Research advances and trends of lightning protection for offshore wind turbines

With rich reserves and unique advantages, offshore wind resources has become an important development direction for the future wind power generation. However, since the characteristics of offshore wind power are different from that of onshore wind power, many key issues need further study, especially the probability of offshore wind turbine suffering from lightning strike is large, resulting in a high accident rate of lightning damage to the wind turbine facilities, which poses a serious threat to the safe and efficient operation of the offshore wind power generation. Hence, the lightning protection for offshore wind turbines is very important and necessary. In this paper, the research advances of lightning protection for offshore wind turbines were introduced from the aspects of physical mechanism of lightning attachment to offshore wind turbines, discharge characteristics and design of lightning receptor-current channel, the mechanical burst mechanism of the blade, and the strong-field electromagnetic transient effect, and accordingly proposed the major topics of lightning protection for offshore wind turbines to be further studied.