Use of atmospheric sources for clean energy production has become a must in today’s environmental conditions. With causing the lowest levels of air pollution; Wind Farms are preferred as the primary clean energy production facilities and are widely used all over the world.
A wind farm is a combination of “Wind Turbines”. In order to make a profitable investment and have the highest efficiency of turbines, wind farm location has to be selected very carefully and local wind characteristics must be verified before constructing the turbines.
There is a need for regular and reliable data to determine wind efficiency in an area. Meteorological evaluation towers (a.k.a. wind measurement towers) are placed to collect data on local atmospheric parameters such as wind, temperature, humidity, etc and record them in dataloggers.
Lightning Risk for Wind Measurement Towers
In order to collect the most realistic data and to avoid any obstacles which can affect the observations, wind measurement towers are usually erected at the highest topographic elevations possible. Totally made of conductive steel, these towers are obviously the primary targets of lightning strikes.
Data collected by sensors on tower is transferred to datalogger units at the bottom of tower and operators make regular site visits in order to collect this data. All calculations for the establishment of the wind farm are done with referrence to this local meteorological observations, so it is critically important to have the correct and realistic data collected in datalogger device.
During a storm, ground charges accumulate on wind measurement tower and climb up to tower top and horizontal metal arms where wind sensors are located. As these ground charges are emitted towards the opposite charged streamers of cloud; two charged groups meet eachother and develop a conductive channel between cloud and the tower which is called “lightning”.
All current inside cloud flows through this channel and reach to ground through tower body while damaging all sensors on tower and the datalogger device at the bottom. All sensors have to be replaced and more importantly; all data collected inside datalogger is permanently lost.
Lightning Arresters on Wind Towers?
Wind measurement towers are made of conductive material and are constructud as the highest structures around, so these structures are primary targets of lightning strikes and need to be protected against possible damages.
Lightning arresters are used to emit more charges on themselves in order to attract lightning before any surrounding object. With use of a lightning arrester on a metal tower, the arrester collects all lightning strikes with purpose of transferring lightning current to ground safely.
However, lightning current must reach the ground through the shortest and fastest way which is still the tower body. Eventhough a conductor cable is installed between lightning arrester and grounding system, lightning current prefers to follow larger surfaces instead of a conductor cable and flows through tower.
Using a lightning arrester on wind measurement tower does not solve the problem and all sensors on tower are still damaged by lightning current and all valuable data collected is still under risk of getting lost.
Lightning must kept away from wind measurement tower.
EvoDis® Lightning Prevention System
Best way of being protected from direct lightning strike damages and secondary damages by electromagnetic field of lightning current is to keep lightning away from tower.
The point where lightning hits depends on the ground charge accumulation on tower body and emission point on tower top. Lightning strikes at that particular point of emission and lightning current runs down to the ground through the body.
EvoDis® Lightning Prevention System dissipates the ground charges on tower through thousands of tiny sharp points and blocks the emission of these charges. This process makes the protected site “invisible” to lightning; prevents any damage on sensors and avoids any loss of ctirical data.
EvoDis® Lightning Prevention System is a lightning protection solution with 100% success in high voltage laboratory tests and in field tests. EvoDis® has been applied to hundreds of towers worldwide and none of these towers have been hit by lightning since the dates of installation.
Contact Us today to protect your investment.
Best way of lightning protection is to stay away from lightning.
EvoDis® Lightning Prevention System keeps lightning away.
Comments