Analysis on Lightning Surge Propagation in Wind Farm

Abstract

Wind power generation is expected to become more important in the future distribution system. Although several prospective reports such as IEC 61400-24 and NREL SR-500-31115 indicate on insulation scheme and grounding design for lightning protection, it still seems that there are not many investigations on the problems. This paper therefore discusses lightning surge analysis using wind farm model with 2 or 10 ideal wind turbines. Changing parameters such as grounding resistance and lightning strike points, several cases were studied. As the result of the analysis using digital simulator ARENE, it is clear that the surge tends to propagate toward the end of a distribution line in a wind farm and there is possibility of insulation accidents at the other wind turbines when lightning attacks a wind turbine.