetic Transients Program (ATP-EMTP) is used to
create a model of the system and to perform simulation of the II. DESCRIPTION OF THE POWER SYSTEM
transient process during lightning stroke. The results of the The part of the Eastern Croatian transmission system that is
simulation are briefly presented and discussed in the paper. studied in this paper is shown in Fig.1. The new substation TS
110/20 kV Djakovo 3 is supplied from two substations TS
I. INTRODUCTION
220/110 kV Djakovo and TS 400/110 kV Ernestinovo. The
In the process of designing new facilities in the power new substation is modelled only with passive load. At the
system (substations, cables, overhead lines etc.), lightning place where overhead line and cable are connected, ABB
overvoltages are important from the viewpoint of the Pexlim Q surge arresters are installed.
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 Dommel’s basic work Fig. 1. Single line diagram representing the part of the transmission system
[1]. Nearly all system components can be represented by built- that is studied
in elements in ATP-EMTP like overhead lines with line and Parameters of the 110 kV overhead lines which are made of
ground wires and towers as well as underground cables [2]. In Al/Fe conductors with cross sections 240/40 mm2, and
this paper ATP-EMTP is used to create a model of the power underground cables type NEXANS which has a cross section
system and to simulate lightning stroke at the grounding wire of 1000 mm2 are shown in Table I.
on the overhead line and its impact on underground cables and
surge arresters.

978-1-4244-5794-6/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE 856

 TABLE I A. Tower
PARAMETERS OF THE OVERHEAD LINES AND CABLES
The height of 110 kV tower used in this paper is 31.9 m.
Overhead line The layout of one typical 110 kV tower is shown in Fig. 3.
Conductor type Series resistance Series inductance The distances are given in meters.
(Ω/km) (mH/km)
1 conductor/phase, 0.1188 1.0565
240/40 Al/St
Underground cable
Conductor type Series resistance Series inductance
(Ω/km) (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. 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

Zt1 – tower top to the upper phase = upper phase to middle

phase = middle phase to lower
Zt4 – lower phase to tower bottom.

CPDL model is characterized by surge impedances Z and

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.
travelling time τ. Values of surge impedances are [3]: Zt1 =
220 Ω and Zt4 = 150 Ω. Distance between top of the tower
(grounding wire GW) and the tower bottom is h = h1 and h2,
h3 and h4 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, c0 = 300 m/μs
[3]. The tower travelling time is given by the following
equation:
h
τ= (1)
c0
Because footing impedance is represented by a linear
resistance (Rf) 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,

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as shown in Fig. 4 in order to represent travelling wave Ri = ΔRi ⋅ xi ; Li = 2τ ⋅ Ri (2)
attenuation and distortion [3].
2 ⋅ Z t1 ⎛1⎞
ΔR1 = ΔR2 = ΔR3 = ln ⎜ ⎟ (3)
( h − x4 ) ⎝ α1 ⎠
2Zt 4 ⎛ 1 ⎞
ΔR4 = ln ⎜ ⎟ (4)
h ⎝ α4 ⎠
where:
α1 = α4 = 0.89 – attenuation along the tower.

Values for resistance (R) and inductance (L) in our study

are: R1 = 15.54 Ω, R2 = 17.66 Ω, R3 = 15.9 Ω, R4 = 33.48 Ω,
L1 = 3.285 mH, L2 = 3.733 mH, L3 = 3.36 mH and L4 = 7.076
mH.
A tower footing impedance is modelled as a simple linear
resistance Rf = 10 Ω.
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
Fig. 4. A model circuit of a 110 kV tower
analysed power system.
The values of resistance (R) and inductance (L) are defined
in the following equations [3]:

Fig. 5. Part of the ATP-EMTP model of the analysed system

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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. 7. Lightning stroke model consisting of a current source and lightning

path impedance

The Heidler’s function [8] is used to represent lightning

current waveform:

I0 (t / τ1 )n
i (t ) = ⋅ ⋅ e ( − t /τ 2 ) (5)
η (t / τ1 )n + 1
where:
⎡ − (τ1 /τ 2 )(ητ 2 /τ1 )1/ n ⎤
η = e⎣ ⎦ (6)

and:
I0 = lightning current peak;
τ1 = time constant determining current rise-time;
τ2 = time constant determining current decay-time;
n = current steepness factor.
Fig. 6. Protective V-I characteristic of a surge arrester
In this paper values for Heidler’s function parameters are as
D. Transmission Lines and Cables
follows: I0 = 100 kA, τ1 = 1.2 μs, τ2 = 61.7 μs and n = 7. Fig. 8
The parameters of transmission lines and cables with shows the lightning current waveform used in this paper.
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.
Fig. 8. Lightning current waveform used in this paper
E. Lightning Current and Impedance
The lightning stroke is modelled by a current source and a The impedance of a lightning path is represented as a
parallel resistance, which represents the lightning path parallel resistance to a current source. The resistance value is
impedance as shown in Fig. 7. taken to be 400 Ω, 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 Tmax = 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
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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
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
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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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