An Application Method and Review of Lightning Protection for Wind Turbines

This investigation presents reviews of many research results on lightning damage to wind turbines and lightning protection strategies from IEC Standard, Europe, USA, Japan and Korea. There have been few studies on lightning protection of wind turbines in Korea, while various investigations have been performed in the other countries. It is necessary to apply some good lightning protection strategies of IEC Standard and the other countries to Korea. Those are as follows: The guideline for lightning protection of wind turbines should be established based on IEC Standards. It needs to be carried out both development of software and experimental studies for understanding the types of lightning damage to wind turbines and compiling the database. In order to minimize the lightning damage to wind turbines, it is a key factor for wind farm owners and researchers to provide the information about the damage cases and wind farm operation technique.