An EMTP – RV Based Analysis of the Line Surge

Arrester Energy Duty Due to Lightning Discharges

S. Grebovic, S. Pack, S. Sadovic

Abstract—This paper describes modelling procedure for
calculating energy stresses of transmission line surge arresters.
A 110 kV shielded transmission line is modelled using
ElectroMagnetic Transient Program – Restructured Version
(EMTP – RV). Some parts of transmission line such as
transmission line towers and stations on both ends of line are
modelled thanks to EMTP – RV possibility of grouping
electrical elements into subcircuits. Also it was possible to create
subcircuit consists of number of other subcircuit. This
possibility was very important for dividing transmission line
into number of sections that consists of number of towers.
Arrester current and voltage, energy duty, insulator voltage and
voltage on tower top due to bipolar lightning are calculated and
presented.
Keywords: Bipolar Lightning Stroke, Line Surge Arrester,
Energy duty, EMTP – RV, Transmission line, Modelling,
Simulation.
I. INTRODUCTION
modelling of complete transmission line with large number
input and output data.
II. MODELLING PROCEDURE
Transmission line is modelled into several parts: towers,
insulators, phase conductors, shield wire, line surge arresters
and tower footing resistance. Lightning stroke is modelled as
a current source (so called 'I – point by point source'). The
studied 110 kV transmission line is 42 km long, span or line
length between two towers is considered as a mean value of
300 meters. It is taken that line has a different footing
resistance along the line route, so tower footing resistance
value is varied. Soil resistivity is 1200 Ωm. In the case when
tower is equipped with one LSA it is installed on bottom
phase. For installation configuration with two LSA, LSA are
installed on bottom and middle phase [2].
A. Tower model

T HERE are several methods used for the improvement of

lightning performance of the existing transmission lines,
such as: tower footing resistance reduction, increase of line
Transmission line tower model, used in simulation is
presented in Figure 1.

insulation level, installation of additional ground wires, etc.

Line surge arresters (LSA) are mainly used for line lightning
performance improvement. LSA may fail in service if it is not
correctly selected. In the selection of the line surge arrester
for the line lightning performance improvement it is very
important to determine arrester energy duty [1]. Energy
stresses of transmission line surge arresters (LSA) are
commonly analyzed due to unipolar flashes that transport to
ground charge of one polarity. Also, it is very important to
analyze energy stresses on transmission line surge arresters
due to bipolar flashes that can cause serious problems in
electrical power systems. Modelling is of great importance in
power system transient analysis. Modelling can be used to
describe system, to analyze the behavior of a system under
conditions that can occur in nature. The main goal is to
achieve precise simulation with all required modelling data
and within minimal computer timings. So, this paper presents

S. Grebovic is PhD student at Graz University of Technology and with Faculty
of Electrical Engineering University of Sarajevo (e-mail: s_grebovic@aol.com).
S. Pack is with Institute of High Voltage Engineering and System Management,
Graz University of Technology (e-mail: pack@tugraz.at).
S. Sadovic is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of
Electrical Engineering University of Sarajevo (e-mail: sadovic@aol.com).
Paper submitted to the International Conference on Power Systems
Transients (IPST2015) in Cavtat, Croatia June 15-18, 2015
Fig. 1. Tower representation.
Each tower is divided in four parts. First part is section of the
tower from bottom crossarm to the ground and it is
represented as the propagation element, which is defined by
the surge impedance and the propagation length. In EMTP –
RV software this part is modelled as constant parameter (CP)
and line model (1 – phase version). Second part is sections
between tower top and top crossarm. Third and fourth part
are sections between crossarms. Sections on the tower top B. Line insulation flashover model
(between tower top and top crossarm and between crossarms) Insulators are modeled as Air Gap elements. It operates
are modelled as inductance branches. On this way it was based on equal area flashover model. Flashover occurs when
possible to calculate transient on tower top. Tower surge the following integral becomes greater or equal to D [3,4]:
impedance is calculated according tower shape theory. t K
Branch inductance is determined according to the section 
t0

 v gap  t   V0 dt  D (1)
length, tower surge impedance and propagation velocity.
Wave propagation speed on the tower was taken to be equal to where:
the velocity of light [1]. vgap – voltage across insulator string
Figure 2 shows described tower model in EMTP – RV with V0 – reference voltage
insulators and pins that enable electrical connection with K=1
D=0,2045d
other elements. On this way it is possible to connect line
d – length of gap (m)
surge arresters in parallel to the phase conductor insulators
t – time to flashover (µs).
and model tower footing resistance.
CFO – critical flashover voltage can be represented by
T1

Pin for connection equation (2) [4].

with tower top
 710 
+

c
C1
0
2.8uH

L1

V0  0, 9CFO  0, 9  400  0,75  d (2)

A2
504kV

?vi>S +
A1  t 
Air1

C. Line surge arrester

+
1.37uH

L2

Used arrester has the following characteristics [2]:

Air2

B1 + ?vi>S
B2
Rated voltage: 108 (kVrms)
504kV
MCOV: 86 (kV)
IEC class: II
C2

0
c

Nominal discharge current 10 (kA)

1.37uH

L3

c
C3
0

The non – linear behavior of line surge arrester is

C2
504kV

?vi>S +
C1 represented by the U – I characteristic [2,3].
Air3
+

D. Lightning current model

TLM1
20

Bipolar lightning flashes transport to ground both negative

CP

and positive charges [5, 6]. A possible explanation of

observed bipolar lightning currents is given by Narita et al.
Pin for connection They suggested that, in a bipolar discharge, currents of both
with tower footing
polarities follow the same channel to ground [7]. There are
T2

resistance
basically three types of bipolar lightning discharges, although
Fig. 2. Tower model in EMTP – RV.
some events may belong to more than one category [6, 8].
Pin for connection Lightning current (bipolar) shown on Figure 4 was
DEV1
with tower top
Tower top measure on Corsica. The negative charge transfer is
Phase A
A2 determined by integrating the absolute value of the current
Pins for
connection with over the negative current component duration. The positive
phase A charge transfer is determined by integrating the current over
B2 A1
Pins for
Phase B
the positive current component duration. The trapezoidal rule
connection with
phase B
is used for integration. The total transfer is summary of the
B1 Phase C C2 negative and positive charge transfers. The negative part has
Pins for peak current of -52,86 kA and positive part has peak current
connection with
phase C of +26,3 kA, with total charge transfers being -3,3025 As and
C1
+1,2414 As, respectively.
Pin for connection Grounding
Lightning stroke is modelled as a current source (so called
with tower footing 'I – point by point source') because it is possible to import
resistance
measured data point by point. The current shapes and values
Fig. 3. EMTP – RV symbol for tower subcircuit. can be changed in order to study different lightning stroke
All elements shown on Figure 2 are grouped in subcircuit. currents.
This subcircuit is illustrated on Figure 3 and can be use many
times for modelling complete transmission line.
 Bipolar Lightning Current
40
t =55,2 (s) t =81,2 (s)
SADOVIC measurements
1
t2 =78,5 (s) 3
30

20

10

0
Current (kA)

-10

-20

-30

-40

-50

-60
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Time (s)

Fig. 4. Bipolar Lightning Current.

E. Transmission line sections

Shield wires and phase conductors are subdivided into
number of segments. Each segment is presented with constant
parameter (CP) line model (multiphase).

Middle of
the span for
phase A
Middle of Middle of
the span for the span for
shield wire phase B

Connection Middle of
with tower the span for
top phase C

DEV1
T_1_2_s

T_1_2_c

T_2_3_s

T_2_3_c

T_3_4_s

T_3_4_c

T_4_5_s

T_4_5_c

T_5_6_s

T_5_6_c

T_6_7_s

T_6_7_c

T_7_8_s

T_7_8_c

T_8_9_s

T_8_9_c

T_9_10_s

T_9_10_c
T1

T2

T3

T4

T5

T6

T7

T8

T9

T10
T_1_2_a
T_1_2_b

T_2_3_a
T_2_3_b

T_3_4_a
T_3_4_b

T_4_5_a
T_4_5_b

T_5_6_a
T_5_6_b

T_6_7_a
T_6_7_b

T_7_8_a
T_7_8_b

T_8_9_a
T_8_9_b

T_9_10_a
T_9_10_b
S_1 S_10
A_1 A_10
B_1 B_10
C_1 C_10

Section_from_1_to_10

Fig. 5. EMTP – RV section of 110 kV transmission line.

Each span of 300 m is divided in two segments to enable
connection between current source and middle of the span for
shield wire and phase conductors.
Certain number of tower subcircuiet elements, spans, line
surge arresters, grounding footing resistances and
corresponding pins (for connection with other elements) are
grouped into subcircuit element that presents transmission
line section. Example for section that consists of 10 towers is
given on Figure 5. It is possible to model sections with 50 or
more towers. In this paper some sections are consists of 50
towers and some of them are consists of 10 towers. Stations
are modelled on both ends of 110 kV transmission line.
On Figure 5 is illustrated the main idea for EMTP – RV
modelling in this work. The idea was grouping subcircuits
inside other subcircuits with possible connections between all
elements in model. On both ends of section shown on Figure
5 are pin connections for shield wire and phase conductors.
This means that is possible to make connection between two
or more section subcircuit elements to get complete
transmission line. On the top of section subcircuit element
shown on Figure 5 are pins for lightning current source
connection with tower top and middle of the span. The
position of the lightning stroke is varied from hitting the
shield wire or the phase conductor in the middle of the span
or directly at tower top. Waveform shapes that can be
observed in this simulation are: currents for all line surge
arresters, energy duties for all line surge arresters, flashover
currents and voltages for all insulators and tower footing
resistance voltage and current.
III. CPU TIMERS
To the author’s best knowledge, it is first time that
complete transmission line is created and solved in EMTP –
RV for purposes of transient analyses. CPU time is the
amount of time for which a central processing unit (CPU) was
used for processing instructions of a computer program.
Amount of input and output data is large, so it is important to
show CPU timers. Simulation time was 600 (µs). Time – step
was 50 (ns). Simulation statistics are: total number of conductor induces a voltage on the phase conductor. Voltages
network nodes 1742, size of the main system equations 2175, on the tower top and at the bottom phase are shown on figure
total number of solution points in time-domain 15441, total 10.
number of iterations 47972 and number of iterations per time- 9
Energy duty

Energy duty for arrester installed on bottom phase

point 3,11. The CPU timings are presented in Table 1. CPU 8

timings are based on a Quad – core i7 processor (logical 7

processors: 8 and 2,2 GHz) with 8 GB of RAM. There are no
6
parallel computation in this simulation.

Energy (kJ)
5
TABLE I
CPU TIMINGS (S) 4

CPU timers (s) 3

Prepare data 0,23438 2

Read data 0,01562
1
Time-domain A matrix formulation 0,0
0
Time-domain B vector updating 1,23438 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Time (s)
Time-domain Ax=B solution 22,29688
Fig. 8. Energy duty for arrester – case 1.
Solution of control systems 0,15625 Voltage across insulator strings
800
Time-domain history updating 2,20312 Voltage across insulator strings - top phase
Voltage across insulator strings - middle phase
Time-domain solution 26,68750 600
Voltage across insulator strings - bottom phase

Total 27,18750
400

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Voltage(kV)

200

In this section are given simulation results in the case

when lightning source is bipolar lightning current from 0

Figure 4. -200

Three cases are considered. The first case is that lightning

hitting tower top and on tower is installed one line surge -400
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Time (s)
arrester and tower footing resistance is 35 Ω. Fig. 9. Insulator voltages – case 1.
On Figures 6 and 7 are presented respectively current and 600
Voltage on tower top and at bottom phase

Voltage on tower top

voltage for arrester installed on bottom phase. 400 Voltage at bottom phase
Arrester current
3 200
Arrester current - bottom phase

0
2.5
-200
Voltage(kV)

2
-400

-600
Current (kA)

1.5

-800

1
-1000

0.5 -1200

-1400
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
0 Time ( s)

Fig. 10. Voltages on the tower top and at the bottom phase – case 1.
-0.5
0 100 200 300
Time (s)
400 500 600
Second case is that lightning hitting tower top and on
Fig. 6. Current through arrester – case 1. tower are installed two line surge arrester and tower footing
Arrester voltage
300
Arrester voltage - bottom phase
resistance is 50 Ω. On Figures 11 and 12 are presented
respectively currents and voltages for arresters installed on
200
bottom and middle phase.
Arrester current
100 4
Arrester current - bottom phase
Arrester current - middle phase
Voltage (kV)

3.5

0
3

2.5
-100
2
Current (kA)

-200 1.5

-300
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 0.5
Time (s)
0
Fig. 7. Arrester voltage – case 1.
On Figure 8 is shown energy duty for arrester installed on -0.5

-1
bottom phase. Voltage waves across insulators are presented 0 100 200 300
Time (s)
400 500 600

on Figure 9. Coupling between the shield wire and the phase Fig. 11. Currents through arresters – case 2.
 Arrester voltage
300
Arrester voltage - middle phase
respectively currents and voltages for arresters installed on
Arrester voltage - bottom phase
bottom, middle and top phase.
200
Arrester current
5
Arrester current - top phase
Arrester current - middle phase
100 Arrester current - bottom phase
4
Voltage (kV)

0
3

Current (kA)
-100
2

-200
1

-300
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Time (s) 0

Fig. 12. Voltages on arresters – case 2.

On Figure 13 is shown energy duty for arresters installed -1
0 100 200 300
Time (s)
400 500 600

on bottom and middle phase. Voltage waves across insulators Fig. 16. Currents through arresters – case 3.
are presented on Figure 14. Voltages on the tower top and at 300
Arrester voltage

Arrester voltage - top phase

the bottom phase are shown on figure 15. Arrester voltage - middle phase
Arrester voltage - bottom phase
Energy duty 200
12

100
10
Voltage (kV)

0
8
Energy (kJ)

-100
6

-200
4

-300
2 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Time (s)
Energy duty for arrester installed on middle phase
Energy duty for arrester installed on bottom phase
Fig. 17. Voltages on arresters – case 3.
0
0 100 200 300
Time (s)
400 500 600
On Figure 18 is shown energy duty for arresters installed
Fig. 13. Energy duties for arresters – case 2. on bottom, middle and top phase. Voltage waves across
Voltage across insulator strings
800
Voltage across insulator strings - top phase
insulators are presented on Figure 19. Voltages on the tower
Voltage across insulator strings - middle phase
Voltage across insulator strings - bottom phase top and at the bottom phase are shown on figure 20.
600
Energy duty
14

400
12
Voltage(kV)

200 10

8
Energy (kJ)

6
-200

4
-400
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Time (s)
2
Energy duty for arrester installed on top phase
Fig. 14. Insulator voltages – case 2. Energy duty for arrester installed on middle phase
Energy duty for arrester installed on bottom phase
Voltage on tower top and at bottom phase 0
1000 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Voltage on tower top Time (s)
Voltage at bottom phase

500
Fig. 18. Energy duties for arresters – case 3.
Voltage across insulator strings
300
Voltage across insulator strings - top phase
0 Voltage across insulator strings - middle phase
Voltage across insulator strings - bottom phase
200
Voltage(kV)

-500

100
Voltage(kV)

-1000

-1500

-100

-2000
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Time (s) -200

Fig. 15. Voltages on the tower top and at the bottom phase – case 2.
Third case is that lightning hitting tower top and on tower -300
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Time (s)
are installed three line surge arrester and tower footing Fig. 19. Insulator voltages – case 3.
resistance is 60 Ω. On Figures 16 and 17 are presented
 1000
Voltage on tower top and at bottom phase

Voltage on tower top

subcircuits inside other subcircuits is very useful for
Voltage at bottom phase
modelling large systems. It has been shown that is possible to
500
model complete transmission line and provide plenty of
0
output data. Despite of fact that there is a plenty of input and
output data CPU time is not long. Line surge arrester energy
Voltage(kV)

-500
duty depends of arrester current shape. So, a knowledge of the
-1000
occurrence and characteristics of bipolar lightning is needed
for the selection of the arrester class (arrester block size) as
-1500
well as for designing adequate lightning protection schemes
-2000
for various objects and systems.
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Time (s)

Fig. 20. Voltages on the tower top and at the bottom phase – case 3. VI. REFERENCES
In Table 2 are presented LSA current and voltage peaks [1] S. Sadovic, M. Babuder, M. Hrast, D. Bokal, M. Marnisek and T. Sadovic,
and energies for all three cases. "Line Surge Arrester Application on 123 kV Double Circuit Line",
TABLE II International Symposium on High Voltage Engineering, Johannesburg,
LSA DATA South Africa, 2009.
CASE Phase U (kV) I (kA) W (kJ) [2] A. Xemard, S. Sadovic, T. Sadovic, M. Mesic, A. Guerrier, "Lightning
Bottom 256,27 2,86 8,24 current measurement on an overhead line equipped with line arresters",
CIGRE Colloquium, 2010.
1 LSA Middle - - -
[3] T. Sadovic, S. Sadovic, "EMTP – RV modelling for the transmission line
Top - - - lightning performance computation", User Group Meeting, 20 April
Bottom 263,15 3,52 11,93 2009, Dubrovnik, 2009.
2 LSA Middle 263,27 3,54 9,73 [4] IEEE Guide for Improving the Lightning Performance of Transmission
Top - - - Lines, IEEE Standards Department, June. 1996.
Bottom 269,28 4,23 12,38 [5] CIGRE WG C4.407, "Lightning Parameters for Engineering
3 LSA Middle 261,18 3,32 9,68 Applications", CIGRE Technical brochure no 549, August 2013.
Top 250,67 2,28 6,15 [6] V.A. Rakov, M.A. Uman, "Lightning Physics and Effects, Cambridge
Univ. Press, Cambridge, U. K, 2003, pp. 232-240.
In table 3 are shown peak values of insulator voltages. [7] K. Narita, Y. Goto, H. Komuro, and S. Sawada, "Bipolar lightning in
TABLE III winter at Maki, Japan" J. Geophys. Res., vol. 94, 13,191-13,195, 1989.
INSULATOR VOLTAGES [8] V.A. Rakov, "A Review of Positive and Bipolar Lightning Discharges",
American Meteorological Society, 2003.
CASE Phase Ui (kV)
Bottom 256,35
1 LSA Middle (no LSA) 771,38
Top (no LSA) 786,59
Bottom 263,15
2 LSA Middle 263,53
Top (no LSA) 793,29
Bottom 269,49
3 LSA Middle 261,63
Top 251,37

From presented arrester current shapes it is possible to see

that the arrester current peaks are not so high as peak of
injected lightning stroke. The arrester voltage shape for all
cases is similar but with different peak values. It depends of
LSA position (is it installed on bottom, middle or top phase)
and tower footing resistance. From energy duties
consideration we can see that arrester energy rise up as
bipolar lightning current arriving at arrester. The
corresponding energy duties are not so high. Reasons for that
are short durations of arrester currents and fact that
considering transmission line is shielded. Insulator voltages
are high, especially for phases without LSA installed (for
example 771,38 kV). Line critical flashover voltage for 110
kV is 550 kV.

V. CONCLUSIONS
This paper presents powerful and effective EMTP – RV
modelling. Grouping of elements into subcircuits and creating