This document presents a simple and brief

overview of over voltages in power

systems, and the need of insulation
coordination to tackle these issues. A small
overview of methods used in insulation
coordination is also given.

Insulation
coordination and
over voltages in
power systems
A brief overview

By Abhishek Saini (Roll no.-16204)

 Index

S.no Title Page no.

1. Introduction 2-5
2. Over voltages in power 5-12
systems
3. Surge arrestors 12-13
4. Conventional method of 14
insulation coordination
5. Statistical methods of 15
insulation coordination
6. Conclusion 16
7. References 17

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 Insulation coordination in power systems

1. Introduction:

Voltage stresses in power systems can have internal or external origin. Over
voltages can be caused by faults, switching operations or lightning strokes. In
addition, they can occur with very wide range of waveshapes and durations.
Dielectric failures in power systems can cause tripping of the protective devices,
destruction of equipment, or interruption of operation. The breakdown
characteristics of the different types of insulation depend on the configuration
and environment of the insulation, as well as on the waveshape and duration of
the applied voltage. On the other hand, both stresses and withstand insulation
voltages may exhibit a random behaviour. Therefore, it is important not only to
assess the over voltages that can appear on a given component but the behaviour
of its insulation taking into account that stress and withstand characteristics may
be random.

The goal of insulation co-ordination is to select the electric strength of

equipment in relation to the voltages which can appear on the system where the
equipment has been or will be installed, and taking into account the service
environment as well as the characteristics of the available protective devices.
An insulation co-ordination procedure relates the insulation characteristics
(strength) to the over voltages on the system (stress), and accounts not only for
risks of failure but for economic and environmental factors. An insulation co-
ordination procedure is aimed at determining the lowest values of the insulation

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withstand voltages in order to meet a performance criterion when equipment is
subjected to the representative over voltages under service conditions.

Procedure for insulation co-ordination have been presented in standards,

namely IEC and IEEE. Increase in electrical energy demand has promoted an
increase in the voltage of transmission systems; as an example, AC and DC
transmission lines above 500 kV are now in operation. The cost of equipment is
closely related to the insulation levels that have to be adopted. The choice of
insulation level should take into account both the severity of voltage stresses
that the system may be subjected to and the probability of occurrence of these
stresses. Power systems are always subjected to over voltages, which are
usually the result of faults, sudden changes in operating conditions caused by
switching operations, or the impact of lightning strokes. Therefore, over
voltages can have external origin (e.g., when they are caused by lightning
discharges) or internal origin (e.g., when they are caused by switching
operations).

In addition, over voltages can occur with very wide range of waveshapes
and durations. The magnitude of external lightning over voltages remains
essentially independent of the system design, whereas that of internal switching
over voltages increases with the operating voltage of the system. As a
consequence, with increasing operating voltage a point is reached when the
switching over voltages become the dominant factor in selecting equipment
insulation (Hileman, 1999). Up to approximately 300 kV, the insulation has to
be designed to withstand primarily lightning surges. For transmission systems
above 300 kV the switching over voltages increase in importance so that at
about 550 kV they are equivalent to that of lightning over voltages. For the
highest voltages, 765 kV and above, switching over voltages in combination
with insulator contamination become the predominating factor in the insulation
design. Temporary over voltages are also important since they affect the rating

3
of protective arresters or coordinating gaps which provide a means of
controlling the over voltages.

The purpose of insulation co-ordination is to ensure that the probability of

insulation breakdown is limited to an acceptable value and that any breakdown
is restricted to self-restoring insulation. Insulation co-ordination is based on
computing the most severe over voltages occurring on the network and relating
them to the breakdown characteristics of the insulation through appropriate
margins to obtain withstand voltages for the network components together with
the statistical risk of insulation failure. IEC Standard 60071 provides a
comprehensive guide to coordinating procedures and specifies co-ordination
factors and standard insulation levels. According to the IEC, insulation co-
ordination comprises the selection of the electric strength of equipment and its
application, in relation to the voltages that can appear on the system for which
the equipment is intended and taking into account the characteristics of
available protective devices, so as to reduce to an economically and
operationally acceptable level the probability that the resulting voltage stresses
imposed on the equipment will cause damage to equipment insulation or effect
continuity of service.

An insulation co-ordination procedure relates the insulation

characteristics (strength) to the over voltages on the system (stress). Although
co-ordination is based primarily on determining risks of failure from
overvoltage and insulation characteristics, other factors, namely economic and
environmental, are involved. The economic factor is always important and
includes cost comparisons between overvoltage protection, insulation levels,
risk of failure and network outages. Atmospheric factors are also important and
their consideration can result in the design of compact lines having both reduced
visual impact and transmission corridor width. The insulation co-ordination
procedure takes an iterative approach where several scenarios may be under

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consideration. From the network configuration and component data, an
appropriate simulation of the network is performed to compute representative
over voltages, taking into account the effect of control and protective devices.
The breakdown voltage characteristics are based on the type and configuration
of the insulation. The procedure relates these two aspects to determine
withstand voltages and quantify the risk of insulation failure.

2. Over voltages in power systems

2.1 Classification of over voltages:

An overvoltage is a voltage, between one phase and earth or between two

phases, having a crest value exceeding the corresponding crest of the maximum
system voltage. A first classification of the different types of overvoltage that
are likely to occur on power systems considers their origin, and distinguishes
two main categories: (i) external and (ii) internal over voltages. Standards
classify the different types of over voltages, according to classes and shapes,
into four groups (IEC 60071-1, 2010; IEC 60071-2, 1996; IEEE Std C62.82.1,
2010; IEEE Std 1313.2, 1999):
1) Temporary over voltages:
They are undamped or weakly damped oscillatory phase-to-earth or phase-to-
phase over voltages of relatively long duration (seconds, even minutes).
Temporary over voltages are originated by faults, load rejection, resonance and
ferro-resonance conditions, or by a combination of these factors.
2) Slow-front over voltages:

5
They are unidirectional or oscillatory over voltages, with a slow front, highly
damped, short-duration. These over voltages are caused by switching
operations, fault initiation, or remote lightning strokes.

3) Fast-front over voltages:

They are transient over voltages whose fast front shape is caused primarily by
lightning strokes, although they can also be caused by some switching
operations or fault initiation.
4) Very fast-front over voltages:
In general, they are the result of switching operations or faults. These over
voltages are usually associated with high voltage disconnect switch operation in
GIS, and with cable connected motors.
Standards also include continuous power-frequency voltages, which are
originated with the system under normal operating conditions during which the
power-frequency voltage can be expected to vary somewhat but, for the purpose
of insulation co-ordination, is considered to be constant and equal to the highest
system voltage for the equipment.
Limitation of overvoltage surges is possible by protective devices. Surge
arresters are widely used in electrical power systems, and the superior modern
metal oxide surge arresters have renewed interest and widespread use of surge
arresters in protection practice. For economic design of equipment and safe
operation of power systems, a detailed knowledge of types and sources of over
voltages on power systems is required. A short description of the main causes
and methods for limitation of over voltages is presented is the following
subsections

2.2 Temporary over voltages:

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A temporary overvoltage (TOV) is an oscillatory phase-to-earth or phase-to-
phase overvoltage of relatively long duration at a given location which is
undamped or weakly damped. In relation to operating power system networks, a
temporary overvoltage may be defined as an overvoltage higher than the highest
system voltage and lasting for more than 2 cycles. The representative temporary
overvoltage is characterized by a standard short duration (1 min) power-
frequency waveshape. TOVs may be classified according to whether the
frequency of oscillation is lower, equal to or higher than the working voltage
frequency. The causes that lead to temporary ovevoltages are many; the most
frequent are summarized below (German & Haddad, 2004; Irwin & Ryan, 2001;
Glavitsch, 1980).

Faults to earth: Phase-to-earth faults produce power-frequency, phase-to-earth

over voltages on the unfaulted phases. An overvoltage due to an insulation fault
occurs on a three-phase network when the neutral is unearthed or impedance-
earthed. The overvoltage magnitude depends on the system earthing and on the
fault location. In effectively earthed systems, the temporary overvoltage is about
1.3 pu and the duration of the overvoltage, including fault clearing, is generally
less than 1 s. In resonant earthed systems the temporary overvoltage is about
1.73 pu or greater and, with fault clearing, the duration is generally less than 10
s. Depending on the system configuration, separated portions of the system may
become unearthed during fault clearing, and high over voltages can be produced
in the separated part.

Load rejection: Over voltages caused by load rejection are a function of the
rejected load, the system topology after disconnection, and the characteristics of
the sources (e.g., speed and voltage regulators of generators). In a symmetrical
three-phase power system the same relative over voltages occur phase-to-earth
and phase-to-phase. The longitudinal temporary over voltages depend on

7
whether phase opposition is possible; such phase opposition can occur when the
voltages on each side of the open switching device are not synchronized. A
distinction should be made between various system configurations when large
loads are rejected. A system with relatively short lines and high short circuit
power at terminal stations will have low over voltages. A system with long lines
and low short circuit power at generating sites will have high over voltages.
Load rejection can, on long uncompensated transmission lines, produce voltages
of up 1.2 pu due to the Ferranti effect, at the substation end of the line which is
disconnected from the source (i.e. remote end). Temporary over voltages due to
the Ferranti effect and load rejection are limited by shunt reactors, but because
these shunt reactors remain connected to the system under normal working
conditions, a problem of reactive power consumption is raised. Thyristor-
controlled reactive compensation and shunt reactors with flat magnetizing
characteristics have also been used.

Resonance and ferro-resonance: Temporary over voltages may arise from the
interaction of capacitive elements (lines, cables, series capacitors) and inductive
elements (transformers, shunt reactors). The resonant overvoltage is initiated by
a sudden change in the system configuration (e.g., switching of a transformer
terminated line, isolation of a bus potential transformer through breaker
capacitance). Ferro-resonance may occur when an operation (circuit opening or
closing) is performed on the network with a device having poles either separate
or with no simultaneous operation. To avoid ferro-resonant conditions design
modifications may be considered or steps can be taken to avoid the switching
operations that cause them or to minimize the duration by selection of an
appropriate protection scheme. Resonant and ferro-resonant over voltages can
have magnitudes greater than 2.0 pu and last until the condition is cleared.
Parallel line resonance can occur during de-energization of one circuit of a
double circuit transmission line with shunt reactive compensation. The

8
energized line feeds the resonance condition through the inter-circuit
capacitance. Voltages as high as 1.5 pu have been recorded on 420 kV systems.
This voltage will remain until the line is re-energized or until the compensating
reactor is switched out.

2.3 Slow front over voltages:

Sudden changes in electrical network structure give rise to transient phenomena

that may result in over voltages of aperiodic or oscillating type with rapid
damping. Slow-front over voltages are generally caused by switching operations
(line and cable energization, faults and fault clearing, load rejections, switching
of capacitive or inductive currents). These over voltages may have times-to-
crest of hundreds of microseconds and tail duration of thousands of
microseconds. Switching surges have in practice a decaying oscillatory
component superimposed on the power-frequency waveshape.

Line/cable energization and reclosing: A three-phase energization or reclosing

of a line/cable may produce switching over voltages on all three phases. The
overvoltage generation depends on the circuit breaker, and its calculation has to
consider trapped charges left on the phases in case of high-speed reclosing. In
the worst case each switching operation produces three phase-to-earth and three
phase-to-phase over voltages. Two methods are in use for characterizing the
overvoltage probability distribution function: the case-peak method (each
switching operation contributes one value to the overvoltage distribution) and
the phase-peak method (each operation contributes three crest values to the
probability distribution). The longitudinal insulation between non-synchronous
systems can be subject to energization over voltages of one polarity at one
terminal and the crest of the operating voltage of the other polarity at the other

9
terminal; consequently, the longitudinal insulation is exposed to significantly
higher over voltages than the phase-to-earth insulation.

Initiation and clearing of faults: The most frequent fault on power systems is
the phase-to-earth short circuit, which is often accompanied by an increase of
neutral voltage. Reducing the ratio, however, will limit significantly the
overvoltage. Slow-front over voltages can be produced during phase-to-earth
fault initiation and clearing. These over voltages are only between phase-to-
earth. If the switching over voltages for energizing and reclosing are controlled
to below 2.0 pu, fault and fault clearing may produce higher over voltages. A
conservative estimate may assume that the maximum overvoltage during fault
clearing is about 2.0 pu, and the maximum value caused by a fault initiation is
about pu, where k is the earth fault factor in per unit of the peak phase-to-earth
system voltage.

Load rejection: Load rejection may increase longitudinal voltage stresses across
switching devices, the phase-to-earth insulator stress and the energy discharged
through the arresters. If the arresters are used to limit energization and reclosing
over voltages to below 2 pu, the energy dissipation in the arresters should be
studied, especially when generators, transformers, long transmission lines, or
series capacitors are present.

2.4 Fast front over voltages

Fast-front lightning over voltages: Lightning over voltages are characterized

by very high peak currents and relatively low energy content. They can be
estimated by assuming that the return stroke current is an aperiodic wave. From
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the point of view of power system over voltages, the important parameters of
the lightning stroke are the peak current value, the front time (or time-to-crest)
and the tail time (or time-to-half-value). All of them are statistically distributed.
Field measurements have shown that the mean value of peak current is about 30
kA with typical front times of 2 μs. The rising front of lightning strokes chosen
by standards is 1.2 μs for voltage and 8 μs for current. Lightning strokes are
generally of negative polarity (negative cloud and positive earth), and roughly
10 % have positive polarity.
Lightning can affect overhead lines in three ways: (i) a direct stroke on a phase
conductor; (ii) a direct stroke to earth wire or a tower top when lightning hits a
shielded line; (iii) an induced voltage when the lightning stroke occurs to earth
in the vicinity of the line. Induced voltages by nearby strokes hardly exceed 300
kV and are important only for lower (distribution) voltage systems.

Lightning surges travel along the line and may cause internal breakdown
of terminal equipment system insulation. As these surges travel from the stroke
terminating point to the station, corona decreases both the front steepness and
the crest magnitude. The voltage wave front arriving at the substation can be
significantly affected by the line termination, although in the case of a cable
termination, the wave front may be drastically reduced. Protection against
lightning over voltages is usually based on the most probable lightning current
shape which might hit the system and the keraunic level or density of lightning
flashes (flashes per kilometer square per year) in the location area of the system.

2.5 Very fast front over voltages:

Very fast-front transients belong to the highest frequency range of transients in

power systems (from 100 kHz up to 50 MHz). Their shape is usually
unidirectional with time to peak below 0.1 μs, total duration below 3 ms, and

11
with superimposed oscillations at frequencies below 100 MHz. Causes that can
originate these over voltages are disconnector operations and faults within gas
insulated substations (GIS), switching of motors and transformers with short
connections to the switchgear, and certain lightning conditions.

Very fast-front transient over voltages in GIS are of greater concern at the
highest voltages, for which the ratio of the insulation level to the system voltage
is lower. Some equipment failures and arcing problems between earthed parts
have occurred at system voltages above 420 kV; they have been correlated with
disconnect switch and circuit breaker operation.
The generation and propagation of very fast-front transients from their original
location throughout a GIS can produce internal and external over voltages. The
main concern is internal over voltages between the centre conductor and the
enclosure. However, external transients can be dangerous for secondary and
adjacent equipment. The external transients include transient voltages between
the enclosure and earth at GIS-air interfaces, voltages across insulating spacers
in the vicinity of GIS current transformers, when they do not have a metallic
screen on the outside surface, voltages on the secondary terminals of GIS
instrument transformers, and radiated electromagnetic fields, which can be
dangerous to adjacent control or relay equipment.

3. Surge arrestors:

Surge arresters are connected across an apparatus to provide a low-resistance

path and to limit the various types of transient voltages below the corresponding
insulation level of the apparatus. A surge arrester should act like an open circuit
during normal operation of the system, limit transient voltages to a safe level
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and bring the system back to its normal operational mode as soon as the
transient voltages are suppressed. A surge arrester must have an extremely high
resistance during normal system operation and a relatively low resistance during
transient over voltages; that is, its voltage - current (V-I) characteristic must be
non-linear.
There are two main types of surge arresters: the expulsion type and the valve
type. Expulsion arresters are still in use, but they are no longer manufactured, so
they are not reviewed here.
Valve arresters consist of nonlinear resistors which act like valves when
voltages are applied to them. There are two types of valve arresters: silicon
carbide (SiC) and metal oxide (MO). SiC surge arresters use spark gaps
connected in series with discs made with a non-linear SiC material. The spark
gaps provide the high impedance during normal conditions while the SiC discs
impede the flow of current following sparkover.

The V-I characteristic of SiC-type surge arresters are a combination of

both the SiC disc and the gap behaviour. The MO varistor material used in
modern high voltage gapless surge arresters has a highly non-linear V-I
characteristic. Varistors are made up of zinc oxide (ZnO) powder and traces of
oxides of other metals bound in a ceramic mould. Their characteristic avoids the
need for series spark gaps. Therefore, the electrical behaviour is determined
solely by the properties of the MO blocks. This is as shown in figure below:

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 4. Conventional method of insulation coordination:

The components of electrical power system may suffer from different level of
transient voltage stresses, switching impulse voltage and lightning impulse
voltage. The maximum amplitude of transient over voltages reach the
components, can be limited by using protecting device like lightning arrestors in
the system. If we maintain the insulation level of all the power system
component above the protection level of protective device, then ideally there
will be no chance of breakdown of insulation of any component. Since the
transient over voltage reaches at the insulation after crossing the surge
protective devices will have amplitude equals to protection level voltage and
protection level voltage impulse insulation level of the components. Generally,
the impulse insulation level is established at 15 to 25 % above the protective
level voltage of protective devices. Related graph is as shown below:

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 5. Statistical methods for insulation coordination:

At higher transmission
voltages, the length of the
insulator strings and
the clearance in air do not
increase linearly with
voltage but approximately
to V1.6. The required
number of insulator disc
in suspension string for
different over voltages is shown below. It is seen that increase in the number of
disc is only slight for 220 KV system, with the increase in the over voltage
factor from 2 to 3.5 but that there is a rapid increase in the 750 kV system.
Thus, while it may be economically feasible to protect the lower voltage lines

15
up to an over voltage factor of 3.5(say), it is definitely not economically feasible
to have an over voltage factor of more than about 2 to 2.5 on the higher voltage
lines. In the higher voltage systems, it is the switching over voltages that is
predominant. However, these may be controlled by proper design of switching
devices. The figure is as presented below:

6. Conclusion:

The document presented a basic

overview of insulation
coordination (it’s needs,
methods etc.). Insulation is
mainly needed in power systems for public and utility personnel safety, to
ensure current flow in a defined path, and to prevent high damage to
transformers and cables. Arrangement of insulation levels in such a manner that

16
an insulation failure, if one occurs, would be confined to the place on the system
where it would result in the least damage, be the least expensive to repair and
cause the least disturbance to the continuity of supply is known as insulation
coordination. It plays and would continue to play a vital role in future of power
systems. There is no way to design an insulation system which is 100%
accurate. Thus, insulation coordination ensures that the system is well protected
under any operating conditions for which the system operates.

References and Bibliography

 POWER SYSTEM TRANSIENTS – Insulation Co-Ordination in Power

Systems - Juan A. Martinez-Velasco, Ferley Castro- Aranda.

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 IEEE Std C62.2 (1987). IEEE guide for the application of gapped silicon-
carbide surge arresters for alternating current systems.
 IEEE Std C62.82.1 (2010). IEEE Standard for Insulation Coordination--
Definitions, Principles, and Rules.
 IEEE Std C62.22 (2009). IEEE guide for the application of metal-oxide
surge arresters for alternating-current systems.

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