Tower Models for Power Systems Transients: A Review

Fast-front transients play an important role in the insulation design of any power system. When a stroke hits the shield wire or the tower of high-voltage overhead power lines, flashover may occur either along the span or across tower insulators, depending on the relevant voltages and insulation strength. As a result, backflashover may take place from the tower structure to the phase conductor whenever a huge impulse current flows along the tower towards considerably high footing impedances. For these reasons, tower modeling for transients studies is an important step in the insulation design, and also for lower voltage applications, where indirect lightning effects may play a predominant role. However, after decades of research on tower modeling, starting from the 1930s with the first model proposed by Jordan, no consensus has been reached neither on a widely accepted tower model nor on the quantitative effect of the tower models on insulation design. Moreover, the fundamental mechanisms at the base of the transient response of towers and the definition of some fundamental parameters have not been totally clarified yet. The aim of this review is to present the available tower models developed through the years in the power community, focussing mainly on lumped/distributed circuit models, and to help the reader to obtain a deeper understanding of them.