Performance comparison of wind turbine blade receptor for lightning protection

One of the major causes of wind turbine trouble in Japan is due to lightning. Lightning stroke to blade causes critical damage and it costs the much time to recovery or replace. To prevent wind turbine blades from lightning damage, generally, they install lightning receptor which can lead the lightning current to ground safety. However in the case of non-negative lightning discharge, which often occurs in Japan, the lightning may not come from upside and the discharge current is extremely high. In JSW and CEPCO, the study of developing the lightning receptor to protect wind turbine blades under hard lightning condition has been carried out. In this paper, authors show the results of lightning experiments and simulations for various lightning receptors that are generally used in wind turbines.