Lightning faults on distribution lines

The authors have developed low-cost instrumentation to differentiate between outages caused by lightning and those caused by other phenomena. The theories used to develop this coincident lightning events detector (CLED), the experimental design used for testing the CLED, and the test results are discussed. The following conclusions are drawn from lightning fault data collected in the Florida test area: shielding from other nearby structures is a major consideration when assessing the lightning fault rate on distribution lines and, for typical distribution lines in the USA. A range of values from 0.6 to 0.8 for the shielding factor would be appropriate