Computation of Lightning Impulse Backflashover Outages Rates on High Voltage Transmission Lines

Abstract

Lightning impulse has been one of the important problems for insulation design of power systems and it is still the main cause of outages of transmission and distribution lines. The lightning return‐stroke current and the charge delivered by the stroke are the most important parameters to assess the severity of lightning strokes to power lines and apparatus. This paper presents the effects of many tower, ground parameters on the backfloshover voltage level. Also demonstrate the results used to determine the lightning backflashovers level on 230KV transmission lines utilized by Saudi Electric Company (SEC) in Saudi Arabia, using two well known approaches CIGRE, and the simplified method. The studies include lightning flashovers, backflash analysis, as dependent on the tower design parameters which is considered the main parameters that reduce the rate of lightning bachflashovers in the transmission lines. The study results can be applied to reduce the number lightning flashovers and therefore reduce the transmission lines