Assessment of lightning stroke incidence to modern wind turbines

An assessment of lightning stroke incidence to modern wind turbines will be presented in this paper. Wind turbines present tall isolated objects, often located in regions with high thunderstorm activity. This leads to their high lightning incidence, which means that they tend to get struck by lightning very often, compared to other structures. This fact, combined with the intense grow of wind farms, leads to the increase in the problems associated with lightning protection of wind turbines. Furthermore, increased power output per wind turbine, obtained through significantly increasing its size, exacerbates this problem for modern new-generation wind turbines. Assessment of the wind turbine lightning incidence is unique in a sense that wind turbine presents a tall exposed structure with rotating elements (blades). This fact puts forward effects which are not encountered with other tall structures. Apart from that, upward and downward lightning incidence needs to be accounted for here, due to wind turbines height and location.