Grounding characteristics of a wind turbine measured immediately after its undergrounding

Abstract

Accidents caused by natural phenomena such as lightning and typhoons are serious problems for the wind power generation facilities. In particular, lightning damage to facilities inside or in the vicinity of wind turbines are remarkably common. Most of the breakdowns and malfunctions of the electrical and control systems are caused by a ground potential rise due to lightning current flowing into the grounding system of the wind turbine. To clarify the transient characteristics of the wind turbine grounding systems and to understand the mechanism of the breakdowns and malfunctions, the grounding characteristic have been measured. The grounding characteristics have also been verified using the FDTD (finite-difference time-domain) method.