Guidelines for transmission lines lightning performance improvement using a statistical approach

This paper describes the benchmarking and evaluation of conventional and non-conventional practices to improve lightning performance of transmission lines. A Monte Carlo method using Matlab and EMTP-RV was used to evaluate the effectiveness of those practices applied to two Portuguese transmission lines case studies, covering both back flashover and shielding failure flashover rates. It was concluded that the installation of line surge arresters provided significant flashover rates improvement, but the combination of other measures also provided interesting results. Based on all the information gathered and data outputs, it was possible to draw some guidelines to estimate and improve the lightning performance of transmission lines, in the design phase.