TY - JOUR
T1 - Effective Grounding of the Photovoltaic Power Plant Protected by Lightning Rods
AU - Zhang, Yang
AU - Li, Binghao
AU - Du, Yaping
AU - Ding, Yuxuan
AU - Cao, Jin Xin
AU - Lyu, Jiahua
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received August 25, 2020; revised December 18, 2020; accepted January 5, 2021. Date of publication January 27, 2021; date of current version August 13, 2021. This work was supported by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region under Project 15210017 and Project 15210018. (Corresponding author: Binghao Li.) The authors are with the Department of Building Services Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong (e-mail: 16103271g@connect.polyu.hk; binghao.li@connect.polyu.hk; ya-ping.du@ polyu.edu.hk; 15903676r@connect.polyu.hk; 19044427r@connect.polyu.hk; jiahua.lyu@connect.polyu.hk).
Publisher Copyright:
© 1964-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2021/8
Y1 - 2021/8
N2 - This article discusses the lightning protection performance of a grounding grid for photovoltaic (PV) systems protected by independent lightning rods. Several grounding grid configurations are investigated, and the transferred voltages between the dc cables and supporting structures at different points in the PV system are evaluated using the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. In the PV system without a dedicated grounding grid for supporting structures, the transferred voltage is very high, and is even worse if the soil resistivity is high. Installing a dedicated grounding grid, which is very costly in a large PV power plant, can reduce the amplitude of the transferred voltage and eliminate the residual voltage effectively. It is found that the arrangement using a bonding network is superior to other grounding improvement approaches in lightning protection. More importantly, the proposed approach is simple to implement and cost-effective. With the bonding network, the soil with high soil resistivity will not lead to severe overvoltage in the system. It is highly recommended to be adopted in the PV power plant protected by independent lightning rods.
AB - This article discusses the lightning protection performance of a grounding grid for photovoltaic (PV) systems protected by independent lightning rods. Several grounding grid configurations are investigated, and the transferred voltages between the dc cables and supporting structures at different points in the PV system are evaluated using the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. In the PV system without a dedicated grounding grid for supporting structures, the transferred voltage is very high, and is even worse if the soil resistivity is high. Installing a dedicated grounding grid, which is very costly in a large PV power plant, can reduce the amplitude of the transferred voltage and eliminate the residual voltage effectively. It is found that the arrangement using a bonding network is superior to other grounding improvement approaches in lightning protection. More importantly, the proposed approach is simple to implement and cost-effective. With the bonding network, the soil with high soil resistivity will not lead to severe overvoltage in the system. It is highly recommended to be adopted in the PV power plant protected by independent lightning rods.
KW - FDTD
KW - independent ground
KW - lightning protection
KW - photovoltaic (PV) power plant
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85100456583&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TEMC.2021.3050179
DO - 10.1109/TEMC.2021.3050179
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85100456583
VL - 63
SP - 1128
EP - 1136
JO - IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility
JF - IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility
SN - 0018-9375
IS - 4
M1 - 9337181
ER -
