Influence of Medium Voltage Distribution Line Configuration on Phase to Phase Sparkover Rate due to Direct Lightning Strike

Abstract

In recent years, to reduce maintenance and management cost of distribution facilities, overhead ground wires are sometimes removed in a certain area. In such distribution lines, wire breaking at mid-span due to direct lightning is of concern. Although phase to phase sparkover is considered to be one of the factors of wire breaking at mid-span, its quantitative study has not yet been carried out. In this paper, at first, we experimentally examined detailed sparkover characteristics between phase conductors against short tail lightning impulse voltage, which is assumed to be phase to phase voltage. Next, based on experimental results, we estimate the phase to phase sparkover rate by means of lightning outage calculation program developed by CRIEPI. Estimated results suggest the phase to phase sparkover rate depends on the configuration of distribution lines, such as span length, arrangement of conductors, and so forth.