The 2025 INMR WORLD CONGRESS will offer a technical presentation by Jose Ribbon, an expert T&D consultant from Canada. He will explain how a study evaluated the lightning performance of a 230 kV transmission line in Western Canada, where Overhead Ground Wire (OHGW) was omitted due to maintenance equipment limitations that prevented use of poles taller than 30.5 m (100 ft). In the absence of OHGW, the top phase conductor was utilized as a virtual shield wire.

He will review why even though the affected region does not experience severe lightning activity, infrequent strikes can still result in significant economic impact due to operational disruptions. To mitigate this risk, he will outline how lightning protection performance was assessed using simulation software and how Line Surge Arrester (LSA) configurations were modeled for various structure geometries given different lightning flash densities. Finally, he will demonstrate how Line Surge Arresters (LSAs) significantly reduced lightning-induced outages compared to a transmission pole line without OHGW in height-constrained corridors.