Response of Overhead Lines to Direct Lightning Strikes: Assessment of the LEMP Effects

In the usual practice, the evaluation of the overvoltages due to direct lightning strikes to overhead power line conductors is focused on the representation of the effects of the lightning current injection, whilst the effects of the coupling between the conductors and the lightning electromagnetic pulse (LEMP) is disregarded. Motivated by recent results obtained for the case of a medium voltage line configuration with a shield wire, this extends the analysis to assess the contribution of the LEMP on the lightning performance of an overhead distribution with and without periodically grounded wires and surge arresters. Moreover, the presentation deals with the LEMP effect on the occurrence probability of flashovers on different phases, which is an important information on the service continuity of networks with isolated or compensated neutral earthing. A validation of the results is obtained by comparing the overvoltages calculated by using EMTP, together with the LIOV library for the LEMP calculation, and those obtained by a three-dimensional finite difference time-domain approach.