PROTECTION

OF
TRANSMISSION LINES
AGAINST
LIGHTNING
 PROTECTION OF TRANSMISSION LINES
• Surges due to lightning are mostly injected into Power
System through long Transmission lines
• Substations are well shielded against lightning strokes.
• Transmission lines needs a shield to prevent lightning from
directly striking the electrical conductors.
• Adequate drainage facilities and adequate insulation
structures must be provided so that the discharge can drain
to ground without affecting the conductors.

4/10/2022 B.Tech, HVDC, by PROF. (DR) Ambarnath Banerji 2

 PROTECTION USING GROUND WIRES
• Ground wire is a conductor run parallel to the main
conductor of the transmission line.
• Placed higher than the main conductor.
• Supported on towers.
• Earthed at equally and regularly spaced towers.
• Protects conductors in two ways
1. Increase the effective capacitance between the line
conductor and ground →
causes the voltage
appearing between
conductor and ground
because of static cloud
charge to reduce.
4/10/2022 B.Tech, HVDC, by PROF. (DR) Ambarnath Banerji 3
 PROTECTION OF TRANSMISSION LINES
2. Being higher, the ground wire shields the main conductor
against direct stroke.
Increases probability of direct stroke on itself.
Protection or shielding angle of ground wire is 30ᵒ for
tower height of 30m or less.
Protection zone of one, two ground wires & double ckt line

4/10/2022 B.Tech, HVDC, by PROF. (DR) Ambarnath Banerji 4

 PROTECTION OF TRANSMISSION LINES
• Height of ground wire above the highest conductor can be
determined by the protection zone geometry.
• Present trend in fixing tower height and shielding angle is
by considering flash over rates and failure probabilities.

4/10/2022 B.Tech, HVDC, by PROF. (DR) Ambarnath Banerji 5

 PROTECTION OF TRANSMISSION LINES

4/10/2022 B.Tech, HVDC, by PROF. (DR) Ambarnath Banerji 6

 PROTECTION OF APPARATUS
• Two pronged approach is followed in protecting the
apparatus.
• Surges before they the substation are modified to reduce
the slope of the wave front.
• Upon reaching the substation, surges above certain peaks
are diverted into a shunt path to discharge their energies.
• Thus the surges reaching the apparatus are modified and
reduced in strength to be innocuous
• The shunt path must be auto clearing so as not to constitute
a fault on the line.

4/10/2022 B.Tech, HVDC, by PROF. (DR) Ambarnath Banerji 7

 PROTECTION OF APPARATUS
• SURGE MODIFIERS
• Either a shunt capacitor connected between line and
ground or a series air cored inductor.
• By temporary energy storage in them, the modifier reduces
the steepness of the surge wave front.
• Steep wave front is damaging for apparatus.
• Damping resistors may be connected to reduce the
oscillatory effects.

4/10/2022 B.Tech, HVDC, by PROF. (DR) Ambarnath Banerji 8

 PROTECTION OF APPARATUS
• SURGE DIVERTERS
• Also called surge Arrestor.
• Terminal equipment is protected against surges by Surge
Diverters.
• It is connected in shunt between the line and ground.
• Becomes conducting at voltage above diverter rating.
• Restrict the voltage across its terminals to the design value.
• Becomes non-conducting again when the line to neutral
voltage becomes lower than the design value.
• It should not permit any power follow-on current.
• Not conduct any current at normal or somewhat above
normal frequency voltage.

4/10/2022 B.Tech, HVDC, by PROF. (DR) Ambarnath Banerji 9

 PROTECTION OF APPARATUS
ROD GAP
▪ A plain air-gap between two square
rods(1cm2) bent at right angle.
▪ Connected between line and earth as
shown for a transformer bushing.
▪ Horns or arcing ring can be used.
▪ Surge voltage reaches design value arc
appears in the gap.
▪ After the surge has discharged, power
frequency current continues to flow
through the ionized path.
▪ Arc has to be extinguished by opening of
circuit breaker.
▪ Hence Rod Gap is generally used as back
up protection.
4/10/2022 B.Tech, HVDC, by PROF. (DR) Ambarnath Banerji 10
 PROTECTION OF APPARATUS

• For a given gap the time to breakdown varies inversely

with the applied voltage.
• It is normally recommended that the rod gap should be so
set that it breaks down at a voltage no less than 30%below
the voltage withstand level of the equipment to be
protected.

4/10/2022 B.Tech, HVDC, by PROF. (DR) Ambarnath Banerji 11

 PROTECTION OF APPARATUS
Expulsion Type Lightning Arrestor
▪ Series gap is set to arc over at a
specified voltage lower than withstand
voltage of the equipment.
▪ Follow-on current is confined to the
space inside a small fibre tube.
▪ Part of the tube material vaporizes.
▪ High pressure gas so formed is expelled
through a vent at the lower end of the
tube.
▪ Power follow-in arc gets extinguished.
▪ Desired self clearing property.
▪ Vaporization and weathering effect
causes requirement of frequent
replacement. Otherwise lead to outage
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 PROTECTION OF APPARATUS

VALVE TYPE (NONLINEAR) LIGHTNING ARRESTOR

• A nonlinear resistor in series with spark gap.
• Spark gap acts as a fast switch & gets ionized at specified
voltage.
• Nonlinear resistor elements are stacked one over the other
in two or three section.
• Problem of non-uniform voltage distribution across gap is
solved by capacitor and nonlinear resistor connected
across each gap.
• Gap assembly has high degree of consistency of
breakdown voltage.
• Entire assembly is placed in porcelain housing, properly
sealed to keep out dust and moisture.
4/10/2022 B.Tech, HVDC, by PROF. (DR) Ambarnath Banerji 13
 PROTECTION OF APPARATUS

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 PROTECTION OF APPARATUS

• Nonlinear resistor made of loosely packed silicon carbide

• Modern trend if to use zinc oxide which gives more
desirable characteristics.
• Because of loose packaging of silicon carbide particles, the
conduction process through it is mainly by means of short
arcs.
• Hence nonlinear resistance characteristics.

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