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Minimum Distance of Lightning Protection Between Insulator String and Line

Surge Arrester in Parallel

Article  in  IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery · May 2009

DOI: 10.1109/TPWRD.2008.2005390 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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656 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 24, NO. 2, APRIL 2009

Minimum Distance of Lightning Protection Between

Insulator String and Line Surge Arrester in Parallel
Jinliang He, Fellow, IEEE, Jun Hu, Yonghua Chen, Shuiming Chen, Senior Member, IEEE, and
Rong Zeng, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—The line surge arrester can effectively improve the the transmission-line or the tower. It would not work under
lightning protection performances of transmission lines by elimi- ac power-frequency overvoltage or switching overvoltage, and
nating the insulator flashover. If the line arrester is very close to keep the state of “rest”; on the other hand, even if the ZnO varis-
the insulator string in parallel, the lightning discharging would
take place in the gap between the upper discharging ring of the tors inside the surge arrester are in degradation state, this does
line arrester and the bottom grading ring of the insulator string, not affect the normal operation of the transmission line.
there is no discharging in the series gap of the line arrester. At present, two different series gap structures are available.
Sometimes, the insulator string would have a flashover, the line The first is the separated gap designed in Japan [1], [2], whose
surge arrester cannot provide protection for the insulator string. two discharging electrodes are isolated only by air. The second
This so-called “transverse discharge” phenomenon is caused by
the proximity effect of the discharging ring of the line arrester. is called the fixed gap or integrated gap developed in China, with
This phenomenon is explained in this paper, and the transverse two discharging rings fixed by a composite insulator to keep
discharge phenomenon is simulated in high voltage laboratory. their distance unchanged even if very strong wind blows on the
The demanded minimum distances between the 110-kV and arrester [3], [4]. The fixed gap means that the arrester unit and
220-kV line arrester and insulator string protected are proposed the series gap are assembled into a whole body. Ordinarily, a
from experimental results.
composite insulator is fixed on the bottom of the arrester unit,
Index Terms—Discharging ring, grading ring, insulator string, and two ring-shape discharging electrodes are fixed on two ter-
lightning impulse, line arrester, series gap, transverse discharge.
minals of the composite insulator. The merit of this kind of se-
ries gap is that the distance between two discharging electrodes
I. INTRODUCTION is never affected by external factors. The design of two different
series gap structures and their influence on the line surge ar-
resters were discussed in [4]; 80% of the line surge arresters
S INCE THE 1980s, polymeric ZnO surge arresters have
been developed and put into operation on transmission
lines in parallel with insulators to improve the lightning with-
applied have adopted this kind of series gap in China.
Normally, in China, the surge arrester with the fixed gap is
stand characteristics of transmission lines and increase the too long to correspond with the length of the insulator string,
reliability of power supplies [1]–[11]. Up to now, more than and the special installing device is necessary to fix the arrester.
40 000 pieces of line surge arresters with series gaps have been Although the line arrester has been proven the most effective
put into operation on 35-kV, 110-kV, 220-kV, and 500-kV measure for the lightning protection of transmission-lines, in
transmission lines in China. Ordinarily, the line surge arresters field applications, sometimes the line arrester cannot provide ef-
are placed on transmission lines in these regions where light- fective protection for the insulator string and leads to flashover
ning activity is strong, or it is difficult to decrease the grounding on the surface of the insulator. This phenomenon is explained
resistances of towers in high soil resistivity. The application in this paper, and the minimum distance required for lightning
results show the line surge arresters can ensure there are no protection between the insulator string and the line arrester in
flashovers on the insulator strings protected. parallel is discussed in experimental results. More detailed in-
Up to now, most line arresters have been gap type—a series troduction on this research work can be found in [12].
gap is inserted between the surge arrester and the phase con-
II. TRANSVERSE DISCHARGING PHENOMENA IN APPLICATIONS
ductor to isolate the surge arrester with the phase conductor. Due
OF LINE SURGE ARRESTER
to the isolation effect of the series gap, this kind of line surge ar-
rester with a series gap only operates when a lightning strikes A. Problems in Application of Line Arresters
Line arresters have been applied in China since 1991. In the
Manuscript received March 06, 2008; revised August 03, 2008. Current ver-
sion published March 25, 2009. This work was supported by the National Nat-
beginning to apply the line arresters, due to lacking of installing
ural Science Foundation of China under Grants 50425721 and 50737001. Paper experiences, the installed line arresters did not effectively pro-
no. TPWRD-00114-2008. tect the insulators in parallel, and had flashovers on the insulator
J. L. He, J. Hu, S. M. Chen, and R. Zeng are with the State Key Lab of Power
Systems, Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing
strings protected by line arresters; the lightning failure rates of
100084, China (e-mail: [email protected]). transmission lines protected by line arresters did not decrease.
Y. H. Chen is with the China Southern Power Grid Co. Ltd., Guangzhou For example, the 110-kV Beihou and Beiliao transmission
510620, China. lines in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, China, were ar-
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. ranged in the same towers and lightning failures were very high.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2008.2005390 According to the analysis of the lightning location system, the
0885-8977/$25.00 © 2009 IEEE

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HE et al.: MINIMUM DISTANCE OF LIGHTNING PROTECTION 657

arc conductor gap, which is similar to a special rod to rod gap.

If the line arrester is close to the insulator string, the electrical
field in this special gap would be distorted by the influence of the
discharging ring and the grading ring, then discharging in this
special gap is easier than in the gap between two discharging
rings of the line arrester.
First, if the distance between the line arrester and the insulator
string is small, the lightning discharging would take place in the
gap AB between the upper discharging ring A of arrester and
the bottom grading ring B of insulator, there is no discharging in
the series gap of arrester, this is so-called “transverse discharge”
phenomenon. In this case, the arrester unit of the line arrester is
put into operation, and protects the insulator string although the
discharging gap does not work.
Fig. 1. So-called “transverse discharge” phenomena.
Second, due to the proximity effect of the upper discharging
ring of the arrester, the lightning impulse flashover voltage
lightning failures mainly concentrated in the line section from of insulator is decreased highly comparing with that without
No. 15 to No. 19 towers; all five towers are located in hill crests. this proximity effect. If the insulator string is polluted, then
In July 1999, 30 pieces of line arresters were installed on these its lightning flashover voltage in the humid condition would
five towers. be very low. When lightning strikes the tower, the transverse
In the first year after these line arresters were installed, discharging takes place in the gap AB as shown in Fig. 1,
12 flashovers took place on the insulator strings of these five the residual voltage of the arrester unit under high lightning
towers. Before line arresters were installed, in 1998, Beihou current is high, then the grading ring B of the insulator has
transmission lines had five lightning flashover failures, and the same high potential with the discharging ring A of the
the Beiliao transmission line had seven lightning flashovers. arrester unit. So, with the superposition effect of the ac power
But when the line arresters were installed, in 1999, the Beihou frequency phase voltage, a flashover would take place through
transmission lines had six lightning flashover failures, and the the insulator string, this means the discharging route would
Beiliao transmission line had seven lightning flashovers. The be . If the lightning strikes the phase conductor,
insulators protected by the line arresters were burnt out by the this means a shielding failure. The transverse discharge takes
flashover arcs through the insulator surfaces. So, when line place from B to A. In the meantime, a flashover would take
arresters were installed, the lightning failures did not decrease, place through the insulator string from B to C; this means the
and the insulator strings have not been protected by the line discharging routes would be and . So, the
arresters installed. According to field investigations, these fail- protection of the line arrester is ineffectiveness although the
ures were caused by the incorrect installations of line arresters. arrester unit of the line arrester is put into operation.
Third, when the line arrester is very close to the insulator
B. Mechanism of Transverse Discharging Phenomenon string, the lightning discharging would take place in the gap AB,
The actual arrangement of a 110-kV line arrester is shown in and in the gap AC between the upper discharging ring A of ar-
Fig. 1, the distance between the suspension locations of arrester rester and the upper grading ring C of insulator. In this condi-
and insulator is about 1.0 m. The 110-kV arrester unit is about tion, if lightning strikes the tower, the discharging route would
1.0 m in length, and the series gap between two discharging be ; if lightning strikes the conductor, the dis-
rings is 0.56 m in length, so the total length of the 110-kV line charging route would be . During the discharging,
arrester is about 1.5 m. But the insulator string is only about 1.1 the flashover perhaps passes through partial surface of the insu-
m and the line arrester is longer than the insulator string, so the lator string. In this case, the line arrester does not work, and the
line arrester is placed in an inclined way as shown in Fig. 1, the insulator string does not get protection from it.
distance between the fixing locations of the line arrester and the
insulator with the phase conductor is about 0.8 to 1.0 m. III. EXPERIMENTS OF INSULATION COORDINATION BETWEEN
The discharging ring’s diameter of the 110-kV line arrester is LINE ARRESTER AND INSULATOR UNDER LIGHTNING IMPULSE
0.245 m. So, the closest distance between the upper discharging In order to analyze the influence of the distance between line
ring A of the line arrester and the bottom grading ring B of the arrester and insulator on the protection effect of line arrester,
insulator string is only about 0.6 m, which is far smaller than 1.0 experiments were performed in a high voltage laboratory.
m (the distance between the suspension locations of the arrester
and the insulator string), and the distance between the upper A. Experimental Arrangement
discharging ring A of the line arrester and the upper grading In order to simulate the field placing conditions of the line ar-
ring C of the insulator string is smaller than 0.8 m. rester and the insulator string on the tower, an experiment flat-
The gap between two discharging rings or grading rings can form was built as shown in Fig. 2; the thickness of the flatform is
be treated as a conductor-conductor gap. But the gap between 550 mm to simulate the proximity effect of the tower to the line
the discharging ring A of the line arrester and the grading ring arrester and the insulator string. The total experimental flatform
B or C of the insulator string can be treated as arc conductor to is suspended by two composite insulators. The line arrester is

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658 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 24, NO. 2, APRIL 2009

TABLE I
LIGHTNING IMPULSE 50% DISCHARGING VOLTAGE OF INSULATOR STRING FOR
110-KV AND 220-KV TRANSMISSION-LINE

TABLE II
LIGHTNING IMPULSE 50% DISCHARGING VOLTAGE OF 110-KV AND 220-KV
LINE ARRESTERS
Fig. 2. Experiment flatform to test the protection effectiveness of line arrester
to the insulator string in parallel.

isolated from the tower by a piece of porcelain insulator, and

the upper end of the line arrester is connected with the tower
through a discharging counter to identify whether the line ar-
rester works during experiment.
The impulse voltage generator can generate kV light- TABLE III
ning impulse voltage, and the waveform was recorded by a dig- COORDINATION MARGIN BETWEEN LINE ARRESTER TO INSULATOR
ital recording system. The applied lightning impulse voltage
waveform is 1.2/50 s. The lightning impulse voltage is applied
on the phase conductor. During the experiment, the polarity of
the impulse voltage is changed. In every case, 30 impulse ex-
periments were performed. The negative and positive 50% dis-
charging voltages were obtained according to the test method
suggested in IEC standard [13] and IEEE standard [14].

B. Lightning Impulse Experiment of Insulators and Line

Arresters
In our experiment, the 110-kV insulators used include: 1) a
porcelain insulator string with seven pieces of XP-7 porcelain
insulators, the diameter of the XP-7 insulator is 0.25 m, and the
distance between two grading rings of the insulator is 0.93 m; According to the experimental results in Tables I and II, the
2) the FXBW3-110/70 composite insulator with length between 99.9% lightning impulse discharging voltage of the line arrester
two insulator’s grading rings of 1.12 m, and the diameter of the with gap (50% value plus three times of standard deviation) and
grading ring is 0.25 m. The 220-kV porcelain insulator string the 0.1% lightning impulse flashover voltage of the insulator
consists of 13 pieces of XP-7 insulators, and the distance be- (50% value minus three times of standard deviation) are derived
tween two grading rings of the insulator string is 1.82 m. by statistical means as shown in Table III. We can find there
The experimental results of insulator’s 50% lightning im- is at least 6.7% coordination margin between 99.9% lightning
pulse discharging voltages are tested under the relative humidity impulse discharging voltage of the line arrester with gap and the
of 65% and the temperature of 20 C, the results are normal- 0.1% lightning impulse flashover voltage of the insulator, so the
ized to standard atmospheric conditions (standard air pressure, line arrester will put into operation to limit the transient voltage
20 C) according to the method suggested in IEEE standard on the insulator string against flashover on the insulator string
4-1995 [14] as shown in Table I. The lightning impulse dis- protected when a lightning strikes the transmission line.
charging voltages of the 110-kV and 220-kV line arresters are
tested under the relative humidity of 70% and the temperature C. Lightning Impulse Experiment of the Line Arrester and
of 32 C, the results are normalized to standard atmospheric the Insulator String in Parallel
conditions as shown in Table II. The gap length between two
discharging rings of 110 kV line arrester is 0.56 m with the dis- During the experiment, firstly the insulator string is placed in
charging ring diameter of 0.245 m, and that of 220 kV line ar- the middle of the framework as shown in Fig. 2, the minimum
rester is 1.13 m with the discharging ring diameter of 0.295 m. distance between the line arrester and the insulator is about 1.8

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HE et al.: MINIMUM DISTANCE OF LIGHTNING PROTECTION 659

Fig. 4. Lightning impulse voltage waveform of the combination system of line

Fig. 3. Lightning impulse residual voltage waveform of line arrester when the arrester and insulator string with transverse discharge when the minimum dis-
minimum distance between arrester and insulator is 1.74 m. (a) Positive light- tance between the line arrester and the insulator string is 0.57 m. (a) Positive
ning impulse and (b) negative lightning impulse. lightning impulse and (b) negative lightning impulse.

m, then moving the insulator string to the line arrester to re- breakdown voltage and faster response time than those of the
duce their distance. Lightning impulse voltage is applied in dif- discharging gap of arrester.
ferent cases to observe the discharging route and measure the The results of the lightning impulse experiment for the
discharging voltage of arrester. 110-kV line arrester and the porcelain insulator string in
As shown in Fig. 2, if the line arrester is close to the insulator, parallel, the 110-kV line arrester and the composite insulator
when a lightning impulse is applied to the connecting wire of string, and the 220-kV line arrester and the porcelain insulator
arrester discharging gap and the insulator, the discharging will string, are tested under the relative humidities of 80%, 70%,
generate from the grading ring of the insulator to the upper dis- and 70%, and temperatures of 28 C, 26 C, and 32 C,
charging electrode of the series gap. It will then pass through respectively, which are normalized to standard atmospheric
the arrester unit; there is no discharge in the series gap of ar- conditions (standard air pressure, 20 C) as shown in Tables IV,
rester. We observed the discharging ring of arrester can easily V and VI, respectively.
discharge directly to the grading ring of insulator.
The typical experimental waveforms of 110-kV line arrester IV. ANALYSIS ON MINIMUM DISTANCE BETWEEN LINE
and the insulator string in parallel are shown in Figs. 3 and 4. ARRESTER AND INSULATOR REQUIRED FOR LIGHTNING
In the case with a minimum distance of 1.74 m, when positive PROTECTION
and negative lightning impulse voltages are applied, Fig. 3(a)
and (b) shows the respective lightning impulse residual voltage A. 110-kV Line Surge Arresters
waveforms of arrester. In the case with the minimum distance As shown in Tables IV and V, for the composite insulator
of 0.57 m, the impulse voltage waveforms of the transverse dis- and the porcelain insulator, the positive and negative 50% light-
charges under positive and negative lightning impulse voltages ning impulse discharging voltages of 110-kV arrester scatter in
are shown in Fig. 4(a) and (b), respectively. a range with the adjustment of the distance between line ar-
Comparing the waveforms with and without transverse dis- rester and insulator, there is no special relationship between
charge, we can observe that when a transverse discharge takes them. When the line arrester is placed close to the insulator
place, the respective peak values of the discharging voltage string, the insulator string and its grading ring would distort the
with transverse discharge in Fig. 4 are 7 to 8 kV lower than electrical field distribution between two discharging rings of ar-
those without transverse discharge in Fig. 3. The respective rester, the change of the space electrical field would influence
discharging time durations of positive and negative lightning the corona developing of discharging rings, and then the impulse
impulse in Fig. 4 is shorter than those without transverse dis- discharging voltage of arrester and its stability of protection
charge in Fig. 3. The reason is the gap between the discharging would be changed, too. So, the line arrester can not be placed
ring of arrester and the grading ring of insulator has lower too closely to the insulator string and the steel tower. When the

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660 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 24, NO. 2, APRIL 2009

TABLE IV
LIGHTNING IMPULSE EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS OF THE 110-KV LINE ARRESTER AND THE PORCELAIN INSULATOR STRING IN PARALLEL

TABLE V
LIGHTNING IMPULSE EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS OF THE 110-KV LINE ARRESTER AND THE COMPOSITE INSULATOR IN PARALLEL

minimum distance between the line arrester and the insulator distance between the line arrester and the porcelain insulator
string is decreased to a certain value, then the so-called “trans- string is reduced from 0.88 m to 0.74 m, the discharging
verse discharging” phenomenon would take place as shown in route changes from all passing through arrester’s series gap
Fig. 2. The distance between arrester’s upper discharging ring to emerging “transverse discharge.” The total experiments
and insulator’s bottom grading ring is smaller than the distance are 30, 15 experiments generated discharges, and there are
between two discharging rings of arrester, the lightning dis- three transverse discharges under positive lightning impulse,
charging route develops from insulator’s bottom grading ring to the transverse discharge probability is 20%. In experiments
arrester’s upper discharging ring. Theoretically, when the min- with negative lightning impulse, there is only one transverse
imum distance between the arrester’s upper discharging ring and discharging, the probability is 7.1%.
insulator’s bottom grading ring is close to the gap distance be- When this minimum distance is decreased to 0.57 m, all dis-
tween two discharging rings of arrester, the electrical field be- charging are transverse ones under positive or negative lightning
tween arrester’s upper discharging ring and insulator’s bottom impulse. So, in order to eliminate the transverse discharging,
grading ring is more nonuniform than that between two dis- the minimum distance between the 110-kV line arrester and the
charging rings of arrester, so it is easy to generate this kind of porcelain insulators string should be larger than 0.73 m. From
“transverse discharging” phenomenon. experimental results in Table V, the minimum distance between
When the line arrester is very close to the insulator string, the 110-kV arrester and the composite insulator should be larger
the transverse discharge between gap AB and flashover of the than 0.78 m. In the engineering, 0.8 m is suggested as the min-
insulator string take place in the same time, this phenomenon is imum distance between the arrester’s discharging ring and the
caused by the proximity effect of the discharging ring of the line insulator’s grading ring or the tower.
arrester. This means the protection of arrester is ineffectiveness.
The experimental results show this proximity effect has strong B. 220-kV Line Surge Arresters
influence on the lightning impulse discharging voltage of the
line arrester. From Table IV, when the minimum distance From Table VI, for the 220-kV line surge arrester, the similar
between arrester and porcelain insulator is in the range from discharging characteristics with the 110-kV line surge arrester
0.88 m to 1.74 m, all applied lightning impulse voltages lead can be observed when we adjusted the distance between arrester
the breakdown of arrester’s series gap. When the minimum and insulator.

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HE et al.: MINIMUM DISTANCE OF LIGHTNING PROTECTION 661

TABLE VI
LIGHTNING IMPULSE EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS OF THE 220-KV LINE ARRESTER AND THE PORCELAIN INSULATOR STRING IN PARALLEL

Fig. 6. Arrangement diagram of the line arrester.

Fig. 5. Minimum distance required between the line arrester and the insulators
string.
distance between the lateral portions of line arrester and insu-
lator as shown in Fig. 5, ordinarily is the horizontal distance be-
tween the discharging ring of line arrester and the grading ring
When the minimum distance between 220-kV arrester and the of the insulator string, should be larger than 0.8 m for 110-kV
porcelain insulator string is in the range from 1.71 m to 1.36 m, transmission line, and 1.3 m for 220-kV line.
all applied lightning impulse voltages lead the breakdown of the
series gap of the line arrester. When this minimum distance is D. Field Application
reduced from 1.36 m to 1.28 m, the discharging route emerges According to the experimental results above, all 30 pieces of
“transverse discharge” under negative lightning impulse, the re- line arresters on 110-kV Beihou and Beiliao transmission lines
spective transverse discharge probability is 4.4%. When this in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, China, were installed
minimum distance is decreased to 1.12 m, the transverse dis- again in 2000. The installing diagram of line arrester is shown
charge emerges under positive lightning impulse with proba- in Fig. 6, a special metal arm is added on the tower to fix the
bility of about 50%, and all discharges are transverse under arrester, the distance between the fixing points on the towers
negative lightning impulse. When this minimum distance is de- between arrester and insulator is set as 1.2 m, even if the line ar-
creased to 1.05 m, all discharges are transverse under positive rester is blown by the wind, the minimum distance between the
or negative lightning impulse. discharging ring of arrester and the grading ring of insulator can
So, we can conclude the minimum distance between 220-kV still keep more than 0.8 m. Since the 30 pieces of line arresters
line arrester and the insulator string should be larger than 1.28 were installed again, there have been no flashovers on the insu-
m. In the engineering, 1.30 m is suggested.
lators protected by those line arresters.

V. CONCLUSION
C. Minimum Distance Required
If the distance between the line arrester and the insulator
The recommended minimum distance between line arrester string is small, the proximity of the line arrester would lead
and insulator can be transferred to other similar configurations. electric field distortions of the gap between the discharging ring
As a kind of general application rule in order to avoid the ad- of line arrester and the grading ring of insulator string, and of
dressed problem, the minimum distance, which is the horizontal the gap between two grading rings of the insulators. Then, the

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662 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 24, NO. 2, APRIL 2009

lightning discharging would take place in the gap between ar- Jinliang He (M’02–SM’02–F’08) was born in
rester’s upper discharging ring and insulator’s bottom grading Changsha, China, in 1966. He received the B.Sc.
degree from Wuhan University of Hydraulic and
ring, there is no discharging in the series gap of the line arrester, Electrical Engineering, Wuhan, China, the M.Sc. de-
this is so-called “transverse discharge” phenomenon, even more, gree from Chongqing University, Chongqing, China,
and the Ph.D. degree from Tsinghua University,
the insulator string generates flashover, so the line arrester can Beijing, China, all in electrical engineering, in 1988,
not provide protection for the insulator string in parallel. In the 1991 and 1994, respectively.
special case, the discharging route would be from one grading He became a Lecturer in 1994, and an Associate
Professor in 1996, in the Department of Electrical En-
ring of insulator to the discharging ring of arrester and then to gineering, Tsinghua University. From 1994 to 1997,
other grading ring of insulator, and the line arrester does not put he was the Head of High Voltage Laboratory with Tsinghua University. From
into operation when lightning strikes the tower or the phase con- 1997 to 1998, he was a Visiting Scientist with the Korea Electrotechnology Re-
search Institute, Changwon, Korea, involved in research on metal oxide varis-
ductor. tors and high voltage polymeric metal oxide surge arresters. In 2001, he was
The transverse discharge phenomenon is simulated in high promoted to Professor at Tsinghua University. Currently, he is the Chair of the
voltage laboratory. From our experimental results, the minimum High Voltage Research Institute in Tsinghua University. His research interests
include overvoltages and EMC in power systems and electronic systems, light-
horizontal distance between the lateral portions of line arrester ning protection, grounding technology, power apparatus, and dielectric material.
and insulator should be larger than 0.8 m for 110-kV transmis- He is the author of five books and 140 technical papers. He is the Chief Editor
of the Journal of Lightning Protection and Standardization (in Chinese), and
sion line, and 1.3 m for 220-kV line. Associate Editor of the Journal of Lightning Research.
Dr. He is a senior member of the China Electrotechnology Society, Chinese
Society for Electrical Engineering, and Chinese Institute of Electronics. He
is the Vice Chief of China Lightning Protection Standardization Technology
Committee, and members of Electromagnetic Interference Protection Com-
mittee and Transmission Line Committee of Chinese Society for Electrical
REFERENCES Engineering, member of China Surge Arrester Standardization Technology
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line arrester energy, cost, and risk of failure analysis for partially Currently, he is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the
shielded transmission lines,” IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 15, no. 3, same department. His research fields include over-
pp. 919–924, Jul. 2004. voltage analysis in power system and dielectric ma-
terials.
[8] S. Sadovic, R. Joulie, S. Tartier, and E. Brocard, “Use of line surge
arresters for the improvement of the lightning performance of 63 kV
and 90 kV shielded and unshielded transmission lines,” IEEE Trans.
Power Del., vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 1232–1240, Jul. 1997.
[9] T. Yamada, J. Sawada, E. Zaima, T. Irie, T. Ohashi, S. Yoshida, and T.
Kawamura, “Development of suspension-type arresters for transmis-
sion lines,” IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 1052–1060, Jul.
1993.
[10] J. L. He, R. Zeng, S. M. Chen, and Z. C. Guan, “Potential distribution
analysis of suspended-type metal-oxide surge arresters,” IEEE Trans.
Power Del., vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 1214–1220, Oct. 2003. Yonghua Chen received the B.Sc. degree in elec-
[11] J. L. He, R. Zeng, S. M. Chen, and Y. P. Tu, “Thermal characteristics trical engineering from the South China Science and
of high voltage whole-solid-insulated polymeric ZnO surge arrester,” Technology University, Guangzhou, China, in 1987,
IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 1221–1227, Jul. 2003. and the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from
[12] Y. H. Chen, “Study on Effectiveness of Line Surge Arrester for Light- Tsinghua University, Beijing, in 2004.
ning Protection of Transmission Line,” M.S. thesis, Dept. Elect. Eng., From 1987 to 2003, he was with Guangdong Elec-
Tsinghua Univ., Beijing, China, Dec. 2003. trical Power Company, Guangzhou. Since 2003, he
[13] High-Voltage Test Techniques Part 1: General Definitions and Test Re- has been a Senior Engineer with the China Southern
quirements, IEC Std. 60060-1, 1992. Power Grid, Guangzhou. His research fields include
[14] High Voltage Testing Techniques, IEEE Std. 4, 1995. safety and lightning protection of transmission lines.

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HE et al.: MINIMUM DISTANCE OF LIGHTNING PROTECTION 663

Shuiming Chen (M’02–SM’02) was born in Xi- Rong Zeng (M’02-SM’06) was born in Xunyang
aoshan City, Zhejinag Province, China, in 1968. City, Shaanxi Province, China, in 1971. He received
He received the B.Sc. and M.Eng. degrees from the B.Sc., M.Eng., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical
Zhejiang University, Hangzhou City, China, in 1990 engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing,
and 1993, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in China, in 1995, 1997, and 1999, respectively.
electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, From 1999 to 2002, he was a Lecturer with the De-
Beijing, China, in 1997. partment of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua Univer-
He became a Lecturer in the Department of Elec- sity. From 2002 to 2007, he was an Associate Pro-
trical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, in fessor in the same department. Currently, he is a Pro-
1997, an Associate Professor in 1999, and a Professor fessor and Vice Dean of the Department of Electrical
in 2008. His research interests include overvoltage Engineering, Tsinghua University. His research inter-
protection, electromagnetic compatibility in power and electronic systems, and ests include high-voltage technology, grounding technology, power electronics,
high-voltage engineering. and distribution system automation.

Authorized
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