An Electric Attraction: Lightning Around Wind Turbines In Oklahoma

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Citations

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/v692t773k

Abstract

Wind power growth in the United States is continuing to increase, as reported in the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2023 Land-Based Wind Market Report, and wind turbine dimensions are expanding in both height and rotor diameter. In some limited studies (Zou et al. 2023; Wang et al. 2008; Birkl et al. 2016), wind turbines seem to affect the rate of lightning occurrences. Here, the relationship between turbines and lightning in Oklahoma is investigated: Oklahoma ranked the second highest in wind capacity growth in 2022, while also being one of the top five states for highest annual lightning strikes.

Oklahoma lightning data is interrogated for the years 2016-2022 as recorded in Vaisala’s National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN), with location precision ≈ 100 m and timing < 1 microsecond. Twenty-four wind farms with 1732 turbines across Oklahoma were selected for this research based on construction dates and proximity to other wind farms. An attractive radius of 500 m is defined around each turbine and a reference area of 2000-3000 meters away is defined for each wind farm. Results are presented for these wind farms showing the increased rate of lightning close to wind turbines, predominantly negative cloud-to-ground strokes around -60 to -10 kA.

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