2008

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 4, AUGUST 2014

Identification of Lightning Stroke Due to Shielding

Failure and Backflashover for Ultra-High-Speed
Transmission-Line Protection
John Morales, Student Member, IEEE, Eduardo A. Ordua, and Christian Rehtanz, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractThe principal function of a protection relay is to protect the electric power system (EPS) from intolerable phenomena,
such as fault produced by lightning, which can produce deleterious
effects on EPS. Both impedance estimation protection and transient-based protection have become the most used protection relays
for the lightning stroke classification. However, it is clear that currently these techniques suffer from drawbacks, which cannot correctly classify lightning stroke signals with speed and precision balanced, and cannot correctly distinguish the lightning stroke with
and without a fault. Therefore, in order to avoid maloperation,
protection schemes must be able to classifier lightning strokes correctly. This paper presents a novel methodology to provide effective lightning transmission-line protection. Principal component
analysis is used to extract different patterns for lightning strokes
due to shielding failure and backflashover. This work discloses that
the transient voltages projected on the principal component coordinates clearly illustrate lightning strokes with and without a fault.
In this manner, two pattern classifiers, based on spectral energy
and artificial neural network, are useful for effectively classifying
lightning stroke types. On the other hand, to evaluate the robustness of the proposed methodology, this research is also compared
with the technique based on the wavelet transform, which has been
the major tool used for the analysis of lightning strokes. Results
show that the methodology proposed is fast and effective, which is
not affected by operational conditions. Thus, this methodology can
be applicable for high-speed protection systems.
Index TermsBackflashover, flashover, lightning stroke, lightning transmission lines protection, power system transients.

I. INTRODUCTION

N IMPORTANT objective of all electric power systems

(EPS) is to maintain acceptable service conditions [1],
[2]. However, if abnormal conditions are present on transmission lines (TLs), it is imperative to disconnect the faulted ele-

Manuscript received August 20, 2013; revised February 17, 2014; accepted
March 20, 2014. Date of publication July 01, 2014; date of current version July
21, 2014. This work was supported in part by the German Academic Exchange
Service (DAAD), Instituto de Energa Elctrica of Universidad Nacional de San
Juan (UNSJ), Facultad de Ingeniera Elctrica of Universidad Politcnica Salesiana, and in part by Institute of Energy Systems, Energy Efficiency and Energy
Economics (ie3) at the TU Dortmund University. Paper no. TPWRD-009462013.
J. Morales and E. A. Ordua are with Universidad Nacional de San Juan, San
Juan 5400, Argentina, and also with Facultad de Ingeniera Elctrica of Universidad Politcnica Salesiana, Cuenca 010150, Ecuador (e-mail: jmorales@iee.
unsj.edu.ar).
C. Rehtanz is with the Institute of Energy Systems, Energy Efficiency and
Energy Economics, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund 44227, Germany.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2014.2313875

Fig. 1. Causes of power outages [18].

ment as quickly as possible. It is well known that faults produce

power outages which affect users and may lead to significant
losses especially for the manufacturing industry; therefore, fast
detection and classification of those phenomena are essential for
maintaining acceptable EPS conditions. In this context, well-designed protection relays are very important to isolate the fault
and ensure that the EPS operates within secure operating conditions [3].
With regards to the possible cause of faults on TLs, most
faults in TLs result mainly from lightning stroke. Records reveal
that the highest percent is not only from trip faulting or trip faults
but also blackouts are caused by lightning strokes [4][18]. For
example, Fig. 1 illustrates that those lightning-related events always cause the highest percentage of power outages, even in
different countries, such as the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and others,
which have suffered several blackouts.
Lightning strikes on TLs are manifested in two ways. First,
when their overvoltages are higher than voltages that can withstand the insulation (basic insulator level BIL), a ground fault
is produced, which requires the operation of protection relays.
Second, when their overvoltages are not greater than BIL, therefore, it is not necessary to disconnect the TL [19].
Based on these factors, impedance estimation relays and TBP
relays have been used for lightning TL protection. However,

0885-8977 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

MORALES et al.: IDENTIFICATION OF LIGHTNING STROKE DUE TO SHIELDING FAILURE AND BACKFLASHOVER

lightning stroke may lead to maloperation of these devices,

which are indicated in Section II.
In order to analyze and study those drawbacks, numerous approaches, particularly based on detailed coefficients decomposition (wavelet transform), have been reported by a number of
researchers [22][32]. Most of the works extract energy spectrums of different frequency bands, which are used to develop
classification algorithms.
For example, in [23], an approach to identify lightning disturbance using wavelet spectra of transient signals was presented;
that work determined that high-frequency components of lightning strokes without fault do not attenuate in the first milliseconds. In [24], by using multiresolution analysis (MRA) decomposition and the energy distribution of transient current superimposed components, an algorithm to classify lightning strokes
was developed. In [25], an approach to identify lightning disturbances through the conception of coefficient of waveform
coordination was proposed, where the waveform is an alternative around the time axis to lightning strokes without fault and
it will change monotonously to lightning strokes with fault.
In [26], an approach to identify lightning disturbance based
on energy distribution characteristics of current transients and
analyzing the aerial-mode components of nonfault and fault
lightning strokes and ground short circuits was developed. In
[27], an approach based on the distribution of transient current
waveforms above and below the time axis was presented.
In [28] and [29], two approaches based on wavelet energy
spectrum were presented which, by using wavelet detailed
coefficients, lightning identification algorithms were proposed.
These pieces of previous research analyzed and studied specific conditions of lightning stroke, omitting a wide range of
essential parameters in producing a fault on TLs [33]. In [34], a
methodology considering the most important parameters of atmospheric discharges was presented, which was based on the
wavelet analyzed and machine learning. However, the patterns
extraction corresponding to lightning stroke signals is not well
differentiated. From the literature review, it is possible to see
that researches particularly based on wavelet transform (WT)
have been reported [15], [18], [22][32]. Notwithstanding, it is
clear that those algorithms depend on the decomposition level
and election of the mother wavelet [35].
In contrast to those traditional filtering methodologies, in
[36], initial results of a new methodology based on principal
component analysis (PCA) useful to feature extraction of
lightning strokes on TLs were proposed.
In this context, in this paper, the main objective is to develop
a novel protection methodology for lightning stroke that produces faults in overhead transmission lines. The methodology
has to be capable of extracting patterns from lightning stroke.
This methodology should provide adequate response of the protection relay, identifying whether lightning stroke produces a
fault or not, reducing the operation time and improving the traditional protection performance.
As just disussed, by using PCA, different patterns are extracted, and the output signals of PCA are trained using SE and
ANN that classifies the lightning stroke. Extensive testing signals have been conducted to verify the feasibility of the proposed methodology.

TABLE I
FOURIER FILTER PERFORMANCE TO REMOVE SIGNALS
A FUNCTION OF THE DATA WINDOW [39]

2009

AS

II. TLS PROTECTION RELAYS DRAWBACKS

A. Protection Based on Phasor Estimation
The most used technique for TL protection is based on the
periodicity of the signals and on prior knowledge of the dc component produced by a disturbance. In this context, most of the
practical implementations are based on the Fourier principle,
which uses the movement of a sampling window to analyze and
extract information of input signals. However, it is well known
that their operation time is dependent on the length of the sampling window [1], [37], [38].
Operation time of Fourier algorithms cannot be less than 1
cycle [1], [39]. Still, that operation time has usually been used
for disturbances whose frequency content is not very high, such
as switching operations, common faults, and others.
On the other hand, since lightning stokes produce very-highfrequency (VHF) components, a sampling window of 1 cycle is
inappropriate. Thus, Fourier filters produce an error of an extracted fundamental frequency component [39].
Their operation design principle is based on that any transient signal can be regarded as a combination of different periodic signals, where the fundamental component must be extracted from transient signals. Nonetheless, independently, the
cause among unwanted components, some transient signals may
be easily eliminated, while others may appear at the output (especially due to the lightning stroke). Hence, an output phasor
may contain lightning stroke unwanted components; harming
or affecting the protection relay performance.
In the case that high-frequency transient signals caused by
lightning strokes are present, longer sampling windows greater
than 1 cycle are necessary. However, longer sampling windows
delay the operation time of protection relays.
As just discussed, these TL protection relays do not always
operate correctly due to lightning stroke effects. They cannot
correctly identify lightning strokes with speed and precision balanced. At the moment, the operating time of these relays often
reaches 5070 ms for lightning strokes [20], [39] (see Table I).
B. Transient-Based Protection
Unlike the protection based on phasor estimation, TBP is related to the analysis of high-frequency components contained in
lightning stroke-generated signals [21]. Accordingly, for TBP
methods, high-frequency signals carry the very first information about disturbances in TLs [40]; these methods are used in
high-speed protection algorithms.
Currently, TBP schemes have many advantages over traditional protection schemes, such as directionality, current-trans-

2010

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 4, AUGUST 2014

The variance-covariance matrix

is represented as

(4)
Fig. 2. Electric power system.

former (CT) saturation, and fast operating speed. Hence, the operation time of schemes based on phasor measurement is approximately 13 cycles, while for TBP, it is a maximum of a
quarter cycle. However, these methods suffer from some drawbacks of reliability due to lightning strokes presence, which
have not been solved yet [41].
Transient signals caused by atmospheric discharges that produce and do not produce failures are not well distinguished by
TBP algorithms [22]. Thus, when lightning strokes on TLs produce a fault, the relay sends a trip order to the switch and it correctly operates. Otherwise, when lightning strokes on TLs do
not produce a fault, the relay sends the trip order to the breaker
even in the absence of fault (unknown failures to the system)
[39].
III. MATHEMATICAL TOOLS
A. Mathematical Formulation Using PCA
The aim of PCA is to compute new orthogonal variables
called principal components (PCs), which are obtained as a
linear combination of original variables. It is useful to extract
the most important information from the data base, removing
redundant information and keeping only relevant information.
Thus, PCA is employed to explain the variance-covariance
structure through few variables, preserving the variability in
the data [42].
In order to achieve this goal, the mathematical formulation
corresponding to lightning stroke is developed as follows.
Atmospheric discharge transient voltage signals are represented like a data-row vector
of length
3000. The signal
registered is represented as follows:
(1)
Later on, these signals that are registered by protection relay
are subjected to a normalization process, which are relatively
scaled to have a maximum and minimum value of 1 value 1,
respectively. The normalized lightning stroke matrix is

(2)

On the other hand, from the matrix , their mean vector

is extracted.
Later on, the variance-covariance matrix
is calculated.
Thus, each element is divided by
as follows:
(3)

By using matrix , the eigenvectors and eigenvalues matrix are

calculated. Thus, principal components matrix is calculated
with
, where represents the 3000 3000 matrix corresponding to the eigenvectors of the variance-covariance matrix. It is necessary to note that the matrix
is represented as
a projection matrix because only multiplying the original database by gives the projections of the lightning stroke signal
onto the new base corresponding to principal components [42].
After the lightning stroke signals are projected onto a new
base, it is well known that the first PC has the largest possible
variance, and the second PC has the second largest possible variance, since it is orthogonal to the first PC.
The others PCs are calculated likewise. In this context, the
variance is calculated through the 3000 3000 diagonal matrix of eigenvalues corresponding to the variance-covariance
matrix.
The first eigenvalue
corresponds to the first eigenvector,
and the second eigenvalue
corresponds to the second eigenvector. The matrix is represented such as
diagonal

(5)

As just mentioned, by using PCA, it is possible to extract new

variables corresponding to PCs. In addition, in order to choose
the number of components as inputs in the classification technique, the sum of the eigenvalues is used. If the variance value is
used to exceed a threshold value, then those components are selected. In this paper, the threshold is 98%; thus, after a detailed
analysis, by using the first six principal components, a variance
value longer than 98% is obtained.
IV. POWER SYSTEM MODELED
The Alternate Transients Program (ATP)/Electromagnetic
Transients Program (EMTP) software [43] is employed to
simulate an EPS (see Fig. 2). Here, six buses, five transmission
lines, two transformers, and six generators are simulated. TLs
are single-circuit lines with two ground wires simulated with
the frequency-dependent model (Marti) [44]. This paper analyzes the wavefront of voltage signals with 3-ms data windows
produced by a lightning stroke evaluated by relay R1 at bus M.
A. Parameters of Lightning Strokes and Basic Elements
Involved in Establishing Conditions With and Without a Fault
In order to extract those accurate patterns exhibited by
lightning strokes, a vast number of different types of lightning
strokes represented for an impulsive current source (Heidler)
[45] are simulated for different conditions.
Extensive simulation studies (see Section IV-B.) are carried
out for different combinations of lightning stroke peak current
magnitude, positive and negative polarity, tower footing resistances (TFR), lightning stroke on tower, on phase directly, or
on midspan. In addition, different types of lightning strokes,

MORALES et al.: IDENTIFICATION OF LIGHTNING STROKE DUE TO SHIELDING FAILURE AND BACKFLASHOVER

2011

Fig. 3. Lightning transient signals in the PCA two subspace.

Fig. 4. The 2D representation of some lightning strokes with fault using the
first two PCs.

including lightning strokes with fault and lightning strokes

without fault, are considered for each combination.
In addition, basic elements involved in establishing the voltages across the insulator strings, such as tower model and tower
resistance, were considered. Some of these elements are essential in establishing the backflashover rate (due to a stroke to the
tower or shield wires), and others influence the shielding failure
performance (when a stroke misses the shield wires and strikes
a phase conductor instead).

TABLE II
FEATURES OF SOME LIGHTNING STROKES WITH FAULT

B. Database
Nineteen databases corresponding to 19 flash peak current
amplitudes (6, 6.2, 7, 7.5, 8.5, 9, 9.5, 10, 20, 80, 100, 111, 120,
143, 160, 170, 200, 220, 250 kA) are available. Databases are
composed of lightning strokes of positive and negative polarity,
and the tower footing resistance varies from 10 to 200 . The
point of impact of lightning stroke on transmission lines is on
the tower, on phase directly, and on midspan (on the shield wire
or phase directly).

TABLE III
FEATURES OF SOME LIGHTNING STROKES WITH FAULT ON A SPECIFIC POINT
ALONG THE TRANSMISSION LINE

V. PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
A. Patterns Extraction Using PCA
Applying the mathematical formulation (see Section III), the
principal component th (coefficient) of lightning strokes can be
computed by correlating the voltage transient signal th with the
eigenvector th. The results show that the analysis of PCs shows
different lightning stroke patterns perfectly defined, which are
detailed below.
B. Interpreting PCA
The features extraction process based on PCA contour is carried out, and distinctive features of lightning stroke signals are
obtained.
1) Pattern Extraction for Lightning Stroke Classification:
Fig. 3 shows the lightning signals projected in 2D space; in this
projection, different lightning strokes are well differentiated.

Here, four well-defined patterns show up, and there are three
corresponding to lightning strokes without fault and one corresponding to lightning strokes with fault. According to Fig. 3,
the distribution of those principal components of lightning signals with faults is significantly differentiated from those signals
without faults. With respect to lightning strokes with fault, Fig. 4
shows different patterns for some selected signals, whose features are indicated in Table II. In addition, patterns of lightning
strokes on a specific point along the transmission line have been
extracted. Features and values of the first two principal components of some signals are indicated in Table III.

2012

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 4, AUGUST 2014

Fig. 6. Lightning signals location along the transmission line.

Fig. 5. The 2D representation of some lightning strokes without fault.

TABLE IV
FEATURES OF SOME LIGHTNING STROKES WITHOUT FAULT

Fig. 6 shows the features between the distance along the transmission line and the lightning stroke impact point, which are
projected in a 2D space conformed by the first two PCs. On the
other hand, it is also possible to extract different features, such
as the lightning stroke polarity, tower resistance, and especially
patterns with different flash peak current amplitudes.
D. Patterns Classification Based on SE and ANN
In this research, two methodologies for lightning stroke-type
classification are used, which are SE and ANN.
1) Spectral Energy: In this way, the PCs are analyzed by
using the SE contained in those new signals. The SE at each
principal component is calculated, respectively, as follows:

FEATURES

OF

(6)

TABLE V
SOME LIGHTNING STROKES WITHOUT FAULT
ALONG THE TRANSMISSION LINE

where
is the principal component value, respectively.
Fig. 7 shows the range of SE values to lightning strokes with
and without fault. Based on this, when a lightning stroke with
fault occurs, SE values are all small and when lightning stroke
without fault occurs, the SE values are high. Therefore, a criterion based on SE is defined as follows:
First, the conditions are defined
lightning with fault
lightning without fault

On the other hand, with respect to lightning strokes without

fault, it was also possible to extract different patterns. Therefore, once the lightning stroke without fault has been computed,
several patterns are extracted. Each pattern can be viewed as
different features of those signals. Fig. 5 shows patterns for different lightning strokes without fault, whose features are indicated in Tables IV and V.
C. Other Characteristics Patterns
For the voltage waveforms induced by lightning strokes
causing a fault or not, the patterns display some characteristics
of those signals. Therefore, based on PCA projection, it is
possible to determine others features of lightning strokes.

(7)

where is a logic value that is used as a discriminator element

for lightning stroke-type classification.
Second, threshold value is set to classify the lightning stroke
type. After the complete analysis, the threshold value is
25.
This value is determined by using the average spectral energy
value between lightning strokes with and without fault. Thus, if
the SE value is smaller than the threshold value, the lightning
stroke with fault is detected.
It should be noticed that PCA is able to effectively reduce the
dimension of the input space.
2) ANN: The ANN is trained by using the PCs as input vectors. To choose the number of components as inputs, the criterion of the cumulative percent of variance accounted for is used,
which retains components that account for a specified proportion (or percentage) of variance in the data set.

MORALES et al.: IDENTIFICATION OF LIGHTNING STROKE DUE TO SHIELDING FAILURE AND BACKFLASHOVER

FEATURES

2013

TABLE VI
SOME TEST SIGNALS

OF

the TFR and lightning stroke polarity, and the point of impact
along the TL has been simulated. Those testing signals were not
used in the previous analysis. Table VI illustrates the features
of some testing signals.
B. Projecting New Lightning Stroke Signals Onto the
Components

Fig. 7. Range of spectral energy for the lightning stroke with and without fault.

The results shows that only the first six principal components
are necessary to acceptably represent the lightning stroke signal
(see Section III).
For designing the classifier based on ANN, different networks with six inputs and one output were considered. One
output called A was considered to classify correctly whether
lightning strokes with and without faults have occurred
( ''
, lightning with fault.
''
, lightning without
fault). Two layer networks were found to be appropriate for the
classification.
VI. EVALUATION OF RESULTS
The following examples show how an unknown lightning
stroke can be tested by the proposed methodology.
A. Testing Signals
Pattern extraction and classification was tested with 6786
simulation signals. In this paper, lightning stroke voltage transient signals, with 87 flash peak current amplitudes on live
wires and on transmission towers with and without faults, vary

It is clear that matrix

is a projection matrix, which transforms the original data matrix into factor scores. This matrix
also is used to compute factor scores or principal components
for new lightning strokes that were not included in the preview
PCA. These lightning strokes are called supplementary or illustrative lightning strokes (testing lightning strokes). In contrast,
the lightning strokes that are actually used to compute the PCA
are called active lightning strokes.
Therefore, the factor scores for testing lightning strokes are
obtained by first positioning these signals into the PCA space
and then projecting them onto the principal components. Therefore, the 3-ms new lightning stroke signal is measured by the
relay, and the result is a discrete time signal
of 3000 points,
that is, a 1 3000 row vector, and is used to project this signal
in the same coordinates by means of the coefficients of those
eigenvectors, such as:
(8)
where
is the 3000
6 matrix of PC coefficients (first six
eigenvectors) and is the 1 3000 mean vector of the original
data. The resulting vector
is a 1 6 row vector. Fig. 8
shows that those new test lightning stroke signals were situated
correctly in the different patterns.
The projected testing signals were classified through the SE
technique and trained ANN. Results for some testing signals
are presented in Table VII. The SE values of lightning strokes
with fault are all less than 25. On the other hand, when lightning strokes without fault occur, SE values are higher than 25.
From the results, it can be seen that the values of testing signals
converge to the requisite values, and are either higher or lower
than the threshold value.
On the other hand, the results of ANN are presented in
Table VII, where all results yielding correct solutions are ob-

2014

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 4, AUGUST 2014

TABLE VII
CLASSIFICATION RESULTS OF SOME TESTING SIGNALS USING SE AND ANN

TABLE VIII
TOTAL CLASSIFICATION RESULTS

considerably. The results show that their performance is very

acceptable, even with great variation of parameters, especially
in the flash peak current magnitude, which usually ranges from
4 to 300 kA.
VIII. IMPACT OF OPERATIONAL CONDITIONS

Fig. 8. Testing signal corresponding to Table VIII projected on the first two
PCs.

servable. For each case, it can be seen that the value of output
variable A rapidly converges to the requisite value, and are
either very close to 0 or 1.
Classification results are summarized in Table VIII. According to those, all lightning stroke transients were classified
100% correctly by the proposed methodology.
VII. EFFECT OF DIFFERENT LIGHTNING STROKE PARAMETERS
In this research, in order to investigate the effect of different lightning peak current magnitudes, polarities, resistances
and different points of impact along the TLs on the proposed methodology performance; these parameters varied

In this section, in order to analyze the impact of operational

conditions in the lightning strokes classification algorithm performance, different switching operations are tested.
Switching operations corresponding to line energization and
de-energization, loads, and transformers are considered. These
signals are projected onto the coordinates corresponding to the
lightning stroke signals.
Fig. 9 illustrates patterns corresponding to lightning strokes
with a fault (red color), lightning without fault (blue color), and
different switching operations (green color).
From this figure, it is possible to see that their principal components are very different than those corresponding to lightning strokes with fault. Thus, an overlap between signals of
lightning with fault and switching operations is not produced.
Table IX presents SE and output A values corresponding to
some switching operations.
From previous results, it is clear that the SE values corresponding to switching operations are less than the threshold
value; thus, these signals will not operate the protection relay.
On the other hand, from Fig. 9, it is possible to verify that PCs
of switching operations overlap those corresponding to lightning strokes without fault. However, based on the criterion of
protection relays, this result is correct as follows.

MORALES et al.: IDENTIFICATION OF LIGHTNING STROKE DUE TO SHIELDING FAILURE AND BACKFLASHOVER

2015

TABLE IX
, SE AND ANN VALUES CORRESPONDING TO SWITCHING OPERATIONS

Fig. 10. Patterns extracted in the MRA subspace, with mother wavelet
daubechies 4.
Fig. 9. Switching operation projected onto principal components.

Protection devices are related to provide higher sensitivity

to transients produced by undesirable or intolerable conditions,
such as faults, by avoiding their operation under all tolerable
events, such as operational conditions. Therefore, protection relays must not always trip and, sometimes, only an alarm is necessary [3]. It is necessary to note that lightning strokes without
fault and switching operations are tolerable phenomena. Therefore, they must not operate the protection relay.
Based on the previous discussion, it is clear that the lightning stroke classification methodology is very useful to ensure
that due to switching operations, the protection relay operates
correctly.
IX. ANALYSIS WITH THE WAVELET TRANSFORM
In addition, an analysis and study with the method based on
the wavelet transform (WT) is developed, which has been the
major technique used for lightning stroke classification. The
classification algorithm is performed on the basis of the wavelet
multiresolution analysis (MRA) with different mother wavelets
and different levels of details of the three-phase voltages. These
levels are used like input to the different classifiers.
The results show that the PCA proposed methodology always
has the best performance. Thus, the highest accuracy percentages obtained with MRA are 89.95% with SE and 98.23% with
ANN [34]. However, it is smaller than the percentage achieved
with PCA.

On the other hand, it is necessary to indicate that the exhaustive analysis of the comparison between PCA and WT will
be presented in another paper, because after the comparison, a
wealth of outstanding information, such as classification percentage, mother functions, and others was obtained. For example, Fig. 10 shows a graphical review of the coefficients of
MRA corresponding to the same lightning strokes. From this
figure, it is possible to see that lightning strokes are not well
distinguished among them.
X. CONCLUSION
Lightning strokes will give rise to the ultra-high-speed protection maloperation. Therefore, this paper focuses on the development of a methodology to lightning stroke-type classification based on the pattern extraction and identification applied to
ultra-high-speed protection relays.
This paper suggests PCA as an opportunity to develop more
accurate, reliable, and swifter protection. The results point out
that this methodology is able to extract different classification
patterns correctly under the most important parameters of
lightning stroke. Thus, two different methodologies for pattern
recognition were useful for classification.
This methodology could provide great performance for highspeed relaying to identify lightning types at various locations
along a TL and different lightning peak current amplitudes. Furthermore, it is possible to verify that the new proposed methodology is not affected by switching operations.

2016

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 4, AUGUST 2014

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the German Academic Interchange Program (DAAD); the Institute of Electric Energy at
the San Juan National University (IEE, UNSJ); and the Institute
of Energy Systems, Energy Efficiency and Energy Economics
(ie3) at the TU Dortmund University for their contributions.
REFERENCES
[1] A. T. Johns and S. K. Salman, Digital Protection for Power Systems,
1st ed. London, U.K.: Peregrinus, 1997.
[2] H. Suad, G. Ferdinand, and F. G. Andrej, Prediction of power system
security levels, IEEE Trans Power Syst, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 368377,
Feb. 2009.
[3] IEEE Standard Dictionary of Electrical and Electronics Terms, ANSI/
IEEE Standard 100, 1996.
[4] A. A. M. Zin and S. P. A. Karim, Protection system analysis using
fault signatures in Malaysia, Int J Elect. Power Energy Syst., vol. 45,
pp. 194205, 2013.
[5] G. Diendorfer and W. Shulz, Ground flash density and lightning exposure of power transmission lines, presented at the IEEE Power Tech
Conf., Bologna, Italy, 2003.
[6] G. Andersson, P. Donalek, R. Farmer, N. Hatziargyriou, I. Kamwa,
P. Kundur, N. Martins, J. Paserba, P. Pourbeik, J. Sanchez-Gasca, R.
Schulz, and A. Stankovic, Causes of the 2003 major grid blackouts
in North America and Europe and recommended means to improve
system dynamic performance, IEEE Trans Power Syst, vol. 20, no. 4,
pp. 19221928, Nov. 2005.
[7] Events Analysis: System Disturbance Reports North American Electric
Reliability Corporation (NERC), USA, 19922010.
[8] M. Evan, Extreme grid disruptions and extreme weather, presented
at the U.S. Disaster Reanalysis Workshop, Asheville, NC, USA, May
34, 2012.
[9] J. O. Adepitan and E. O. Oladiran, Analysis of the dependence of
power outages on lightning events within the ijebu province, Nigeria,
J. Environ. Earth Sci., pp. 850856, 2012.
[10] The Working Group on Lightning Protection for Transmission System,
Lightning observation on Japan sea coast in winter, Japan, CRIEPI
Rep. no.T11, 1989.
[11] S. Shimada et al., Estimation of transmission line faults from observation of Winter Lightning Channel in Hokuriku Area, Inst. Elect. Eng.
Jpn., pp. 711, 2001.
[12] K. Ouchi, T. Kikuchi, A. Ozawa, Y. Tamura, and M. Nakada, Observation of lightning at 500 kV transmission lines (part 1), Trans. Inst.
Elect. Eng. Jpn., vol. 117-B, pp. 15611567, 1997.
[13] W. U. Zhicheng, Analysis of transmission lines in special regions with
high lightning strike rates and its countermeasures, in Proc. 20th Int.
Conf. Elect. Distrib. CIRED, 2009, pp. 811.
[14] Y. V. Makarov, V. I. Reshetov, A. Stroev, and I. Voropai, Blackout
prevention in the United States, Europe, Russia, Proc IEEE, vol. 93,
no. 11, pp. 19421955, Nov. 2005.
[15] U. J. Minnaar, C. T. Gaunt, and F. Nicolis, Characterization of power
system events on South African transmission power lines, Elect.
Power Syst. Res., vol. 88, pp. 2532, 2012.
[16] G. Moreno, R. Hernandez, and J. Montoya, Failures in outdoor insulation caused by bird excrement, Elect. Power Syst. Res., vol. 80, pp.
716722, 2010.
[17] A. A. Zin and S. A. Karim, Protection system analysis using fault
signatures in Malaysia, Int J Elect. Power Energy Syst., vol. 45, pp.
194205, 2013.
[18] E. Bompard, T. Huang, Y. Wu, and M. Cremenescu, Classification
and trend analysis of threats origins to the security of power systems,
Int. J. Elect. Power Energy Syst., vol. 50, pp. 5064, 2013.
[19] EPRI AC Transmission Line Reference Book-200 kV and Above, 3rd
ed. Palo Alto, CA, USA: Electric Power Research Institute, Dec.
2005.
[20] P. G. McLaren and M. A. Redfem, Fourier-series techniques applied
to distance protection, Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., vol. 122, no. 11, pp.
13011305, Nov. 1975.
[21] Z. Q. Bo, F. Jiang, Z. Cheng, X. Z. Dong, G. Weller, and M. A. Redfern,
Transient based protection for power transmission systems, in Proc.
IEEE Power Eng. Soc. Gen. Meeting, 2000, pp. 18321837.

[22] J. A. Morales, R. P. Aguilar, E. A. Ordua, and F. E. Prez, Advances

in lightning identification for transient based protection of power transmission lines, presented at the 9th Latin Amer. Congr. Elect. Gen.
Transm., Mar del Plata, Argentina, Nov. 2011.
[23] H. Heng and Z. BaoHui, Study on identification of fault and lightening
strokes in boundary protection for EHV transmission lines, in Proc.
2nd IEEE/Power Energy Soc. Transm. Distrib. Conf., Dalian, China,
2002, pp. 270274.
[24] L. G. Wang, J.-C. Zhao, and M. Wu, Identification of transients on
transmission lines caused by direct lightning strokes based on multiresolution signal decomposition, in Proc. Chinese Soc. Elect. Eng., 2004,
vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 139144.
[25] S. Jun, S. H. Chun, and C. X. Yun, Study on characteristics and identification of transients on transmission lines caused by lightning stroke,
in Proc. 2nd IEEE/Power Energy Soc. Transm. Distrib. Conf., Dalian,
China, 2005, pp. 6469.
[26] J. F. Ren, J. D. Duan, and B. H. Zhang, Identification of lightning
disturbance in ultra-high-speed transmission line protection, in Proc.
2nd IEEE/Power Energy Soc. Transm. Distrib. Conf., Dalian, China,
2005, pp. 1418.
[27] G. Zoul, H. Gao1, W. Su, and D. Wang, Identification of lightning
stroke and fault in the travelling wave protection, J. Electromagn.
Anal. Appl., vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 399404, 2009.
[28] W. Hao, X. Xian-yong, and S. Rui-jiao, Lightning strike and fault
identification by the wavelet energy spectrum and neural network
method, High Voltage Eng., vol. 33, no. 10, pp. 6468, Oct. 2007.
[29] S. Wenxia, X. Bo, Y. Qing, and Y. Tao, Identification of induced lightning and direct striking based on wavelet transform, in Proc. Asia-Pacific Symp. Electromagn. Compat., 2010, pp. 15661569.
[30] H. F. Li, G. Wang, and J. C. Zhao, Study on characteristics and identification of transients on transmission lines caused by indirect lightning
stroke, Proc. CSEE, vol. 24, pp. 114119, 2004.
[31] J. D. Duan, B. H. Zhang, Z. G. Hao, and H. X. Ha, Identification of
lightning and fault in the EHV transmission line transient-based protection, Autom. Elect. Power Syst., vol. 28, pp. 3035, 2004.
[32] D. Jian-dong, R. Jin-feng, Z. Bao-hui, and L. Si-bei, Study of transients approach of discriminating lightning disturbance in Ultrahighspeed protection, Proc. CSEE, vol. 26, no. 23, pp. 713, Dec. 2006.
[33] J. A. Martinez and F. C. Aranda, Lightning performance analysis of
overhead transmission lines using the EMTP, IEEE Trans. Power
Del., vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 22002210, Jul. 2005.
[34] J. Morales, E. A. Ordua, and C. Rehtanz, Classification of lightning stroke on transmission line using multi-resolution analysis and
machine learning, Int. J. Elect. Power Energy Syst., vol. 58, pp.
1931, 2014.
[35] H. N. Diaz and R. M. de Catro, Aplicacin de la transformada wavelet
en los sistemas elctricos de potencia Universidad de Tarapaca, Casilla
6-D. Arica, Chile.
[36] J. A. Morales and E. A. Ordua, Patterns extraction for lightning transmission lines protection based on principal component analysis, IEEE
Trans. Latin Amer., vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 518524, Feb. 2013.
[37] A. G. Phadke and J. S. Thorp, Computer Relaying for Power Systems,
2nd ed. Chichester, U.K.: Wiley, 2009.
[38] G. Jyh-Cherng and L. Sun, Removal of DC offset in current and
voltage signals using a novel Fourier filter algorithm, IEEE Trans.
Power Del., vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 7379, Jan. 2000.
[39] W. Fan, On Power Quality and Protection. Goteborg, Sweden:
Chalmers Univ. of Technol., Mar. 2001.
[40] Z. Q. Bo, G. Weller, and F. T. Dai, Transient based protection for
transmission lines., in Proc. Powercon, 1998, pp. 10671071.
[41] Z. Q. Bo, A. T. Johns, and R. K. Aggarwal, A novel fault locator based
on the detection of fault generate high frequency transients, in Proc.
Develop. Power Syst. Protect., Mar. 2527, 1997, pp. 197200.
[42] I. Jollife, Principal Component Analysis. Berlin, Germany: SpringerVerlag, 1986.
[43] ATP DRAW Version 3.5 for Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP
UsersManual, SINTEF Energy ResearchNorwegian Univ. Sci.
Technol., Trondheim, Norway, 1999.
[44] J. R. Marti, Accurate modeling of frequency-dependent transmission
lines in electromagnetic transient simulations, IEEE Trans. Power
App. Syst., vol. PAS-101, no. 1, pp. 147157, Jan. 1982.
[45] F. Heidler, M. Cvetic, and B. V. Stanic, Calculation of lightning current parameters, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 399404,
Apr. 1999.

MORALES et al.: IDENTIFICATION OF LIGHTNING STROKE DUE TO SHIELDING FAILURE AND BACKFLASHOVER

John Morales (S12) was born in Cuenca, Ecuador, on January 5, 1985. He

received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering from the Universidad Politcnica Salesiana, Cuenca, Ecuador, in 2007 and is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at the Universidad Nacional de San Juan, San Juan,
Argentina, with a scholarship awarded by the German Academic Exchange
Service.

Eduardo A. Ordua was born in San Juan, Argentina, in 1958. He received the
Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Universidad Nacional de San Juan,
San Juan, in 1996.
From 1986 to 1990, he was a Researcher with CONICET at the Instituto de
Energa Elctrica of the Universidad Nacional de San Juan, San Juan. From 1990
to 1993, he was a Research Visitor at the Lehrstuhl Fuer El. Energieversorgung
(LS-EV), Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany.

2017

Christian Rehtanz (M96SM06) was born in Germany in 1968. He received

the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at the TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany, in 1997 and the venia legendi in electrical power systems from
the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland, in 2003.
Since 2000, he has been with ABB Corporate Research, Switzerland. Since
2007, he has been Head of the Institute of Energy Systems, Energy Efficiency
and Energy Economics (ie3), TU Dortmund University.