EMC-based skin-effect grounding for reducing lightning strike effect in geothermal power plant

As the largest archipelago in the world situated along equatorial line, Indonesia exposes to high potential lightning strikes, which are hazardous for operation of geothermal power plants. The severe effect of lightning strikes results in system malfunction leading to interrupted plant operation. This paper presents a novel grounding technique based on skin-effect theory and its implementation for protecting geothermal power plants from disruptive lightning strike effect. The corrosive condition of geothermal area is taken into consideration in design. The proposed technique was proven through the failure-free protected system during period of relative high lightning activity.