Optimization of Transmission-Line Route Based on Lightning Incidence Reported by the Lightning Location System

Optimal route selection of a transmission line is significantly beneficial to reduce its lightning trip-out rate. This paper proposes a method, considering the minimal annual flash number to transmission lines, to select the optimal route from the initial point to the destination based on the lightning location system. First, the ground flash density and distribution of lightning peak current maps are drawn via the improved grid method. The flash grid and flash node are proposed based on these maps. The objective function is expressed as the summation of the grid distance of the flash node, and solved via the Dijkstra algorithm. The conditional minimum transit cost is also provided to find the optimal corridor. Five 500-kV transmission lines are used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results indicate that the annual expected flash numbers of all lines are markedly reduced.