A new method to study on distribution characteristics of cloud-to-ground lightning

Lightning is one of the most important factors that affect the safety of the power grid. Cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning is the main cause of faults and outages in electric power overhead transmission line. The distribution of the lightning is different according to the season and region. The seasonal and regional distribution characteristics of cloud-to-ground lightning is the indispensable foundation for the difference-based lightning protection of the overhead transmission line. Fortunately, great amounts of lightning data accumulated by the wide application of the long-term lightning detection network provide the probability for the analysis of distribution characteristics of cloud-to-ground lightning. In this paper, a method based on the ArcGIS in introduced, which employs the self-adaptable grids subdivision and statistics of lightning detection data to investigate the distribution characteristics of ground flash density. Based on the distribution characteristics, the lightning trip-out rate of the transmission line is evaluated and suitable lightning protection measures are taken. The lightning recording device will be installed on the transmission tower of high lightning strike risk. This approach effectively helps to establish an integrated technical plan to study the frequency and intensity of the lightning. To improve the entireness and precision of the regional CG lightning distribution characteristics evaluation, the application of the remote images of the satellite, the data of laser radar reflecting for the 3-dimension information about a topographic feature about the transmission line corridor have been proposed.