A Heuristic method for the reduction of the outage rate of high-voltage substations due to atmospheric overvoltages

Abstract

The adequate protection against lightning surges and the limitation of the expected annual failure rate of high-voltage substations are critical issues, in an effort to secure the safety of the equipment and the personnel. Various factors affect the lightning performance of the substations, determining the developed lightning surges and the expected outage rate, i.e., the grounding resistance, the length of the underground cable between the connected overhead transmission line and the power transformer, and the installation position of the arresters. In the current work, a heuristic method is developed to adjust different parameters of high-voltage substations that upgrade their lightning performance. The proposed methodology can be useful to the studies of substations' designers and engineers, contributing effectively in the reduction or/and elimination of lightning failures. © 2018 by the authors.