Influence on Short-circuit of Substation Grounding Grids by the Use of OPGW Cables

Optical Ground Wire (OPGW) are widely used on power systems. However, the usage of such cables during a transient request may lead to an unusual distribution of current along the grounding electrodes. Thus, it is interesting observe if these cables would case decreased or increased of safety on the vicinity of substation. On the light of such possibility, this paper analyzes the influence of the use of such cables on the intensity of fault currents that flow through the interconnected substation ground grids. For the analysis a comparison between the conventional ground wires set and a system considering the presence of an OPGW are studied. For the modeling of these systems, an EMTP-type software is used as a computational tool for the generation of sensitivity analyzes. The results ilustrate that the use of OPGW significantly reduces the grid currents of the interconnected substations. The studies with this thematic founding in literature approach the subject using only conventional ground wires.