2021 3rd International Conference on High Voltage Engineering and Power Systems (ICHVEPS)

500 kV Quadruple Circuit Compact Transmission

Line Redesign Study to Reduce The Impact of
Lightning Strikes
2021 3rd International Conference on High Voltage Engineering and Power Systems (ICHVEPS) | 978-1-6654-4354-8/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICHVEPS53178.2021.9601020

Joko Hartono Muhammad Ridwan Muhammad Muslih Mafruddin

Transmission and Distribution Transmission and Distribution Transmission and Distribution
Department Department Department
PLN Research Institute PLN Research Institute PLN Research Institute
Jakarta, Indonesia Jakarta, Indonesia Jakarta, Indonesia
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Hakim Habibi Erny Anugrahany

Transmission and Distribution Transmission and Distribution
Department Department
PLN Research Institute PLN Research Institute
Jakarta, Indonesia Jakarta, Indonesia
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—the 500 kV extra high voltage tower overvoltage. Moreover, the dimensions of this compact tower
transmission line has the highest tower height among others are higher than conventional transmission lines. Therefore
towers transmission lines with the same voltage levels, therefore the potency for lightning strikes to the phase wire (shielding
the possibility of shielding failure due to a direct lightning strike
failure) will be higher, so the potency for insulation failure
to the phase wire will be higher. This paper will study the design
of the 500 kV Quadruple Circuit Compact Transmission Line caused by overvoltage will be higher. This study was
which height is 105,35 m and the cross-arm length of Ground conducted to evaluate the typical dimensions of the typical
Steel Wire (GSW) from the center is 6,95 m. The maximum peak compact transmission line and then comparing with the
current of lightning that can strike the phase wire is 29,8 kA with redesign in the dimensions of the GSW by increasing 1 meter,
the overvoltage on the upper phase of the insulator is 4010 kV. 2 meters, and 3 meters of the arm length to improve the
For this reason, a redesign will be proposed by increasing the
shielding angle. The parameters to be evaluated are the
cross-arm length of Ground Steel Wire (GSW) to improve the
shielding angle, it will reduce the maximum peak current of maximum lightning peak current when striking the phase
lightning that can strike the phase wire (shielding failure ) so that wire (shielding failure) within its impact the overvoltage on
the overvoltage on the upper insulator is also reduced, this value the upper insulator and also the probability of occasion based
will be adapted with the value of Lightning impulse withstand on the PLN Lightning Detection System.
voltage of the insulator to prevent flashover.
Keywords—500 kV extra high voltage compact tower
transmission lines, flashover, Phase wire, Shielding failure, II. THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
Lightning, insulator, cross-arm length, Shielding angle, Ground
Steel Wire (GSW). A. Shielding angle
Shielding angle is the angle between the vertical line drawn
I. INTRODUCTION by GSW and the phase wire (Fig.1). The angle must be set
Due to the growth of population density, the need for correctly to deliver the protection zone where the lightning
electricity is increasing. There will be a lot of electricity flash will tend to strike the GSW rather than the phase wire.
infrastructure development such as transmission lines, but for This compact transmission line has a height of 105,35 m, it
the urban areas that are already full of buildings it will have is the highest tower among other transmission lines with the
an impact, the safe distance of the high voltage transmission same voltage levels. Two effects occur based on this
line is becoming increasingly narrow. Therefore, the condition, the possibility of shielding failure due to a direct
quadruple circuit compact transmission is come up. This lightning strike to the phase wire will be higher and the
design offers greater power transfer than the existing shielding characteristics of the tower must be adapted as
transmission system which only has two circuits and also it height is increased (Fig.2). To maintain a low failure rate,
delivers the compact tower construction so that the safe shielding failure is calculated by a function of the height of
distance will be wider. This compact transmission line is the conductor above ground (transmission lines) and the
planned to be installed in the capital city which has the
characteristics of an urban area.
Indonesia has fairly high lightning strike characteristics,
Based on [1], the data of lightning strikes in 2020 in the
capital city (Jakarta) is more than 103 flash/km2/year. High
lightning strikes will affect the performance of this
transmission line, especially the insulation ability due to Fig. 1. Shielding angle illustration [3]

978-1-6654-4354-8/21/$31.00 ©2021 IEEE 263

Authorized licensed use limited to: Universiti Malaysia Pahang. Downloaded on January 22,2023 at 03:23:24 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 Based on [3], lightning may cause the insulators of a
transmission line to flashover in the following two ways:
• lightning strikes to the tower or the GSW
(backflashover).
• direct lightning strikes to a phase wire (shielding
failure).
Insulator plays an important role as insulation between
transmission tower structure as the mechanical side and high
voltage conductor as the electrical side. For the 500 kV
transmission line, the insulator string usually consists of 24
Fig. 2. Shielding angle selection due to tower construction and balls and the cap insulator with approximate lightning
lightning characteristics [2] impulse withstand voltage around 2230 kV for negative
lightning as mentioned by [4]. Flashover occurs when the
protective angle for transmission lines. This protective angle lightning strikes a phase wire then creating an overvoltage
or shielding angle should be decreased as the tower height is above the lightning impulse withstand voltage of the
increased as mentioned by [2]. insulator. Therefore the insulator installed on the
When lightning strikes a phase wire, there are no other transmission lines becomes critical.
objects shares in carrying that huge energy of the electric
current. Lightning strikes to an unshielded phase wire are III. DATA AND MODELLING
capable to cause the flashover if the withstand voltage of A. Lightning Data
insulated passed. Properly located GSW may protect by
The lightning data used in this paper was retrieved from
discharging the current to the ground through the tower
PLN Lightning Detection System in 2020 then gathered as
impedance and footing resistance. This will generate the
shown in Fig.3. According to data, some areas (less than 10)
voltages across the insulator and the likelihood of flashover
that represented by a square in 1 km2 have negative lightning
is substantially reduced by considering the strength of the which range of electric peak current more than 19,53 kA
insulator. samples/km2/year, while the most area has negative lightning
The equation for calculating the shielding angle that is which the range of peak current is more than 12,52 kA –
given in equation (1), shielding angle is the intersection 16,02 samples/km2/year. The calculation and the simulation
between GSW height (y) and the length of phase wire from in this paper will use negative lightning.
the GSW position (y). From the shielding angle ( obtained Table II shows the cumulative negative polarity lightning
and the equation (2) which is involved with the height of that occur in Jakarta. It represents the possibility of peak
tower transmission line (H), the striking distance (r) current lightning from 1 kA to 100 kA in one year from 2018
represents the lightning radius for a certain lightning current until 2020.
value, where the greater the lightning peak current value, the
greater the lightning radius. It is then likened to a ball rolling
on a transmission tower, where the part of the tower that does
not hit the rolling ball is an area protected by the GSW. The
shielded area can be thought of as an angle of shield provided
by the ground wire to each phase conductor. Based on [3],
The equation (3) determines the magnitude of lightning
impulse current (I), in this research, it represents the
maximum peak current when striking phase wire (shielding
wire).
Fig. 3 Ground Flash Density (GFD) in Jakarta area
(1)
TABLE I. RECORDED NEGATIVE POLARITY LIGHTNING DATA

(2)
1

(3)

B. Overvoltage on the Insulator

Surge impedance is the ratio between voltage and current
of a wave that travels on a conductor. flashover occurs if the
voltage produced by the lightning stroke current flowing
through the surge impedance of the towers exceeds lightning
impulse withstand voltage [3].

264

Authorized licensed use limited to: Universiti Malaysia Pahang. Downloaded on January 22,2023 at 03:23:24 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
B. 500 kV Quadruple Circuit Compact Transmission Line 2. .+ 0 (6)
) .ℎ
The illustration of the 500 kV quadruple circuit compact ℎ + ℎ, + ℎ. + ℎ2 + ℎ3 + ℎ4 + ℎ5
transmission line is shown in Fig. 4. It has 2 GSWs and 12 )5 2. .+ 0 (7)
phase wires. The height is 105,35 meters and the typical 2
6 ).
(8)
length of GSWs arm and phase arm is 6,95 meters. The value 7
of footing resistance is assumed 5 Ohm. There will be 4 ℎ + ℎ, + ℎ. + ℎ2 + ℎ3 + ℎ4 + ℎ5 (9)
configurations evaluated in this paper: Where:
• Typical GSW arm length (4,1 meter) : Surge impedance (Ω)
• Typical GSW arm length (4,1 meter + 1 meter) : Tower height (m)
• Typical GSW arm length (4,1 meter + 2 meter)
) : Equivalent radius of tower (m)
• Typical GSW arm length (4,1 meter + 3 meter)
: Tower-top radius (m)
, : Tower-midsection radius (m)
. : Tower-base radius (m)
+ : Height from base to midsection (m)
+, : Heigh from midsection to top (m)
) : Resistance of tower segments (Ω)
: Attenuation coefficient
6 : Inductance of tower segments (μH)
H : Height of tower segment (m)
7 : Wave velocity (m/μs)

C. ATP Modelling
After obtaining the surge impedance values, resistance
and inductance pairs that represent each circuit, then those
values are used to create transmission line model in Electro
Magnetic Transient Program as shown Fig. 5, where the
transmission line has 4 circuit, 2 overhead ground wire and 5
ohm tower resistance.
The lightning strike current model use heidler that shown
in Fig. 6. The rise time and fall time of lightning strike
waveform is 1,2/50 μs.

Fig. 4. 500 kV Quadruple Circuit Compact Transmission Line

Dimension

Based on the geometric data of the tower transmission

line obtained, a modeling of the tower transmission line is
built as shown in Fig. 5. Surge impedance modeling of the
tower uses multistory modeling to determine the overvoltage
on the upper insulator when a lightning strike occurs on the
phase wire. In lightning strike transient analysis, the tower is
modeled as a path for surge impedance. Therefore, modeling
of the tower takes an important factor in analyzing the effect
of the lightning strike. In this paper, tower modeling uses the
multistory approach, each part of the tower is represented as
distributed parameter model which consists of tower surge
impedance ( ) in series with R-L circuit. Based on [6-8], the
magnitude of multistory model parameters is derived from
equations (4) to (9).

)
60. log ! cot $0,5. tan *
(4)
Fig. 5. Multistory tower modelling [6]
+, + , + .+ (5)
)

265

Authorized licensed use limited to: Universiti Malaysia Pahang. Downloaded on January 22,2023 at 03:23:24 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 TABLE VI. STRIKING DISTANCE AND PEAK CURRENT OF SHIELDING ANGLE
FOR EVERY CONFIGURATION

Peak Current when

Striking
Configuration striking phase wire
distance (m)
(kA)
Typical GSW arm length 110,5 29,8

Typical GSW arm length + 1 m 100,5 27,3

Fig. 6. Lightning strike model [6]
Typical GSW arm length + 2 m 93,5 25,2

Typical GSW arm length + 3 m 87,5 23,4

C. Overvoltage
Peak current of shielding failure that obtained before then
used to simulate the overvoltage on the upper phase insulator,
Table VII shows the result. It can be seen that increasing 3
meter GSW arm length makes the overvoltage on the upper
phase insulator decrease from 4010 kV to 3230 kV.
Fig. 7. Heidler parameters model [6] TABLE VIII. STRIKING DISTANCE AND PEAK CURRENT OF SHIELDING ANGLE
FOR EVERY CONFIGURATION

Overvoltage in upper phase

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS Configuration insulator when striking phase
wire (kV)
A. Shielding angle Typical GSW arm length 4010
The shielding angle affects the protection zone so that Typical GSW arm length + 1 m 3700
lightning strikes the GSW first than the phase wire. Negative
Typical GSW arm length + 2 m 3450
shielding angle, the GSW position exceeds the phase wire
position. Based on [3], the higher tower construction, the Typical GSW arm length + 3 m 3230
shielding angle can be made close to zero or negative. By
adjusting the shielding angle, when the lightning strikes the
phase wire, the peak lightning current will be smaller which D. Shielding Failure Probability
is the probability of shielding failure is reduced, and also the From the peak current of shielding current obtained before,
overvoltage on the insulator is reduced. Table III. shows the then matched with cumulative lightning in Table IX. From
shielding angle that formed by typical GSW length and GSW Table X, we can see that the shielding failure probability by
additional length using equation (1). Increasing 1 meter GSW increasing 3 meters of GSW arm length delivers 44,6 %, it
length makes the shielding angle -4,2°, increasing 2 meters decreases 8,8% from the typical GSW length 53,4%.
GSW length makes the Shielding angle -8,35°, and increasing
3 meters GSW length makes the Shielding angle -12,42°.
TABLE XI. SHIELDING FAILURE PROBABILITY FOR EVERY CONFIGURATION
TABLE IV. SHIELDING ANGLE FOR EVERY CONFIGURATION
Shielding failure
Configuration
Shielding angle Probability (%)
Configuration
(°) Typical GSW arm length 53,4
Typical GSW arm length 0,00
Typical GSW arm length + 1 m 52,4
Typical GSW arm length + 1 m -4,20
Typical GSW arm length + 2 m 48,5
Typical GSW arm length + 2 m -8,35
Typical GSW arm length + 3 m 44,6
Typical GSW arm length + 3 m -12,42

V. CONCLUSION
B. Peak Current Lightning Strike
To improve performance against lightning strikes, it can be
Using equation (2) dan (3) with the shielding angle obtained, done by increasing the length of the GSW arm, from the
the striking distance of lightning flash and peak current of
simulation results by adding 3 meters of GSW arm length
Shielding failure could be obtained that shown in Table VI.
gives the maximum peak current of lightning that can strike
Increasing 3 meter GSW length makes the peak current of
the phase wire decreasing by 6,4 kA or 21,4% and the
shielding current reduce from 29,8 kA to 23,4 kA.
overvoltage on the upper phase of insulator decreasing by 780
kV or 19,4%, and based on historical data records, it can be
known that the addition of 3 meters in the GSW arm length
can reduce the potency of lightning that causes shielding
failure from 53,4% to 44,6%. The recommended insulator is

266

Authorized licensed use limited to: Universiti Malaysia Pahang. Downloaded on January 22,2023 at 03:23:24 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
having the lightning impulse withstand voltage more than transmission line basic components on backflashover surges impinging
on GIS substations,” in Proceedings of the Universities Power
overvoltage on the upper phase insulator which is 3230 kV. Engineering Conference, 2010.
[7] T. Yamada et al., "Experimental evaluation of a UHV tower model for
ACKNOWLEDGMENT lightning surge analysis," in IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery,
The authors are grateful to PT PLN (Persero) Research vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 393-402, Jan. 1995.
Institute for funding this research. [8] R. Zoro and T. Leo, "Lightning protection system improvement on
extra high voltage 500 kV transmission lines in Indonesia using
extended mast terminal," in International Conference on Electrical
REFERENCES Engineering and Informatics, 2009.
[1] Hartono Joko, Bramantyo Brian, Muslih Mafruddin, Habibi Hakim, [9] Harsono, B. B. S. D. A., Jintaka, D. R., Priambodo, N. W., & Munir,
dan Supriyadi Guntur, Kajian evaluasi unjuk kerja tower compact 4 B. S. (2019). “An overview of lightning data evaluation in Central Java
CCT SUTET 500 kV Muara Tawar - Bekasi terhadap sambaran petir. Province for transmission line management,” in Proceedings - 2019
PT PLN (Persero) Pusat Penelitian dan Pengembangan 5th International Conference on Science and Technology, 2019.
Ketenagalistrikan, 2021.
[10] Kusuma, A. A., Pramana, P. A. A., Munir, B. S., & Rica Ayu, S.,
[2] IEEE Std 998TM-2012, ”Guide for direct lightning stroke shielding of ”Studying of lightning surge transient effect on 500 kV quadruple
substations.” 2012. circuit transmission line,” in Proceedings - 2016 6th International
[3] IEEE Std 1243-1997, ”Guide for improving the lightning performance Annual Engineering Seminar, 2016.
of transmission line.” 1997. [11] Marungsri, B., Boonpoke, S., Rawangpai, A., Oonsivilai, A., &
[4] Harsono, B. B. S. D. A., Rito Jintaka, D., Tofani, K. M., & Sofiarto Kritayakornupong, C., ”Study of tower grounding resistance effected
Munir, B., “Reliability evaluation of 150 kV transmission line in back flashover to 500 kV transmission line in Thailand by using
Southern Sumatera region using recorded lightning data,” in 5th ATP/EMTP,” in International Journal of Energy and Power
International Conference on Science and Technology, 2019. Engineering, 2009.
[5] Adi Aristo, Sofiarto Munir, Agus Putu, Bramantyo Brian dan Widi [12] Narita, T., Ota, H., Zaima, E., & Ishii, M., ”Experimental evaluation of
Nur, Kajian mitigasi gangguan akibat petir pada SUTT 66 kV unit uhv gantry tower model for lightning surge analysis”. in IEEJ
transmisi Jawa Bagian Timur dan Bali. PT PLN (Persero) Pusat Transactions on Power and Energy, 2013.
Penelitian dan Pengembangan Ketenagalistrikan, 2017.
[6] Mikropoulos, Pantelis & Tsovilis, Thomas E. & Datsios, Zacharias &
Mavrikakis, N., “Effects of simulation models of overhead

267

Authorized licensed use limited to: Universiti Malaysia Pahang. Downloaded on January 22,2023 at 03:23:24 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.