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In recent years, there have been several reports of blade damage caused by lightning strikes on wind turbines. A few of these accidents have resulted in more serious secondary damage owing to the continued rotation of the damaged blades. To prevent the initial damage from spreading in this manner, wind farms in the regions of Japan vulnerable to winter lightning were required to introduce lightning detection systems, which can accurately detect when lightning strikes the wind turbine and then immediately stop the rotation of the blades. Normally, when the system detects a lightning strike to a wind turbine and stops operation, the process of restarting is initiated only after the soundness of the blades is confirmed by visual inspection. However, in bad weather, it is often difficult to check the soundness of the blade visually, and the resulting delay in the restart process prolongs the downtime and reduces the availability of the wind turbine. In this paper, we report the results of using the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system data to check the soundness of the blades after a lightning strike to resume operations more quickly, thereby increasing up-time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the results of lightning current measurement on transmission lines in Japan. Publication of the characteristics of lightning current amplitude in papers written on the issue; Methods used for conducting field investigations of lightning current in Japan; Results of lightning current measurement using magnetic links on transmission lines.