This article was posted 12/10/2009 and is most likely outdated.

Lightning Protection for Wind Turbines
 

 


Subject - Lightning Protection for Wind Turbines

December 10, 2009
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Lightning Protection for Wind Turbines

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29th International Conference
Lightning Protection for Wind Turbines
June 23-26, 2008
Uppsala, Sweden

 

 

Wind turbines are the fastest growing source of electrical energy, with annual growth rates of about 30% in recent years, totaling 94 GW generator capacity installed world-wide by the end of 2007. More than 20GW of wind power was installed in 2007, which was also the year when the USA became the biggest market for wind power, with 5.2GW of new wind power generation capacity, followed by Spain, China, India and Germany.

In terms of lightning protection these numbers would translate into tens of thousands of tall structures, each of an average height of more than one hundred yards, placed at windy locations and therefore very exposed to lightning. Given the frequency of lightning occurrences in the regions of the world where this new expansion is taking place, all these new wind turbines will be hit several times by lightning during the 20 years in service life.

This makes lightning protection an important challenge, and it is obvious that given the numbers of wind turbines now being installed, it cannot be done on an individual wind turbine basis, but has to be met by the wind turbine industry by implementing standardized lightning protection in their series-produced machines.

Click here to read the paper written after the 29th International Conference that took place in Sweden (may take some time depending on your internet speed - 16 pages, and 1.29MB).

In this paper, the IEC TC88 project team 24 takes the reader on a brief tour of the new update of the IEC 61400-24, and includes an introduction to fundamental wind turbine anatomy.

 

 

 

 

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Comments
  • Lightning damage to the blades of the wind turbine occurs due to the flow of the lightning current along non-conductive paths of the blades.So if the blades are entirely of metallic construction,the lightnting damage to the blades will not happen.But what is the technical problem in making all metal wind turbine blades?Please clarify.Thanks.-T.M.HAJA SAHIB.

    T.M.HAJA SAHIB
    Reply to this comment

  • Don't you mean lightning protection , not lighting protection.

    Bill MacFarlane
    Reply to this comment

  • Good information. Thank you. Check spelling, it's lightning.

    BobN
    Reply to this comment

  • See what happens when you allow your spell-check to correct spelling!

    Another one the spell-check gets wrong is luminaries for luminaires.

    Frank
    Reply to this comment

  • I believe it is Lightning not Lighting

    Keith
    Reply to this comment

  • Dear Mike, The use of the word "lighting" instead of "lightning" is as bad as the use of "flourescent" instead of "fluorescent" by people in our electrical industry. Otherwise, a great article, as usual.

    Sam Kool, P.E.
    Reply to this comment

  • I had one of two proposals to add a new article (now 694) to the 2011 NEC for wind turbines. There was a rejected proposal to require SPDs (surge protection) for dwelling units but it was rejected. New article 694 will require SPDs. One of my comments for the 2011 NEC was to point out that Art 694 requires SPDs, but a proposal for SPDs in other applications was rejected. Of course wind turbines present a greater risk from lightning, but with all the electronics in our life, SPDs should be considered a requirement.

    Tom Baker
    Reply to this comment


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