Investigation and Evaluation of Lightning Protective Methods for Distribution Circuits Part I: Model Study and Analysis

A comprehensive study of lightning protection of over- head distribution circuits has just been completed by a Task Force consisting of eight utility companies and the General Electric Company. Most overhead circuit configurations in use today-or contemplated for use in the future-were studied. This included system voltages from 4-34.5 kV. The use of an overhead ground wire, arrester on the top phase only, or arresters on all phases were studied to determine for each circuit configuration the relative degree of protection required in order to establish a certain outage performance rate. The study pertains only to line protection. However, a brief discussion of the interrelated factors between line and equipment protection is covered in [10].