The withstand characteristics of polymeric house arresters against lightning impulse for transmission line

In this study, the impulse properties were discussed on the ZnO arrester with polymeric housing for transmission lines. The lightning withstand level can be highly increased by installing line arresters on the transmission line towers in parallel with the strings of insulators. The impulse grounding resistance of the tower grounding device is a very important factor to affect the LWL. When the grounding resistance of tower grounding device reaches 100 Ω, the lightning discharging currents of line surge arresters installed on the 110 kV transmission lines are about 20 kA with a probability of 0.01 time per 100 km per year, the absorbed energies by arresters are 0.96 and 1.65 kJ/kV, respectively for 110 kV transmission lines A and B. The authors´ principle conclusion is that it is not problem that the polymeric ZnO surge arresters are used in transmission lines to limit lightning overvoltages. The applied voltage ratio of line arrester with series gap can be increased to lower the manufacturing cost.