Characteristics of Wide-Area Horizontal Wind Speed and Lightning Activity for Wind Farms

Globally, the 77.6 GW of new wind power capacity was connected to power grids in 2022, bringing total installed wind capacity to 906 GW and a growth of 9% compared to 2021. In the research on wind speed assessment, there is a lack of unified measurement of wind speed over large regions or even the globe due to differences in measurement instruments and limitations in their long-term maintenance. Information about the characteristics of wind speeds on a broad and global scale is in demand for wind turbine regimes. Meanwhile, wind turbines are in large geometry and operate in wide-open environments, which are prone to lightning strikes and get damaged to shut down, even affecting the connected power grid with the output power of a single wind turbine increasing to several megawatts (16 MW for the world’s largest wind turbine in 2023). Different regions exhibit distinct characteristics of lightning activity, resulting in significant variations in the probability of lightning strikes to wind turbines. For instance, 5.6 out of 100 wind turbines are struck by lightning per year in coastal areas. In contrast, it is 14 of 100 wind turbines per year in mountainous regions. The acquisition of information about the lightning density over large regions or even the globe is also another driven call for the siting and operation of wind turbines. Wind farms prefer locations with excellent wind resources and fewer lightning strikes. The identification of regions with both great wind speed and low lightning strike density remains a challenge. To resolve such a challenge, we first need to address the question that, is there any correlation between wind speeds and lightning activity. If wind blowing interacts with lightning activities, the interactions will help find a path to identify the regions with both great wind speed and low lightning strike density. Therefore, we analyzed the distribution of wind speeds and lightning activity over Asia during three years (2017—2019). The lightning data and wind speeds are analyzed by matching both the time and space domains. A negative correlation between horizontal wind speeds and lightning activity has been found in Asia. Lightning activity is more frequent when the long-term average horizontal wind speed is above 2 m/s and below 5 m/s. The conclusions provide valuable information about wind speeds and lightning activity over Asia. © 2024 China Machine Press. All rights reserved.