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High frequency input impedance modeling of low-voltage residential

installations - influence on lightning overvoltage simulations results

Article · December 2014

DOI: 10.1186/2193-1801-3-690

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Bassi SpringerPlus 2014, 3:690
http://www.springerplus.com/content/3/1/690
a SpringerOpen Journal

RESEARCH Open Access

High frequency input impedance modeling of

low-voltage residential installations - influence on
lightning overvoltage simulations results
Welson Bassi

Abstract
The overvoltage level of a system is strongly dependent on the connected loads and with more precise models,
better and more reliable simulation results are obtained. This paper presents the input impedance characteristics,
measured over a wide range of frequencies, of various actual low-voltage residential installations. The measured
frequency responses were fitted by effective RLC models and a general model was also developed. The range of
frequencies considered in the study, nearly d.c. up to 5 MHz, allows the use of these models for lightning or
switching studies. It is also presented overvoltage simulations, using different residential installations models
presented in the paper, of a distribution network subjected to lightning surges on the medium voltage circuit.
Keywords: Lightning; Power distribution; Power distribution lines; Power system transients; Low-voltage;
Surge protection

Background In (Mcmillen et al. 1988; Dugan and Smith 1988; Smith

Surges caused by lightning or switching events can cause and Puri 1988; Goedde et al. 1992; Hosfet et al. 1992;
upset or damage on electrical and electronic equipment Standler 1992 and Mirra et al. 1997) the consumers are
inside low-voltage installations. The increasing utiliza- represented by lumped resistances or capacitances or sim-
tion of sensitive equipment enhanced the problem over ple association of them. In (Borghetti et al. 2005) it was
the last recent years and, as a consequence, more rele- used the matching impedance of the low-voltage line for
vance is being given to the actions involving protection representing the consumers. In (Sekioka et al. 2010a,
of such equipment. Sekioka et al. 2010b) the home installations were repre-
Digital simulation using transient computational soft- sented by the surge protective devices (SPD) in them. A
ware is a powerful tool for evaluation of the transient model based on real measurements of a sole installation
levels of a certain system or network and alternatives for was used when simulating the induced voltages on low-
overvoltage mitigation. However, the simulations demand voltage networks in (Hoidalen 1998).
for using models to adequately represent all the compo- The representation of the consumer installations con-
nents of the system under observation. nected to the secondary distribution networks really pre-
The actual behavior of the overvoltages in a system or sents difficulties that make virtually impossible to draw
installation is strongly dependent on the connected loads up absolute models perfectly fitted to the conditions
and with more precise models, more realistic and reli- found in reality. However, it is possible to obtain simple
able simulation results are obtained. models adjusted to an overall behavior observed in tests
Overvoltage studies can present a considerable variety and measurements.
of possibilities of modeling of low-voltage power ins- This paper aims to present the models development
tallations (LVPI) in distribution systems, either in la- and a sensitive evaluation of overvoltage at LVPI entran-
boratory experimental setups or in digital simulations. ces, in the case of a direct lightning strike to the medium
voltage (MV) network, depending upon the adopted mo-
Correspondence: welson@iee.usp.br del for the low-voltage consumer installations.
Institute of Energy and Environment (IEE), University of São Paulo (USP),
Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto 1289 CEP, 05508-900 São Paulo, SP, Brazil

© 2014 Bassi; licensee Springer. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly credited.
Bassi SpringerPlus 2014, 3:690 Page 2 of 11
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Residential installation
Distribution
Oscilloscope Computer
transformer
Phase 1

Phase 2 Loads

Neutral

Voltage
Current
Signal
generator Residential
Installation
• Phase1-N
• Phase2-N
(a) (b)
Figure 1 General conditions. (a) Ground system (TN) and wiring on the evaluated installations (b) Input impedance measurement test setup.

Methods Installation #5, apartment with approximately 75 m2,

Residential installations were selected and their input im- with the following equipment connected: refrigerator, mi-
pedances were measured over a range of frequencies from crowave oven, TV set 20” and washer.
nearly d.c. up to 5 MHz considering both magnitude and
phase. The ground configuration in all tested buildings is Results
the TN system, as shown in Figure 1a. The measurements Input impedance measurement and models
were performed at the entrance electric board, using com- Figures 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 show the results of the measured in-
mon equipment to build up an impedance analyzer, mainly put impedance (magnitude and phase) for each installation
consisting of a signal generator (20 MHz, maximum output and the calculated curves using the respective models.
voltage 5 V rms) and a digital oscilloscope (8 bits, 100 The models were developed observing the break fre-
MHz) as can be seen in Figure 1b. The current drained by quencies on the impedance frequency curves and adjust-
the installation under test was measured by a current ing them accordingly using RLC elements or groups for
probe/amplifier set (d.c. to 50 MHz). The signals were reproducing those frequencies.
acquired by a computer with software developed to com- Due to the variety of internal configurations there are
pute the magnitude and phase values of the impedance. dissimilarities on the measured input impedance among
The installation under test was disconnected from the the several installations. However, a similar overall be-
a.c. utility power system remaining all the fixed applian- havior of the curves is observed: in the range of lower
ces (e.g. TV, refrigerator, stereo, desktop computer etc.) frequencies the input impedance has predominantly a
connected to the internal outlets. This powered off con- capacitive characteristic and for higher frequencies the
dition of the house equipment represents just some impedance presents an inductive behavior.
slight variations on their input impedance for frequen- This aspect of the input impedance over the range of
cies up to 10 MHz (Chen et al. 2011). frequencies up to 5 MHz can be taken into considera-
Five low-voltage installations, with essentially the same tion for proposing an approximate and simple general
constructive arrangement, 2.5 mm2 to 4 mm2 PVC insu- model for the installations, to be used in the computa-
lated conductors through conduits inside brick walls, tional simulations.
were tested: Because of the large spread among the curves, a certain
Installation #1, apartment with approximately 90 m2, approach is necessary for averaging them before fitting a
with the following equipment connected: refrigerator, model for the set. One could suggest several numerical
microwave oven, dish washer machine, washer machine, methods, but a simple and feasible approach is the calcu-
wireless telephone, TV set 29”, TV set 14”, desktop com- lation of the harmonic mean of all impedance magnitude
puter, stereo and DVD player; values for every frequency component. The harmonic
Installation #2, house with approximately 120 m2, with mean is best used in situations where extreme outliers
the following equipment connected: refrigerator, microwave exist in the population giving less significance to high and
oven, washer machine, TV set 20”, stereo and DVD player; low outliers values and providing a proper representation
Installation #3, apartment with approximately 60 m2, of the average. The harmonic mean H of n positive real
with the following equipment connected: refrigerator, numbers x1, x2, …, xn is defined:
microwave oven and TV set 20”; Yn
Installation #4, house with approximately 150 m2, with n n n: x
j¼1 j
the following equipment connected: refrigerator, freezer, H¼ 1 1 ¼
Xn ¼ Y n
x1 þ x2 þ … þ xn
1 1
Xn xj
i¼1 xi j¼1
microwave oven, dish washer machine, washer, wireless
i¼1 xi
telephone, TV set 29”, TV set 20”, desktop computer,
stereo and DVD player; ð1Þ
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Figure 2 Input impedance of Installation #1 (a) Magnitude (b) Phase.

Figure 3 Input impedance of Installation #2 (a) Magnitude (b) Phase.

Figure 4 Input impedance of Installation #3 (a) Magnitude (b) Phase.

Figure 5 Input impedance of Installation #4 (a) Magnitude (b) Phase.

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Figure 6 Input impedance of Installation #5 (a) Magnitude (b) Phase.

Figure 7 shows all the measured impedance curves to- for representing high frequencies, shown in the Figure 10,
gether, the harmonic mean curve of the magnitude and was developed using frequency response analysis, taking
the calculated curves using the general RLC model shown into account the load conditions, as described in detail in
in the Figure 8, which was developed observing the be- [Piantini et al. 1999]. The lightning stroke current is
havior of the averaged impedance curve. injected into the primary line, at the point shown in
Figure 9, and was represented by a triangular waveshape
Application with amplitude of 45 kA, time to peak of 2 μs and time to
In order to evaluate the influence of the consumer’s rep- half value of 80 μs. Resistances of 100 Ω, connected to
resentation, computational simulations were performed reference earth, were considered for grounding poles and
with different models for representing the consumer’s consumer’s installations. So, the representation of ground-
installations of a low-voltage distribution system. The ing using lumped resistances is not the most possible accur-
overvoltages caused by direct impact of lightning on the ate model, but due to the complexity of the overall
medium voltage circuit were calculated, using the ATP – simulated system, this simplification was adopted, and the
Alternative Transient Program. final results tend to be more conservative. The complete
The simulation of distribution systems is particularly description and details is in (Bassi and Janiszewski 2003).
difficult due to the variety of configurations and compo- Different models for the consumer installations were used
nents, but a typical and complete system was modeled as shown in Table 1 in order to evaluate the overvoltage
taking also into consideration the occurrence of flashovers system responses. The cases varied among the developed
at the medium voltage insulators. The topology overview is models, simple lumped resistances of 100 Ω, inductances of
shown in Figure 9 and it is considered to be representative: 5 μH, capacitances of 4 nF as used in (Mirra et al. 1997) and
a straight (13.8 kV) primary circuit and a low-voltage the TN model presented in (Hoidalen 1998).
network (127V/220V) with a portion coupled to the Figures 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 show
primary and two uncoupled laterals. It was also considered simulation results for the phase to neutral overvoltage
the characteristics of the conductors as well as the models values at consumer’s entrances expressed in different col-
used for representing the distribution transformer and the ored voltage ranges, considering the phase with the higher
surge arresters. The distribution transformer model used overvoltage value. The observed waveforms at consumer

Figure 7 Input impedance curves. (a) Measured and calculated magnitude (using the harmonic mean and the model of Figure 8) (b) Measured
and calculated phase (using the model of Figure 8).
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Figure 8 General model.

Figure 9 Distribution system topology used in the simulations.

Figure 10 Distribution transformer model (per phase) used in the simulations.

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Table 1 Simulated cases

Simulation case Consumers installation model
#1 installation #1 as per Figure 3
#2 installation #2 as per Figure 4
#3 installation #3 as per Figure 5
#4 installation #4 as per Figure 6
#5 installation #5 as per Figure 7
#6 general model as per Figure 9
#7 TN model
#8 resistance of 100 Ω
#9 capacitance of 4 nF
#10 inductance of 5 μH

Figure 11 Simulation results for case #1.

Figure 12 Simulation results for case #2.

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Figure 13 Simulation results for case #3.

60
30

(kV)
(kV)

0
-40
-10 0 Time (us) 100
0 Time (us) 200

15 20
(kV)
(kV)

0
0

-10 -20
0 100 0 Time (us) 50
Time (us)

Figure 14 Simulation results for case #4.

30 60
(kV)
(kV)

-10 -60
0 200 0 100
Time (us) Time (us)

20 60
(kV)

(kV)

0 0

-15 -60
0 Time (us) 100 0 Time (us) 100

Figure 15 Simulation results for case #5.

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Figure 16 Simulation results for case #6.

Figure 17 Simulation results for case #7.

Figure 18 Simulation results for case #8.

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Figure 19 Simulation results for case #9.

Figure 20 Simulation results for case #10.

Table 2 Frequency distribution of the number of

overvoltage observations where the indicated values are
exceeded
Simulation case 90% 50% 10%
#1 4 kV 6 kV 10 kV
#2 2 kV 6 kV 10 kV
#3 4 kV 6 kV 10 kV
#4 4 kV 6 kV 10 kV
#5 4 kV 10 kV 20 kV
#6 4 kV 6 kV 10 kV
#7 1 kV 1 kV 6 kV
#8 2 kV 10 kV 20 kV
#9 6 kV 20 kV 20 kV
#10 1 kV 2 kV 6 kV
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1,2

0,8 Simulation
Current (kA)
Cases

0,6 #1
#2
#3
0,4 #4
#5
#6
0,2 #7
#8
#9
0 #10
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
-0,2 Time (us)

-0,4

Figure 21 Simulation results of maximum currents at transformer secondary.

installation are also presented at some points of the low- The calculated drained surge currents in the secondary
voltage system. circuit are sensitively smaller than the injected light-
The frequency of occurrence of the overvoltage values ning current (Bassi and Janiszewski 2003). As illustra-
in all consumers’ entrances (in both phases) is summa- tion, Figure 21, shows the maximum currents through
rized in Table 2, which shows the values exceeded in the conductors of the transformer secondary for all the
90%, 50% and 10% of the consumer points in each simu- simulated cases (#1 to #10). It can be seen the great di-
lation case. It can be observed, by visual inspection of versity of resulting waveshapes, but with peaks values
Figures 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 and in the range up to about1 kA.
Table 2, the great dependency of the resulting overall If parallel buildings are supplied by the same supply
overvoltage scenario upon the adopted model for the transformer this will decrease the overall earthing im-
low-voltage installations. pedance of the low voltage supply system. A lower earth-
Despite the differences in the waveforms, the frequen- ing impedance of the low voltage supply system could
cies of occurrence of the overvoltage peak values for cases results in higher impulse currents flowing on it.
#1 to #6 are similar. Thus, the general model used in case
#6 can be considered as representative of the particular Conclusions
group of measured installations of cases #1 to #5. Models for representing residential low-voltage instal-
One can observe the oscillatory behavior in the calcu- lations were developed. These models can be used in
lated overvoltages of cases #1 to #6, with the dominant transient simulations software to evaluate switching and
characteristics regarding the first rise time and range of lightning overvoltages in distribution systems.
frequency quite similar to the damped oscillatory ring A particular or individual installation can be modelled
wave test waveform defined in (IEEE The Institute of with good matching with the measurements. Modelling
Electrical and Electronics Engineers 2002) which was all individual installation will not be feasible, but general
prescribed after evaluating extensive data collection of real simple RLC models for groups or installations categories
surge recordings during several years in many instal- would be reasonable to be developed, as the presented
lations. This similarity leads to presume a realistic scenario general proposed model.
for the calculated results using models based on It must be emphasized that modelling of consumer’s
measurements. installations is not a simple task and involves difficulties: the
For the resistive model of case #8 (Figure 18), the calcu- large variety of configurations and equipment and the dy-
lated overvoltages do not present significant oscillations, namic behavior of the loads intraday and due to seasonality.
given the dissipative character of the loads. The model of The results presented in this study, in some cases, show a
case #7 (Figure 17) and the lumped inductance of 5 μH of remarkable variation of peak values and the resulting wave-
case #10 (Figure 20) leads to smaller peak values, and, on forms for different models affecting the overvoltage evalu-
the contrary, for the model of case #9 (Figure 19) the over- ation of the system under observation. This aspect justifies
voltages present high values and oscillations of elevated the importance of utilization of models based on real
frequency, with a significantly different behavior from that measurements which tends to lead more realistic results
of the other models. and increases the reliability of the simulation processes.
 Bassi SpringerPlus 2014, 3:690 Page 11 of 11
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Competing interests
The author declares that he has no competing interests.

Received: 30 July 2014 Accepted: 17 November 2014

Published: 25 November 2014

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