High switching overvoltage appears in the process of switching shunt capacitor bank. The switching overvoltage is closely related with the stray capacitance around circuit breakers and capacitors. This paper analyzes the switching overvoltage theoretically without considering the stray capacitance. Then two capacitor bank models with and without considering the stray capacitance are established by utilizing the simulation software EMTP-ATP to reveal the effect of the stray capacitance on the switching overvoltage. Comparison between the simulation results of the two models indicates that: 1)the complete model considering the stray capacitance illustrates the high-frequency oscillation process of the switching overvoltage more accurately; and 2)the presence of stray capacitance induces higher overvoltage between neutral point and ground with slower attenuation

resulting in a dramatic increase in the overvoltage between capacitor and ground with high-frequency oscillation

and in a worse overvoltage when two phases reignite successively.