Experimental and analytical studies of lightning overvoltages in wind turbine generator systems

This paper presents the results of the experimental and analytical studies undertaken for the lightning protection of wind turbine generator systems by using a reduced-size wind turbine model. In the analytical studies, the FDTD (Finite Difference Time Domain) method is used. This study focuses on the overvoltages observed at the wavefronts of lightning surges. The lightning strokes on one of the blades and on the nacelle were considered, and the experiments and analyses were carried out by considering the cases of summer and winter lightning. The voltages and currents at various positions on the wind turbine model were considered.