1

Using IEEE Flash to Estimate Transmission and

Distribution Line Lightning Performance
T. E. McDermott, Senior Member, IEEE

3. Shielding analysis using an electrogeometric model

Abstract—For many years, an IEEE program called Flash was (EGM), or alternative module.
maintained to estimate flashover rates on transmission lines. 4. Impact of tower surge impedance, span length, corona,
With recent consolidation of two Working Groups, a new version and conductor characteristics.
of Flash has been developed to consistently treat both
5. Estimates of backflash rates and the performance of tower
transmission and distribution lines. The new software includes
line arresters, shield wires, tower and pole grounding, and or pole grounding methods.
insulation added by wood or fiberglass. The program also 6. Estimates of induced voltages and flashovers from nearby
incorporates electromagnetic transient simulation. Examples strokes, using a modified Rusck formula.
from transmission and distribution lines are presented. 7. Estimates of line arrester impact on flashover rates.
8. Estimates of line arrester failure rates.
Index Terms — Arresters, Power distribution protection, 9. Waveform plotting from electromagnetic transient (EMT)
Power system lightning effects, Power transmission protection,
Surge protection.
simulation.
10. Graphical display of shielding estimates for a specified
I. INTRODUCTION lighting stroke.
11. Estimate of critical current magnitude to cause flashover
I EEE and PES have developed several standards and
application guides to help engineers design overhead lines
for good lightning performance [1-6]. Previous versions of
for a specified lightning stroke.
12. Implementation in Microsoft Excel using Visual Basic for
Applications (VBA).
IEEE Std. 1243 have included a software tool for estimating
lightning trip-out rates and required shielding angles for
transmission lines. That software has been useful to many Items 10 and 11 support the investigation of lightning trip-
transmission engineers, even with simplified underlying outs using data from lightning detection networks. Alternative
models, because it provides the distilled experience and calculation methods may be substituted by other researchers
guidance of the working group members in a convenient form. for any of these items. IEEE Flash provides an overall
This paper summarizes an update to the software tool, now framework and a default implementation of each required
called IEEE Flash [7]. The software has also been extended to function.
cover distribution lines and line arresters for lightning
protection.

II. NEW VERSION OF IEEE FLASH

It is a design goal of Flash 2.0 to provide quick estimates of

line and arrester performance, commensurate with
uncertainties in the data and models, and suitable for use by
utility engineers. With implementation in Microsoft Excel,
shown in Fig. 1, it is expected that a newer generation of
students and researchers can readily extend the program.
A summary feature list of IEEE Flash follows:

1. Consolidated treatment of transmission and distribution

lines.
2. Insulation strength described by a volt-time curve, or
Fig. 1. IEEE Flash 2.0 user interface.
alternative module, with critical flashover voltage (CFO)
added by wood, fiberglass, and similar secondary or
III. ELECTROMAGNETIC TRANSIENT SIMULATION
tertiary insulating materials.
During the period from 1990 through 2002, EPRI funded
the development of a Lightning Protection Design
Workstation (LPDW) [8]. Many utilities used LPDW to assess
T. E. McDermott is with MelTran, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA 15236 (email: the lightning performance of distribution lines. Since about
[email protected]).

978-1-4673-1935-5/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE

 2

2002, this program has not been available. EPRI decided to Lightning Performance of Transmission Lines. Tom is a registered
professional engineer in Pennsylvania. He has a B. S. and M. Eng. in Electric
release the simulation kernel of LPDW under the name Power from Rensselaer, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Virginia
OpenETran, with an open-source license (GPL v3), so it may Tech.
be incorporated into IEEE Flash and other projects [9]. EPRI
originally had permission to use code from the Numerical
Recipes book in LPDW [10]. Due to licensing restrictions,
these routines have been removed in favor of the GNU
Scientific Library (GSL), which also uses the GPL v3 license.
OpenETran can presently simulate multi-conductor power
lines, insulators, surge arresters, non-linear grounds, and
lightning strokes. It efficiently calculates energy and charge
duty on surge arresters, and iterates to find the critical
lightning current causing flashover on one or more phases. It
is also suitable for use in substation insulation coordination.

IV. CONCLUSION
The new version of IEEE Flash provides a convenient
open-source tool to design the lightning protection of
overhead lines, and to investigate lightning trip-outs.
Interested researchers may also help with software
enhancements by contacting the project administrators at [3]
or [7]. At present, the most pressing needs are for better
models of shielding (EGM or alternatives), tower grounding
and surge impedance, and voltages induced from nearby
strokes.

V. REFERENCES
[1] IEEE Design Guide for Improving the Lightning Performance of
Transmission Lines, IEEE Std. 1243-1997 (reaffirmed 2008).
[2] IEEE Guide for Improving the Lightning Performance of Electric Power
Overhead Distribution Lines, IEEE Std. 1410-2010.
[3] IEEE PES Lightning Performance of Overhead Lines Working Group
15.09.08, [Online]. Available: ewh.ieee.org/soc/pes/lpdl/
[4] IEEE Working Group on Estimating the Lightning Performance of
Transmission Lines, “A Simplified Method for Estimating Lightning
Performance of Transmission Lines,” IEEE Transactions on Power
Apparatus and Systems, vol. PAS-104, pp 919–932, 1985.
[5] IEEE Working Group on Estimating the Lightning Performance of
Transmission Lines, “IEEE Working Group Report—Estimating
Lightning Performance of Transmission Lines II—Updates to Analytical
Models,” IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, vol. PWRD-8, no. 3,
pp. 1254–1267, 1993.
[6] IEEE Guide for the Application of Metal-Oxide Surge Arresters for
Alternating-Current Systems, IEEE Std. C62.22-2009.
[7] IEEE Flash [Online]. Available: sourceforge.net/projects/ieeeflash/
[8] T. E. McDermott and V. J. Longo, "Advanced Computational Methods
in Lightning Performance - the EPRI Lightning Protection Design
Workstation", Proc. IEEE/PES Winter Power Meeting, Singapore,
January 2000.
[9] OpenEtran [Online]. Available: sourceforge.net/projects/openetran/
[10] W. H. Press, B. P. Flannery, S. A. Teukolsky, W. T. Vetterling,
Numerical Recipes in C: The Art of Scientific Computing, 2nd ed.,
Cambridge University Press, 1992.

VI. BIOGRAPHY

Thomas E. McDermott (SM 1990) is President of MelTran, a power system

consulting company based in Pittsburgh. The company specializes in applied
R&D for distribution systems and smart grid applications, distributed resource
interconnection, custom software development, and electromagnetic transient
studies. He is currently Chairman of the Working Group on System Impacts
and Interconnection Requirements of Wind and Solar Power Plants, a U.S.
delegate to IEC TC 57 Working Group 14, and a task force leader in Cigre
WG C4.502 for system performance of long AC cables. He has previously
chaired the Pittsburgh Section IEEE and the Working Group on Estimating