Experimental research of the upward leader inception from transmission line

Electro-Geometric Model (EGM) has been applied widely all over the world to evaluate the lightning shielding failure of transmission line. But with the increase of operation voltage to 1000 kV and tower height to more than 100 meters, some shortcomings of the traditional EGM model were found by many researchers. Leader Progression Model (LPM) was proposed to solve these problems. But some fundamental works, such as when the upward leader initiates and how it propagates, is still indistinct. An experiment was designed and implemented in this paper to simulate the electric field circumstance near the test transmission line while the lightning downward leader approached. The upward leader from the test transmission line was clearly observed. The inception voltage and characteristics was analyzed. The streamer and leader initiated from the ground wire and conductor bundle were compared. The experiment results show that the leader initiating from the ground wire is more active in the inception stage. The velocity of the upward leader acquired is about 1.2-3.0 cm/μs.