The neutral grounding resistor sizing using an analytical method based on nonlinear transformer model for inrush current mitigation

It was found that a neutral resistor together with `simultaneous' switching didn't have any effect on either the magnitudes or the time constant of inrush currents. The pre-insertion resistors were recommended as the most effective means of controlling inrush currents. Through simulations, it was found that the neutral resistor had little effect on reducing the inrush current peak or even the rate of decay as compared to the cases without a neutral resistor. The use of neutral impedances was concluded to be ineffective compared to the use of pre-insertion resistors. This finding was explained by the low neutral current value as compared to that of high phase currents during inrush. The inrush currents could be mitigated by using a neutral resistor when sequential switching is implemented. From the sequential energizing scheme performance, the neutral resistor size plays the significant role in the scheme effectiveness. Through simulation, it was found that a few ohms neutral grounding resistor can effectively achieve inrush currents reduction. If the neutral resistor is directly selected to minimize the peak of the actual inrush current, a much lower resistor value could be found. This paper presents an analytical method to select optimal neutral grounding resistor for mitigation of inrush current. In this method nonlinearity and core loss of the transformer has been modeled and derived analytical equations.