Novel Probabilistic Lightning Performance Evaluation Considering Multi-objective for Differentiated Protection in a Distribution Network

Considering the techno-economic comprehensive performance for protection against lightning, determining a differentiated surge arrester (SA) configuration with a fixed quantity and the optimized positions is one of the critical issues to address. This paper proposed novel surrogate methods for evaluating: a) the annual flashover number at individual poles and b) the SA damage rate. The novel assessments for these two indicators are based on a proposed hybrid method for lightning numerical simulation, and some surrogate models are developed to simplify the modeling of probabilistic lightning parameters so that the technical feasibility and convenience of the methods can be ensured. A part of the existing rural overhead distribution network is adopted for the case study. Compared with the traditional Monte Carlo assessment, the proposed flashover evaluation method is found to have a significantly improved assessment efficiency and reasonable accuracy via the lightning source and probability coefficient revision. By comparing the annual flashover number of the case with and without the fully covered shield wire (SW), the separate consideration of differentiated SA protection and fully covered SW in engineering design is recommended because of the embarrassment of the unbalanced techno-economic performance if both are equipped. The proposed two -objective assessment surrogate methods will be practical tools with low computational consumption for multi -objective optimization procedures to obtain a differentiated SA configuration hereby.