Influence of a lossy ground on the lightning performance of overhead transmission lines

This paper investigates the impact of incorporating both displacement currents and frequency-dependent soil parameters in the calculation of the ground-return impedance for the determination of the backflashover rate of 138 kV and 230 kV overhead transmission lines due to direct lightning strikes. This is done by considering the Sunde's formulation for calculating the ground-return impedance, which is incorporated in a time-domain simulator using an alternative implementation of Marti's transmission line model. The obtained results show that the peak of the lightning overvoltages computed considering Sunde's formula, along with frequency-dependent soil parameters, leads to higher amplitudes in comparison with those simulated using the classical Carson's formula, which neglects the frequency dependence of soil parameters and assumes conductive currents in the soil much larger than displacement currents. This effect is more pronounced in high-resistivity soils and leads to an increase in the line backflashover rate within 4-6%, 7-12% and 9-15% for 1000 Ωm, 5000 Ωm and 10000 Ωm soils, respectively, considering 138 kV and 230 kV lines, and assuming a typical median first stroke lightning current. Analyses performed with slow and fast first stroke currents confirm the trend of increase of the backflashover rate with the consideration of Sunde's formula.