Análise de desempenho de linhas de transmissão frente a surtos atmosféricos: aplicações no planejamento de ações de manutenções

Abstract

Lightning discharges represent one of the main challenges to the reliability and continuity of the Brazilian electric power system, being responsible for a significant portion of transmission line outages. In the state of Goiás, the high incidence of lightning directly impacts operational costs and maintenance planning of the utility. This study aimed to analyze the performance of transmission lines in Goiás under atmospheric surges, seeking to correlate outages with climatic variables and structural characteristics. The methodology involved the processing of data from the Environmental Climatic Monitoring System (SMAC), combined with outage records and structural data provided by Equatorial Energia Goiás. Python algorithms were applied to generate lightning density maps and to perform statistical analyses using Pearson correlation coefficients and the K-means clustering algorithm. The results indicated that the southern region of Goiás concentrates approximately 80% of the analyzed lightning events, with emphasis on the UTE Quirinópolis – Quirinópolis transmission line, which presented the highest susceptibility to lightning discharges, reaching 59 discharges per kilometer. Contrary to initial expectations, minimum humidity was identified as the climatic variable with the highest correlation to lightning occurrence. Regarding structural characteristics, the cluster-based analysis did not allow the establishment of a significant direct relationship between structural components and the number of outages. Thus, the use of lightning density maps is concluded to be an economically viable strategy for preventive maintenance of transmission lines, enabling optimized allocation of resources to critical sections and reinforcing the importance of integrating minimum humidity as a variable in maintenance alert systems.