Abstract: Lightning strike is one of the main factor threatening the stability of power system. The lightning stroke accident of 110 kV incoming line lightning arrester in 35 kV substation of an industrial community is studied and analyzed. Through field investigation,it is found that the main cause of the accident is due to the insufficient discharge of lightning arrester. In order to improve the lightning protection effect of substation,a cascade design of two-stage lightning arrester with series inductance is proposed,and the series inductance is used as the cascade cooperative action switch of lightning arrester. At the same time,in order to verify the proposed measures,the electromagnetic transient simulation software ATP-EMTP is used for laboratory simulation verification. The simulation results show that the lightning arrester cascade design by connecting different inductors in series to be able to lightning nominal discharge current for two-level arrester distribution,the cascade of lightning arrester makes the residual voltage reduced by 23. 88%,the series inductor makes the arrester action voltage increased by 29. 85%. Effective protection of lightning arrester due to excessive current and explosion,at the same time can effectively reduce the residual overvoltage of the arrester. The design idea and simulation data can provide reference for the cascade design of related high-voltage arresters. In practical engineering,different inductance parameters can be set according to different operating environment,so as to improve the insulation coordination level and improve the power supply reliability of power system.