Implications of faults on insulation coordination of dedicated metallic return on bipolar HVDC overhead transmission lines

This presentation will focus on a specific issue of bipolar HVDC lines with a dedicated metallic return (DMR). DMR is insulated to a lower level than the pole and its insulators are shorter. One event, for example, pole-to-ground-fault will cause a fault on both the pole insulation and the DMR insulation simultaneously because the DMR insulation fault will be supported by the DC current and will turn into a DC arc. To ensure independent pole operation, these types of events should be avoided or, if the DMR does flashover, to extinguish the fault as soon as possible. This is phenomena are presented and how different solutions are tested with EMTP software to protect the DMR.