Novel Evaluation of the Damage Rate of Surge Arresters Due to Lightning Stroke in a Distribution Network

The operation status of the arresters installed in the distribution network significantly affect the performance of lightning protection and maintenance cost. The damage rate of the surge arresters due to lightning strokes is one of the critical issues to be concern by power companies. A novel surrogate model is proposed to effectively evaluate the damage rate of the surge arresters (SAs) in a network. Firstly, based on a numerical Monte Carlo assessment for random positions of limited SAs in the distribution network, the distribution characteristic of energy absorption into the SAs is revealed. It is found that the energy absorption into a SA generally shows a log-normal distribution, no matter whether the SA is near the direct-stroke location or not. Then, the mean values of energy absorbed into each SA are found to decay exponentially with the distance from the direct-stroke location on the overhead lines. This general characteristic could be concluded with a great fitted empirical formula, based on which the damage-rate evaluation could be carried out with the consideration of the probability of stroke locations, without extra numerical simulation.