Lightning protection of unshielded overhead medium voltage power lines in South Africa
Paper number
263Conference name
CIRED 2019Conference date
3-6 June 2019Conference location
Madrid, SpainPeer-reviewed
YesMetadata
Show full item recordAuthors
Beutel, Andreas, Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd, South AfricaMcLaren, Bruce, Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd, South Africa
Geldenhuys, Hendri, Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd, South Africa
Dirkse Van Schalkwyk, Willem, Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd, South Africa
Van Coller, John, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
Abstract
South Africa has an extensive overhead electricity distribution network at medium voltage (MV). It also has a significant amount of lightning in most areas. The purpose of this paper is to report on South African experiences with respect to lightning protection of its overhead MV power network, and how designing a line for acceptable lightning performance impacts other aspects such as bird safety, pollution performance and terminal equipment reliability. Strategies covered include different insulation levels, bonding and earthing arrangements and pole-top configurations. Experiences from the laboratory and the field are included. It is concluded that the presently used configuration of a partially bonded structure with lightning insulation level of 300 kV performs more than adequately, but that initial experience with alternative configurations indicates that the network performance could be optimised.Publisher
AIMDate
2019-06-03Published in
Permanent link to this record
https://cired-repository.org/handle/20.500.12455/782http://dx.doi.org/10.34890/1003