Simulation of Dynamic Behavior of Surge Arresters under Fast Front waves using EMTP and Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

During over voltages in power systems, surge arresters play an important role in limiting voltage levels and protecting substation equipment. Metal oxide surge arresters are protective equipments installed in power systems to protect the insulation and conductors of the system from the damaging effects of power system over voltages. Accurate simulation of dynamic characteristic of these equipment are very essential for arrester allocation, systems reliability and insulation coordination studies. Several models such as IEEE, Pinceti and Fernandez models with acceptable accuracy have been suggested to describe this behavior. It has been shown that the IEEE model can simulate the dynamic behavior of surge arresters better than other models. In this paper, parameters of IEEE model are estimated using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm and then this model is simulated by using ATP-EMTP. The results show the ability of the proposed method in simulating the dynamic behavior of surge arresters.