Lightning impulse performance of a wind generator grounding grid considering soil ionization

In this paper the simulation of a wind turbine grounding grid and the study of its transient behavior when high impulse currents - such as lightning strokes - appear, including the phenomenon of the soil ionization, are presented. An efficient mathematical model to simulate this situation is one based on the circuit approach. The transient behavior of the grounding grid has been simulated with the numerical code ATP - EMTP.