Calculation of lightning flashovers and backflash level on 230kV transmission lines

Lightning has been one of the important problems for insulation design of power systems and it is still the main cause of outages of transmission and distribution lines. Lightning caused outages can be reduced by lightning protection devices such as ground wires and lightning arresters. This paper presents a comparative studies used to determine the lightning backflashovers level on 230kV transmission lines utilized by Saudi Electric Company (SEC) in Saudi Arabia, using two well known approaches CIGRE, and the simplified method. The studies include lightning flashovers, backflash analysis, as dependent on the tower design parameters which is considered the main parameters that reduce the rate of lightning bachflashovers in the transmission lines. The study results can be applied to reduce the number lightning flashovers and therefore reduce the transmission lines outages.