Recent measurements of narrow bipolar lightning events (NBEs) by very high frequency (VHF) radio interferometer have resolved the dynamic development of this special lightning process with submicrosecond time resolution, and showed that the fast positive breakdown (FPB) process is responsible for initiating at least some lightning flashes. In this study, with a newly built and deployed VHF interferometer system, we analyzed 31 intracloud lightning flash initiation events during three thunderstorms at short range from the interferometer. These events separate into two distinct classes that can be identified based on the time scale and the occurrence contexts of the first detectable VHF emissions from the flash. One class has features completely consistent with previously reported FPB events and is associated with continuous VHF emissions of 10–20 μs duration. Downward motion of the FPB region centroid merged continuously into the development of the subsequent upward negative leaders. But the majority of the lightning flashes analyzed began with ultrashort, submicrosecond duration, isolated pulses of VHF emission with no identifiable FPB signatures between these pulses and the leader development. These short VHF pulses begin typically a few hundred microseconds before the upward leader developes and are located at the same position where the leader eventually begins. We suggest that the FPB process is responsible for initiating some but not all lightning flashes, and the extremely short pulse‐like VHF emissions play a role in initiating those flashes without any FPB process.

This paper presents an assessment of lightning protection schemes for overhead lines from two aspects: protection performance and economic cost. Considering the random nature of lightning, the Monte-Carlo method with a heuristic technique is applied in the assessment. The one-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method is adopted to evaluate lightning overvoltages on insulators and lightning currents in surge arresters for failure assessment. The failure rate of an overhead line is addressed under both direct lightning and indirect lightning. A reduced set of design parameters are identified. It is found that the line insulation itself with a critical flashover overvoltage of less than 200 kV is not sufficient for lightning protection, especially against direct strokes. With other protection options, however, increasing the insulation level can greatly improve the protection performance. Installing surge arresters on every pole results in the best protection performance, but could be extremely expensive due to the replacement of failed surge arresters. The shielding wire provides moderate protection performance with a relatively low cost. The combination of the shielding wire and surge arresters provides much better performance under a wide range of soil conductivity with a moderate cost. It is worth mentioning that adopting high insulation strength for overhead lines in the new-line design could lead to significant cost savings for lightning protection. Guidelines for selecting design parameter values and protection schemes are provided, as well as a procedure for performance-cost evaluation.

This paper presents a systematic investigation into the performance of a shielding wire on 10 kV overhead lines (OHLs) against indirect lightning, from the design point of view. The design parameters addressed include the grounding interval, grounding resistance, and position of the shielding wire. As a system outage is usually caused by insulator flashover at OHL poles under indirect lightning, the induced voltages there are investigated with the code developed from the Agrawal model. In the evaluation, the location of a lightning return stroke relative to a grounded or ungrounded pole is considered. It is found that the lightning channel positioned in the front of an ungrounded pole could completely wipe out the effect of the shielding wire. This occurs if the wave from the grounding point arrives later than the time to the peak of the voltage directly arising from the lightning return stroke. It is suggested providing the wire grounding at every pole even if the grounding resistance at some poles is much higher than the design value. Grounding spacing does not affect the induced voltages at the pole generally if the pole has been grounded. One critical parameter is identified, i.e., the distance between the shielding and outer phase wires. Minimizing the distance can effectively reduce the lightning-induced voltages.

When concerning the installation and operation costs, it is always desirable to protect an overhead distribution network with a limited quantity of surge arresters (SAs). This paper presents a novel procedure for designing differentiated protection against lightning, by identifying appropriate positions for those SAs on the overhead line. Rather than the traditional flashover rate of a whole line, indices in terms of flashover numbers at individual poles and associated with possible stroke locations are introduced in this paper. Based on these flashover indices, a differentiated configuration of SAs can be identified using a selection strategy. After several rounds of selection, a differentiated SA protection scheme can be obtained, given by a pre-set quantity of SAs. In this procedure, a simplified probability-based approach is proposed to determine the flashover indices. By comparing the traditional Monte Carlo method, this approach can achieve a 10-fold increase in computational efficiency with reasonable accuracy. Two different selection strategies are introduced in this paper. Compared with the selection strategy using the flashover indices at individual poles, the selection strategy based on a group of poles is recommended because it yields a configuration with better lightning performance with the same quantity of SAs. This design procedure is applied to practical distribution networks with a shield wire and nearby structures. The influence of grounding impedance, a shield wire, and nearby structures is addressed. Finally, a generalized step-by-step procedure is provided to assist in a differentiated SA protection design.