OVER VOLTAGE PROTECTION

Causes of over voltage in Power System

When the voltage goes higher than the rated voltage is called Over Voltage. It is a very common issue in Power
systems. System voltage is to be maintained as per the designed voltage for the stability of the power system. All the
equipment and insulators used in substations and transmission lines are designed for a rated voltage, due to over
voltage, it can be damaged.
Voltage Surge: Voltage Surge A sudden rise in voltage for a very short duration on the power system is known as a
voltage surge or transient voltage.

The causes of overvoltage in power systems are the following two types –

Causes of over voltage in Power System

Over voltage due to external causes
External overvoltage happens mainly for lighting and the atmosphere. Over voltage due to external causes is not
predictable as it depends on the external source. However, the over-voltage of the equipment is designed in a way that
can withstand the external overvoltage. Following external over voltage are observed in power system transmission
line.
• Lightning: Lightning over voltage is a very serious issue in a power system. The height magnitude of surge
over voltage was found due to the lightning. It can damage the connected equipment in the substation. To
protect the substation equipment, lightning surge arresters are used in substations and transmission lines to
protect the system.
• Atmosphere: Electrostatically induced voltage can generate due to the presence of charged cloud around the
long transmission line. Due to changes in weather conditions, the capacitance with the ground can increase
and it will create over-voltage during the switch of the transmission line. Over voltage due to the atmosphere
may not be as high as the lightning over voltage.
Over voltage due to internal causes
Internal over voltage generates due to the internal operation mood of the system and fault conditions in the power
system. Inter over voltage can generate at power frequency, resonance frequency and at high frequency as transient
over voltage.
Followings are the causes of internal overvoltage.
 1. Switching Surges: The overvoltages produced on the power system due to switching operations are known as
switching surges. A few cases will be discussed by way of illustration:

i. Case of an open line: During switching operations of an unloaded line, travelling waves are set up which produce
overvoltages on the line. As an illustration, consider an unloaded line being connected to a voltage source as
shown in Fig below.

When the unloaded line is connected to the voltage source, a voltage wave is set up which travels along the line.
On reaching the terminal point A, it is reflected back to the supply end without change of sign. This causes voltage
doubling i.e. voltage on the line becomes twice the normal value. If Erms . is the supply voltage, then instantaneous
voltage which the line will have to withstand will be 2 2E . This overvoltage is of temporary nature. It is
because the line losses attenuate the wave and in a very short time, the line settles down to its normal supply
voltage E. Similarly, if an unloaded line is switched off, the line will attain a voltage of 2 2E for a moment
before settling down to the normal value.

ii. Case of a loaded line: Overvoltages will also be produced during the switching operations of a loaded line.
Suppose a loaded line is suddenly interrupted. This will set up a voltage of 2 Z n i across the break (i.e. switch)
where i is the instantaneous value of current at the time of opening of line and Z n is the natural impedance of
the line.
iii. Current chopping: Current chopping results in the production of high voltage transients across the contacts of
the air blast circuit breaker. It is briefly discussed here. Unlike oil circuit breakers, which are independent for the
effectiveness on the magnitude of the current being interrupted, air-blast circuit breakers retain the same
extinguishing power irrespective of the magnitude of this current. When breaking low currents (e.g. transformer
magnetising current) with air-blast breaker, the powerful de-ionising effect of air-blast causes the current to fall
abruptly to zero well before the natural current zero is reached. This phenomenon is called current chopping and
produces high transient voltage across the breaker contacts. Overvoltages due to current chopping are
prevented by resistance switching.
2. Insulation failure: The most common case of insulation failure in a power system is the grounding of conductor
(i.e. insulation failure between line and earth) which may cause overvoltages in the system.
3. Arcing ground: In the early days of transmission, the neutral of three phase lines was not earthed to gain two
advantages. Firstly, in case of line-to-ground fault, the line is not put out of action. Secondly, the zero sequence
currents are eliminated, resulting in the decrease of interference with communication lines. Insulated neutrals
give no problem with short lines and comparatively low voltages. However, when the lines are long and operate
at high voltages, serious problem called arcing ground is often witnessed. The arcing ground produces severe
oscillations of three to four times the normal voltage.
The phenomenon of intermittent arc taking place in line-to-ground fault of a 3φ system with consequent
production of transients is known as arcing ground.
The transients produced due to arcing ground are cumulative and may cause serious damage to the
equipment in the power system by causing breakdown of insulation. Arcing ground can be prevented by earthing
the neutral.
4. Resonance: Resonance in an electrical system occurs when inductive reactance of the circuit becomes equal to
capacitive reactance. Under resonance, the impedance of the circuit is equal to resistance of the circuit and the
p.f. is unity. Resonance causes high voltages in the electrical system. In the usual transmission lines, the
capacitance is very small so that resonance rarely occurs at the fundamental supply frequency. However, if
 generator e.m.f. wave is distorted, the trouble of resonance may occur due to 5th or higher harmonics and in
case of underground cables too.

Lightning
An electric discharge between cloud and earth, between clouds or between the charge centres of the same
cloud is known as lightning. Lightning is a huge spark and takes place when clouds are charged to such a high
potential (+ve or −ve) with respect to earth or a neighbouring cloud that the dielectric strength of neighbouring
medium (air) is destroyed. There are several theories which exist to explain how the clouds acquire charge. The
most accepted one is that during the uprush of warm moist air from earth, the friction between the air and the
tiny particles of water causes the building up of charges. When drops of water are formed, the larger drops
become positively charged and the smaller drops become negatively charged. When the drops of water
accumulate, they form clouds, and hence cloud may possess either a positive or a negative charge, depending
upon the charge of drops of water they contain. The charge on a cloud may become so great that it may
discharge to another cloud or to earth and we call this discharge as lightning. The thunder which accompanies
lightning is due to the fact that lightning suddenly heats up the air, thereby causing it to expand. The
surrounding air pushes the expanded air back and forth causing the wave motion of air which we recognise as
thunder.
Mechanism of Lightning Discharge
Let us now discuss the manner in which a lightning discharge occurs. When a charged cloud passes over the
earth, it induces equal and opposite charge on the earth below. Fig. below shows a negatively charged cloud
inducing a positive charge on the earth below it. As the charge acquired by the cloud increases, the potential
between cloud and earth increases and, therefore, gradient in the air increases. When the potential gradient is
sufficient (5 kV*/cm to 10 kV/cm) to break down the surrounding air, the lightning stroke starts. The stroke
mechanism is as under:
i. As soon as the air near the cloud breaks down, a streamer called leader streamer or pilot streamer starts
from the cloud towards the earth and carries charge with it as shown in Fig. (i). The leader streamer will
continue its journey towards earth as long as the cloud, from which it originates feeds enough charge to it to
maintain gradient at the tip of leader streamer above the strength of air. If this gradient is not maintained,
the leader streamer stops and the charge is dissipated without the formation of a complete stroke. In other
words, the leader streamer will not reach the earth. Fig. (i) shows the leader streamer being unable to reach
the earth as gradient at its end cloud not be maintained above the strength of air. It may be noted that
current in the leader streamer is low (<100 A) and its velocity of propagation is about 0.05% that of velocity of
light. Moreover, the luminosity of leader is also very low.

ii. In many cases, the leader streamer continues its journey towards earth [See Fig. (ii)] until it makes contact
with earth or some object on the earth. As the leader streamer moves towards earth, it is accompanied by
points of luminescence which travel in jumps giving rise to stepped leaders. The velocity of stepped leader
exceeds one-sixth of that of light and distance travelled in one step is about 50 m. It may be noted that
stepped leaders have sufficient luminosity and give rise to first visual phenomenon of discharge.
iii. The path of leader streamer is a path of ionisation and, therefore, of complete breakdown of insulation. As
the leader streamer reaches near the earth, a return streamer shoots up from the earth [See Fig. (iii)] to the
 cloud, following the same path as the main channel of the downward leader. The action can be compared
with the closing of a switch between the positive and negative terminals; the downward leader having
negative charge and return streamer the positive charge. This phenomenon causes a sudden spark which we
call lightning. With the resulting neutralisation of much of the negative charge on the cloud, any further
discharge from the cloud may have to originate from some other portion of it.

The following points may be noted about lightning discharge –

a) A lightning discharge which usually appears to the eye as a single flash is in reality made up of a number
of separate strokes that travel down the same path. The interval between them varies from 0·0005 to
0·5 second. Each separate stroke starts as a downward leader from the cloud.
b) It has been found that 87% of all lightning strokes result from negatively charged clouds and only 13%
originate from positively charged clouds.
c) It has been estimated that throughout the world, there occur about 100 lightning strokes per second.
d) Lightning discharge may have currents in the range of 10 kA to 90 kA.

Types of Lightning Strokes

There are two main ways in which a lightning may strike the power system (e.g. overhead lines, towers, sub-stations
etc.), namely;

1. Direct stroke
2. Indirect stroke
1. Direct stroke: In the direct stroke, the lightning discharge (i.e. current path) is directly from the cloud to the
subject equipment e.g. an overhead line. From the line, the current path may be over the insulators down the
pole to the ground. The overvoltages set up due to the stroke may be large enough to flashover this path directly
to the ground. The direct strokes can be of two types viz. (i) Stroke A and (ii) stroke B.

In stroke A, the lightning discharge is from the cloud to the subject equipment i.e. an overhead line in this case as
shown in Fig. (i). The cloud will induce a charge of opposite sign on the tall object (e.g. an overhead line in this case).
When the potential between the cloud and line exceeds the breakdown value of air, the lightning discharge occurs
between the cloud and the line.

In stroke B, the lightning discharge occurs on the overhead line as a result of stroke A between the clouds as shown
in Fig. (ii). There are three clouds P, Q and R having positive, negative and positive charges respectively. The charge
on the cloud Q is bound by the cloud R. If the cloud P shifts too near the cloud Q, then lightning discharge will occur
between them and charges on both these clouds disappear quickly. The result is that charge on cloud R suddenly
becomes free and it then discharges rapidly to earth, ignoring tall objects. Two points are worth noting about direct
strokes. Firstly, direct strokes on the power system are very rare. Secondly, stroke A will always occur on tall objects
and hence protection can be provided against it. However, stroke B completely ignores the height of the object and
can even strike the ground. Therefore, it is not possible to provide protection against stroke B.
2. Indirect stroke: Indirect strokes result from the electrostatically induced charges on the conductors due to the
presence of charged clouds. This is illustrated in Fig. below A positively charged cloud is above the line and
induces a negative charge on the line by electrostatic induction. This negative charge, however, will be only on
that portion of the line right under the cloud and the portions of the line away from it will be positively charged
as shown in Fig. below. The induced positive charge leaks slowly to earth via the insulators. When the cloud
discharges to earth or to another cloud, the negative charge on the wire is isolated as it cannot flow quickly to
earth over the insulators. The result is that negative charge rushes along the line is both directions in the form of
travelling waves. It may be worthwhile to mention here that majority of the surges in a transmission line are
caused by indirect lightning strokes.

Harmful Effects of Lightning

A direct or indirect lightning stroke on a transmission line produces a steep-fronted voltage wave on the line. The
voltage of this wave may rise from zero to peak value (perhaps 2000 kV) in about 1 µs and decay to half the peak
value in about 5µs. Such a steep-fronted voltage wave will initiate travelling waves along the line in both directions
with the velocity dependent upon the L and C parameters of the line.

(i) The travelling waves produced due to lightning surges will shatter the insulators and may even
wreck poles.
(ii) If the travelling waves produced due to lightning hit the windings of a transformer or generator, it
may cause considerable damage. The inductance of the windings opposes any sudden passage of
electric charge through it. Therefore, the electric charges “piles up” against the transformer (or
generator). This induces such an excessive pressure between the windings that insulation may
breakdown, resulting in the production of arc. While the normal voltage between the turns is never
enough to start an arc, once the insulation has broken down and an arc has been started by a
momentary overvoltage, the line voltage is usually sufficient to maintain the arc long enough to
severely damage the machine.
(iii) If the arc is initiated in any part of the power system by the lightning stroke, this arc will set up very
disturbing oscillations in the line. This may damage other equipment connected to the line.

Protection Against Lightning

Transients or surges on the power system may originate from switching and from other causes but the most
important and dangerous surges are those caused by lightning. The lightning surges may cause serious damage to
the expensive equipment in the power system (e.g. generators, transformers etc.) either by direct strokes on the
equipment or by strokes on the transmission lines that reach the equipment as travelling waves. It is necessary to
provide protection against both kinds of surges. The most commonly used devices for protection against lightning
surges are:

(i)Earthing screen, (ii) Overhead ground wires, (iii) Lightning arresters or surge diverters.

Earthing screen provides protection to power stations and sub-stations against direct strokes whereas overhead
ground wires protect the transmission lines against direct lightning strokes. However, lightning arresters or surge
diverters protect the station apparatus against both direct strokes and the strokes that come into the apparatus as
travelling waves. We shall briefly discuss these methods of protection.

• The Earthing Screen

The power stations and sub-stations generally house expensive equipment. These stations can be protected
against direct lightning strokes by providing earthing screen. It consists of a network of copper conductors
(generally called shield or screen) mounted all over the electrical equipment in the sub-station or power
station. The shield is properly connected to earth on at least two points through a low impedance. On the
occurrence of direct stroke on the station, screen provides a low resistance path by which lightning surges are
conducted to ground. In this way, station equipment is protected against damage. The limitation of this
method is that it does not provide protection against the travelling waves which may reach the equipment in
the station.

• Overhead Ground Wires

The most effective method of providing protection to transmission lines against direct lightning strokes is by
the use of overhead ground wires as shown in Fig. below. For simplicity, one ground wire and one line
conductor are shown. The ground wires are placed above the line conductors at such positions that practically
all lightning strokes are intercepted by them (i.e. ground wires). The ground wires are grounded at each tower
or pole through as low resistance as possible. Due to their proper location, the ground wires will take up all the
lightning strokes instead of allowing them to line conductors. When the direct lightning stroke occurs on the
transmission line, it will be taken up by the ground wires. The heavy lightning current (10 kA to 50 kA) from the
ground wire flows to the ground, thus protecting the line from the harmful effects of lightning. It may be
mentioned here that the degree of protection provided by the ground wires depends upon the footing
resistance of the tower.
Advantages

• It provides considerable protection against direct lightning strokes on transmission lines.

• A grounding wire provides damping effect on any disturbance travelling along the line as it acts as a short-
circuited secondary.
• It provides a certain amount of electrostatic shielding against external fields. Thus it reduces the voltages
induced in the line conductors due to the discharge of a neighbouring cloud.

Disadvantages

• It requires additional cost.

• There is a possibility of its breaking and falling across the line conductors, thereby causing a short-circuit fault.
This objection has been greatly eliminated by using galvanised stranded steel conductors as ground wires. This
provides sufficient strength to the ground wires.

Lightning Arrester
The earthing screen and ground wires can well protect the electrical system against direct lightning strokes but they
fail to provide protection against travelling waves which may reach the terminal apparatus. The lightning arresters or
surge diverters provide protection against such surges. A lightning arrester or a surge diverter is a protective device
which conducts the high voltage surges on the power system to the ground.

Definition: The device which is used for the protection of the equipment at the substations against travelling waves,
such type of device is called lightning arrester or surge diverter. In other words, lightning arrester diverts the abnormal
high voltage to the ground without affecting the continuity of supply. It is connected between the line and earth, i.e., in
parallel with the equipment to be protected at the substation.

The following are the damages that are caused by the travelling wave on the substation equipment.

1. The high peak or crest voltage of the surge may cause flash-over in the internal winding thereby spoil the
winding insulation.
2. The steep wave fronts of the surges may cause external flashover between the terminal of the
transformer.
3. The highest peak voltage of the surge may cause external flashover, between the terminal of the
electrical equipment which may result in damage to the insulator.
Working of Lightning Arrester

When a travelling wave reaches the arrestor, its sparks over at a certain prefixed voltage as shown in the figure below.
The arrestor provides a conducting path to the waves of relatively low impedance between the line and the ground.
The surge impedance of the line restricts the amplitude of current flowing to ground.
The lightning arrester provides a path of low impedance only when the travelling surge reaches the surge diverter,
neither before it nor after it. The insulation of the equipment can be protected if the shape of the voltage and current at
the diverter terminal is similar to the shape shown below.
An ideal lightning arrester should have the following characteristics –

1. It should not draw any current during normal operating condition, i.e., it sparks-over voltage must be
above the normal or abnormal power frequency that may occur in the system.
2. Any transient abnormal voltage above the breakdown value must cause it to break down as quickly as
possible so that it may provide a conducting path to ground.
3. When the breakdown has taken place, it should be capable of carrying the resulting discharge current
without getting damaged itself and without the voltage across it exceeding the breakdown value.
4. The power frequency current following the breakdown must be interrupted as soon as the transient
voltage has fallen below the breakdown value.

There are many types of lightning arrester which are used to protect the power system. The choices of the lightning
arrester depend on the factor like, voltage and frequency of the line, cost, weather condition and reliability.

Location of Lightning Arrester

The lightning arrester is located close to the equipment that is to be protected. They are usually connected between
phase and ground in an AC system and pole and ground in case of the DC system. In an AC system, separate arrester
is provided for each phase.

In an extra-high voltage AC system, the surge diverter is used to protect the generators, transformers, bus bars, lines,
circuit breakers, etc. In HVDC system the arrester is used to protect the buses, valves converter units reactors, filter,
etc.

Types of Lightning Arresters

The lightning arrester protects the electrical equipment from lightning. It is placed very near to the equipment and
when the lightning occurs the arrester diverts the high voltage wave of lightning to the ground. The selection of
arrester depends on the various factors like voltage, current, reliability, etc. The lightning arrestor is mainly classified
into twelve types. These types are;

1. Road Gap Arrester

2. Horn Gap Arrester
3. Multiple-Gap Arrester
4. Expulsion Type Lightning Arrester
5. Valve Type Lightning Arresters
6. Thyrite Lightning Arrester
7. Auto valve Arrester
8. Oxide Film Arrester
9. Metal Oxide Lightning Arresters

Their types are explained below in details.

1. Rod Gap Arrester
It is one of the simplest forms of the arrester. In such type of arrester, there is an air gap between the ends of two
rods. The one end of the arrester is connected to the line and the second end of the rod is connected to the ground.
The gap setting of the arrester should be such that it should break before the damage. When the high voltage
occurs on the line, the gap sparks and the fault current passes to the earth. Hence the equipment is protected from
damage.

The difficulty with the rod arrester is that once the spark having taken place it may continue for some time even at
low voltages. To avoid it a current limiting reactor in series with the rod is used. The resistance limits the current to
such an extent that it is sufficient to maintain the arc. Another difficulty with the road gap is that the rod gap is liable
to be damaged due to the high temperature of the arc which may cause the rod to melt.

2. Horn Gap Arrester

It consists of two horns shaded piece of metal separated by a small air gap and connected in shunt between each
conductor and earth. The distance between the two electrodes is such that the normal voltage between the line and
earth is insufficient to jump the gap. But the abnormal high voltage will break the gap and so find a path to earth.

3. Multiple- Gap Arrester

The multiple gap arrester consists a series of small metal cylinder insulated from one another and separated by an air
gap. The first and the last of the series is connected to ground. The number of gaps required depends on the line
voltage.
4. Expulsion Type Lightning Arrester

Expulsion type arrester is an improvement over the rod gap in that it seals the flow of power frequency follows the
current. This arrester consists of a tube made up of fibre which is very effective, isolating spark gap and an
interrupting spark gap inside the fibre tube.

During operation, the arc due to the impulse spark over inside the fibrous tube causes some fibrous material of the
tube to volatile in the form of the gas, which is expelled through a vent from the bottom of the tube. Thus,
extinguishing the arc just like in circuit breakers.

5. Valve Type Lightning Arrester

Such type of resistor is called nonlinear diverter. It essentially consists a divided spark gap in series with a resistance
element having the nonlinear characteristic.

The divided spark gap consists of some identical elements coupled in series. Each of them consists two electrodes with
the pre-ionization device. Between each element, a grading resistor of high ohmic value is connected in parallel.
During the slow voltage variations, there is no sparks-over across the gap. But when the rapid change in voltage
occurs, the potential is no longer evenly graded across the series gap. The influence of unbalancing capacitance
between the sparks gaps and the ground prevails over the grounded resistance. The impulse voltage is mainly
concentrated on the upper spark gap which in spark over cause the complete arrester to spark over to.

Types of Surge Absorber:

The travelling waves set up on the transmission lines by the surges may reach the terminals apparatus and cause damage
to it. The amount of damage caused not only depends upon the amplitude of the surge but also upon the steepness of its
wave front. The steeper the wave front of the surge, the more the damage caused to the equipment. In order to reduce
the steepness of the wave front of a surge, we generally use Different types of Types of Surge Absorber.

A surge absorber is a protective device which reduces the steepness of wave front of a surge by absorbing surge
energy.

Although both surge diverter and surge absorber eliminate the surge, the manner in which it is done is different in the
two devices. The surge diverter diverts the surge to earth but the surge absorber absorbs the surge energy.

Different Types of Surge Absorber are –

1. Condenser or Capacitor Surge Absorber

2. Inductor and Resistance Surge Absorber
3. Ferranti Surge Absorber
1. Condenser or Capacitor Surge Absorber:

A condenser connected between the line and earth can act as a surge absorber. Fig. 24.14 shows how a capacitor acts as
surge absorber to protect the transformer winding. Since the reactance of a condenser is inversely proportional to
frequency, it Will be low at high frequency and high at low frequency. Since the surges are of high frequency, the
capacitor acts as a short circuit and passes them directly to earth. However, for power frequency, the reactance of the
capacitor is very high and practically no current flows to the ground.

2. Inductor and Resistance Surge Absorber:

Another Types of Surge Absorber consists of a parallel combination of choke and resistance connected in series with
the line as shown in Fig. 24.15. The choke offers high reactance to surge frequencies (X L=2πfL). The surges are,
therefore, forced to flow through the resistance R where they are dissipated.

3. Ferranti Surge Absorber:

Fig 24.16 shows the Types of Surge Absorber. It is called Ferranti surge absorber. It consists of an air cored inductor
connected in series with the line. The inductor is surrounded by but insulated from an earthed metallic sheet called
dissipator. This arrangement is equivalent to a transformer with short-circuited secondary. The inductor forms the
primary whereas the dissipator forms the short-circuited secondary. The energy of the surge is used up in the form of
heat generated in the dissipator due to transformer action. This type of surge absorber is mainly used for the protection
of transformers.

Fig. 24.17 (i) shows the schematic diagram of 66 kV Ferranti surge absorber while Fig. 24.17 (ii) shows its equivalent
circuit.