INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Of ACADEMIC RESEARCH

Vol. 3. No. 1. January, 2011, Part I

SURGE PROTECTION PRACTICE FOR EQUIPMENT IN SUBSTATIONS

E.N.C. Okafor*, D.C. Idoniboyeobi, I.O. Akwukwaegbu Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Federal University of Technology, Owerri (NIGERIA) *Corresponding author: encokafor2000@yahoo.com ABSTRACT The surge voltages, especially those due to lightning have very high magnitudes. Therefore, power systems require adequate protection against direct lightning strokes. Protection of transmission lines against natural or lightning over voltages and minimizing the lightning over voltages are done by suitable line design, providing guard and ground wires, and using surge diverters. This paper discusses suitable techniques to protect transmission lines and apparatus at substations (Switchgears and transformers). Key words: Transmission lines, Substations, Switchgears, Transformer, Ground wires, Counterpoise, Expulsion gaps, Protective tubes, Surge diverter 1. INTRODUCTION Surges due to lightning are mostly injected into the power system through long cross-country transmission lines. Substation apparatus is always well shielded against direct lightning strokes. The protection of transmission lines against direct strokes requires a shield to prevent lightning from 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. This prevents any arc from line conductor to ground. A ground wire placed above the phase conductors of a transmission line shields the phase conductors from the lightning strokes. A shielding angle of about 300 gives adequate lightning protection. 2. PROTECTION OF TRANSMISSION LINES AGAINST LIGHTNING Protection of transmission lines against natural or lightning over voltages and minimizing the lightning over voltages are done by suitable line design, providing guard and ground wires, and using surge diverters. Over voltages due to lightning strokes can be avoided or minimized in practice by (a) Shielding the overhead lines by using ground wires above the phase wires, (b) Using ground rods and counter- poise wires, (c) Including protective devices like expulsion gaps, protector tubes on the lines, and surge diverters at the line terminations and substations. 2.1 Lightning protection using shielded wires or ground wires The ground wire is a conductor run parallel to the main conductors of the transmission line. It is placed higher than the main conductors, is supported on the same towers and is earthed at equally and regularly spaced towers (1, 2). It acts in two ways to protect the main conductors The ground wire helps to increase the effective capacitance between the line conductor and ground, such that the voltage appearing between conductor and ground because of static cloud charge is reduced. This is illustrated by the capacitor equivalent of the cloud-conductor system shown in Fig 1.

Cloud
(b)

C1 Cg Main conductor

e2 Ground

C2

Fig. 1. Capacitor equivalent of the cloud-conductor system

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Vol. 3. No. 1. January, 2011, Part I

Being higher than the ground wire shields the main conductor against direct strokes, though it increases the probability of a direct stroke to itself more than what it would be for the main conductor if the ground wire were shields the transmission line conductor from the induced charges, from clouds as well as from a lightning discharge. The arrangement of ground wires (GW) over the line conductors is shown in The protection (or shielding) angle of a ground wire is found to be 300 for tower heights of 30m or less. The protection zones of one and two ground wires are shown in figs 2 (a) and (b), while fig 2 (c) shows a double circuit line protected by a single wire. But for extra high voltage (EHV) lines, the tower heights (h) may be up to 50m, and the lightning sometimes occur directly to the line wires as shown in fig 2 (c). The height of the ground wire above the highest line conductor can be easily determined by the protection zone geometry. However, the present trend in fixing tower height and the shielding angle is by considering flashover rates and failure probabilities. The effective protection or shielding given by the ground wire depends on the height of the ground wire above the ground (h) and the protection or shielding angle (usually 300) as shown in fig 2. The mechanism by which the line is protected may be explained as follows. If a positively charged cloud is assumed to be above the line, it induces a negative charge on the portion below it, of the transmission line. With the ground wire present, both the ground wire and the line conductor get the induced charge. But the ground wire is earthed at regular intervals, and as such the induced charge is drained to the earth potential only; the potential difference between the ground wire and the cloud and that between the ground wire and the transmission line wire will be in the inverse ratio of their respective capacitances (assuming the cloud to be a perfect conductor and the atmospheric medium (air) a dielectric). As the ground wire is nearer to the line wire, the induced charge on it will be much less and hence the potential rise will be quite small. 2.2 Protection using ground rods and counter- poise wires When a line is shielded, the lightning strikes either the tower or the ground wire. The path for drainage of the charge and lightning current is either through the tower frame to ground or through the ground line in opposite directions from the point of striking. Thus, the ground wire reduces the rise of back flashover in the event of direct stroke to tower, as the instantaneous potential to which the tower top is raised is reduced by the fact that half the surge impedance (Zs =Zg/2) of the ground wire appears in parallel to the tower surge impedance (ZT), as the current path is in three directions. It follows from fig 3 that the instantaneous potential to which tower top can rise or simply the tower top voltage is

Where Ii is the impulse current injected into the tower. It is easily seen that Zg (as low as possible) reduces VT. Zg Ii Zg

ZT

Fig 3. Protection using ground rods If the surge impedance of the tower, which is the effective tower footing resistance, is reduced, the tower top surge voltage developed is also reduced considerably. Towers are grounded by providing driven ground rods and counterpoise wires (3) connected to tower legs at its foundations. Ground rods are a number of rods about 5mm diameter and 2.5 to 3m long driven into the ground. In hand soils, the rods may be much longer and can be driven to a depth of, say, 50m. They are usually made of galvanized iron or copper bearing steel. The spacing of the rods, the number of rods and the depth to which they are driven depend on the desired tower footing resistance. With 10 rods of 4m long and spaced 4m apart, connected to the legs of the tower, the dynamic or effective resistance may be reduced to 10 ohms. The standard value of this resistance is around 10 ohms for 66KV lines, and increases with the operating voltage. For 400KV, it is approximately 80 ohms. The tower footing resistance is the value of the footing resistance when measured at 50HZ. It is made as low as economically justifiable.

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Vol. 3. No. 1. January, 2011, Part I

The above effect is alternatively achieved by using counter-poise wires. Counter-poise wires buried in the ground at a depth of 0.5 to 1.0m, running parallel to the transmission line conductors and connected to the tower legs. These wires may be 50 to 100m long. These are found to be effective than driven rods and the surge impedance of the tower may be reduced to as low as 25 ohms. The depth does not materially affect the resistance of the counter-poise, and it is only necessary to bury it to a depth enough to prevent thief. It is desirable to use a larger number of parallel wires than a single wire. But it is difficult to lay counter-poise wires compared to ground or driven rods. 2.3. Protective devices In spite of the protection of transmission lines described above, sufficiently intense voltage surges can reach the substation and can damage the apparatus. The apparatus at substation such as switchgear and transformer is very expensive and outages can be prolonged, and must therefore be provided with almost 100 percent protection against surges. In regions where lightning strokes are intensive or heavy, the overhead lines with these zones are fitted with shunt protected devices. On the line itself, two devices known as expulsion gaps and protective tubes are used. Line terminations, junctions of lines, and substations are usually fitted with surge diverters. A twopronged approach is followed in the protective scheme for apparatus. Surges before they reach the substation are modified to reduce the slope of their wave front. Upon reaching the substation, surges above a certain peak value are diverted into a shunt path to discharge their energies. As a result, the surges that finally reach the apparatus are so modified and reduced in strength as to be completely innocuous. The shunt discharge path for the surge must be auto-clearing so as not to constitute a fault on the line. Surge modifiers which are surge capacitor, a surge reactor and surge absorber: A surge modifier is nothing but a small shunt capacitor connected between the line and earth, or a series air-cored inductor. It means a capacitor connected in parallel with an equipment provides some degree of protection against surges between before the surge can impress a high voltage on the equipment, it must charge the capacitor. By temporary energy storage in them, the modifiers reduce the steepness of the surge wave front, which otherwise can be damaging to apparatus, since the voltage across the equipment can rise only as quickly as the capacitor can be charged through the line. Capacitors are particularly effective against short duration surges. The energy of these surges is such that it can be absorbed by the capacitors. However, for high energy surges, the size and cost of capacitors becomes prohibitive. The combination of a capacitor and an arrester can be very useful because they complement each other. The capacitor reduces the steepness of the wave. A reactor connected in series with the equipment also serves an identical purpose. When a surge reaches the reactor, it initially appears only across the reactor, the reactor offers high impedance to the high frequency currents. The surge energy is initially absorbed in the magnetic field of current in the reactor. Its ability to store energy is limited but it can take care of low energy surges.

Fig. 4. Ferranti surge absorber (a) construction, (b) Equivalent circuit In a Ferranti surge absorber given in fig 4, an inductor is enclosed in an earthed metal shielded. The damping is due to the eddy currents induce in the shield. The charging of the capacitance between the coil and earthed shield also reduces the energy of the wave. The absorber is effective not only in reducing the steepness of the wave but has some effect on amplitude also as some energy is dissipated by the resistance of the metallic shield (4). Surge diverters (arresters) Terminal equipment at the substation is protected against by surge diverters, also called surge arrester or lightning arresters. A diverter is connected in parallel or shunt with the equipment to be protected at the substation between the line and ground. Ideally, it should become conducting at voltage above diverter rating restrict the voltage across its terminal to the design value; become non conducting again when the line-to-neutral voltage becomes lower than the design value. In other words, it should not permit any power follow-on current; not conduct any current at normal or somewhat above normal power frequency voltages.

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Vol. 3. No. 1. January, 2011, Part I

Three types of surge diverter are described below in principle, construction and application. (i) Rod gap arrester This is constituted of a plain air-gap between two square rods (1cm2) bent at right angles and connected between the line and earth as shown for the case of a transformer bushing in fig 5. The gap may also be in the form of horn or arcing rings.

Fig. 5. Rod gap on bushing insulator When the surge voltage reaches the design value of the gap, an arc appears in the gap providing an ionised path to ground, essentially a short-circuit. The gap suffers from the defect that after the surge has discharged, power frequency current continues to flow through the ionised path and the arc has to be extinguished by opening of circuit breakers resulting in outage. Rod gap is therefore generally used as back-up protection. For a given gap, the time to break down varies inversely with the applied voltage. It is normally recommended that a rod gap should be so set that it breaks down to a voltage not less than 30 percent below the voltage withstand level of the equipment to be protected. (ii) Expulsion type arrester (protective tube): It is improvement over a rod gap and is commonly used on system operating at voltages up to 33KV.

Fig. 6. Expulsion type lightning arrester The series gap is set to arc over at a specified voltage lower than the withstand voltage of the equipment to be protected as shown in fig 6. The follow-on current is confined to the space inside the relatively small fibre tube. Part of the tube material vaporizes, and the high pressure gases so formed are expelled through the vent at the lower end of the tube, causing the power follow-in arc to be extinguished. The device, therefore, has the desired self-clearing property. Because of vaporization of the tube material and weathering effect, the protector tube requires frequent replacement and lack of proper maintenance may lead to occasional outage. It has not, therefore, found favour in application and is practically out of use now.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Of ACADEMIC RESEARCH

(iii) Value type (nonlinear) arreste

Vol. 3. No. 1. January, 2011, Part I

Fig. 7. Value type lightning arrester (a) diagram (b) Simplified representation The value type lightning arrester consists of two assemblies namely series spark gaps and nonlinear resistor discs (made of material such as thyrite or metrosil) in series.The value type lightning arrester consists of nonlinear resistors in series with spark-gaps, as shown in fig 7. The spark-gap assembly acts as a fast-switch, which gets ionized (conducting) at specified voltage. Both the assemblies are accommodated in tight porcelain container. The spark gap is a multiple assembly consisting of a number of identical spark gaps in series. Each gap consists of two electrodes with fixed gap spacing. The voltage distribution across the gaps is linearised by means of additional resistance elements (called grading resistors) across the gaps. The spacing of the series gaps is such that it will withstand the normal circuit voltage. However, an over voltage will cause the gap to breakdown, causing the surge current to ground via the nonlinear resistors. The nonlinear resistor discs are made of an inorganic compound such as thyrite or metrosil. These discs are connected in series. The nonlinear resistors have the property of offering a high resistance to current flow when normal system voltage is applied, but a low resistance to the flow of high surge currents. In other words, the resistance of these nonlinear dements decreases with the increase in current through them and vice-versa (5). Under normal conditions, the normal system voltage is insufficient to cause the breakdown of air gap assembly. On the occurrence of an over voltage, the breakdown of the series spark gap takes place and the surge current is conducted to earth via the nonlinear resistances. Since the magnitude of surge current is very large, the nonlinear elements will offer a very low resistance to the passage of surge. The result is that the surge will rapidly go to earth instead of being sent back over the line. When the surge is over, the nonlinear resistors assume high resistance to stop the flow of current. The advantages of value type arrester are: i. They provide very effective protection (especially for transformers and cables) against surges. ii. They operate very rapidly taking less than a second iii. The impulse ratio is practically unity. The limitations of value type arrester are: i. They may fail to check the surge of very steep wave front reaching the terminal apparatus. This calls for additional steps to check steep fronted waves. ii. Their performance is adversely affected by the entry of moisture into the enclosure. This necessitates effective sealing of the enclosure at all times. According to their application, the value type arresters are classified as station type and line type. The station type arresters are generally used for the protection of important equipment in power stations operating on voltages up to 220kV or higher. The line type arresters are also used for stations handling voltages up to 66kV. 3. NONLINEAR DIVERTER CHARACTERISTIC The ideal characteristic for the nonlinear resistance elements would be R1 = Constant .(2) The nonlinear resistors are made of loosely packed silicon carbide. The modern trend is to use zinc oxide, which gives more desirable characteristics. Because of loose packing of silicon carbide particles, the conduction process through it is mainly by means of short arcs and hence the nonlinear resistor characteristic. The static characteristic is empirically expressed as a I = KV .. (3) Where 1 = discharge current V = voltage across the element A = an exponent more than unity (nearly 4) K = constant. K and a depend upon the material, packing and dimensions of the element.

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Vol. 3. No. 1. January, 2011, Part I

Because of the exponent (a) being close to 4, the current through the element rises more rapidly with the applied voltage than in the linear case which, in other words, means that the elements offer a much lower resistance at higher currents. The dynamic characteristic of the diverter (several elements in series) for a surge current (rising and then falling) is shown in fig 8.

Fig. 8. Dynamic volt-ampere characteristic of surge diverter From fig 8, Vd = maximum voltage across the diverter during discharge of the surge current with peak value Id and If = power frequency follow-on current at system voltage Vs. Because of the nonlinear diverter characteristic, the power follow-on current at system voltage is so small that the cooling and deionising effects of gap assembly are able to extinguish the arc. This gives the self-clearing property to the diverter, which is essential to its operation after the surge current has been discharged to ground.

Fig. 9. Surge diverter operation As a voltage surge shown in fig 9 travelling on the line reaches the surge diverter, it breaks down at a specified voltage Vbd. The voltage across the diverter instantly dips and then, as the surge current shown discharges through it, a nearly constant voltage of value Vr, called residual voltage is maintained across it. After the surge current has been discharged, the power follow-on current is interrupted by the gap assembly. The zinc oxide diverters maintain a practically constant residual voltage over a very wide current is so small that it is not essential to use a series air-gap to limit this current. The important ratings of a surge diverter are Rated system voltage (it should be able to withstand an over voltage of 5%). Breakdown voltage. Residual voltage. Peak discharge current

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Of ACADEMIC RESEARCH

Vol. 3. No. 1. January, 2011, Part I

Fig. 10. V-I characteristic of nonlinear resistor Fig 10 illustrates V-I characteristic of the nonlinear resistor. The ratio of maximum residual voltage eI and the maximum power voltage e2 is termed as protective ratio. Mathematically, protective ratio is given as Protective ratio = e1 . (4) e2 The protective ration may vary between 3 and 4.5 depending upon the magnitude of surge. 4. CONCLUSION Surge voltages in power lines and apparatus at substations due to lightning strokes are avoided or minimized in practice by Shielding the overhead lines by using ground wires above the phase wires, and a shielding angle of about 300 gives adequate lightning protection, Using ground rods and counterpoise wires, and Including protective devices like expulsion gaps, protective tubes on the lines, and surge Diverters at the line terminations and substations. For distribution and high voltage power circuits, the primary type of protection is supplied by either sparkgap or metal oxide surge arrestors. The spark-gap was the first type of surge arrestor. The spark gap surge arrestor is slower acting and has a higher let-through voltage than the metal oxide surge arrestors. For this reason, surge protection for power circuits is presently designed with metal oxide arrestors. The only place spark-gap arrestors are used is on high voltage transmission lines. REFERENCES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Nagrath, I.J. and Kothari, D.P., Power System Engineering, 12th edn, Tata McGraw-Hill, N-York, Pp.587-597, 2002. Naidu, M.S., and Kamaraju, V., High Voltage Engineering, 3rd edn, Tata McGraw-Hill, N-York, Pp.223-228, 1987. Electrical Transmission and Distribution Reference Book, Westinghouse Electric Corp., East Pittsburgh, Penn., 1964. Gupta, B.R., Power System Analysis and Design, 4th edn, S. Chand, New Delhi, Pp.391-392,401402, 2006. Mehta, V.K. and Rohit Mehta, Principles of Power System, S. Chand, Pp.565-566, 2006.

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