Modeling of service-drop wires and interior-wiring cables for lightning overvoltage studies

Abstract

As the information society progresses, a variety of electronic appliances have come into wide use in common houses. If a lightning stroke causes faults or incorrect operations of these electronic appliances, a social economic loss is considered to be large. For this reason, the focus of lightning protection measures for distribution lines in Japan has expanded to include the low-voltage side of the distribution line in addition to the high-voltage side. In order to calculate lightning overvoltages at the low-voltage side, the surge characteristics of service-drop wires and interior-wiring cables have to be modeled accurately. First, this paper describes test results of the surge characteristics of service-drop wires and interior-wiring cables. The modal surge impedances and the propagation velocities of various service-drop wires and interior-wiring cables are obtained by the test. Based on the test results obtained, this paper proposes a modeling methodology of these wires and cables for accurate EMTP (Electro-Magnetic Transients Program) lightning overvoltage simulations. The proposed model is validated by comparing EMTP simulation results with field test results.© 2010 the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.