EFFECTS OF OVER VOLTAGES ON POWER SYSTEMS Engineering Study material

Over voltage tends to stress the insulation of the electrical equipment’s and likely to cause damage to them when it frequently occurs. Over voltage caused by surges can result in spark over and flash over between phase and ground at the weakest point in the network, breakdown of gaseous/solid/ liquid insulation, failure of transformers and rotating machines.

Overvoltage Protection

There are always a chance of suffering an electrical power system from abnormal over voltages. These abnormal over voltages may be caused due to various reason such as, sudden interruption of heavy load, lightening impulses, switching impulses etc. These over voltage stresses may damage insulation of various equipments and insulators of the power system. Although, all the over voltage stresses are not strong enough to damage insulation of system, but still these over voltages also to be avoided to ensure the smooth operation of electrical power system.

These all types of destructive and non destructive abnormal over voltages are eliminated from the system by means of overvoltage protection.

Voltage Surge

The over voltage stresses applied upon the power system, are generally transient in nature. Transient voltage or voltage surge is defined as sudden sizing of voltage to a high peak in very short duration.The voltage surges are transient in nature, that means they exist for very short duration. The main cause of these voltage surges in power system are due to lightning impulses and switching impulses of the system. But over voltage in the power system may also be caused by, insulation failure, arcing ground and resonance etc.

The voltage surges appear in the electrical power system due to switching surge, insulation failure, arcing ground and resonance are not very large in magnitude. These over voltages hardly cross the twice of the normal voltage level. Generally, proper insulation to the different equipment of power system is sufficient to prevent any damage due to these over voltages. But over voltages occur in the power system due to lightning is very high. If over voltage protection is not provided to the power system, there may be high chance of severe damage. Hence all over voltage protection devices used in power system mainly due to lightning surges.