As the world becomes more sustainable and electrified, demand for renewable energy is growing. Across Europe, 17% of people rely on wind energy for electricity. Because it plays such a critical role in power infrastructure, protecting wind turbines from harm is critical.
Lightning poses a large potential threat to wind turbines because tall metal structures are particularly vulnerable to strikes. If the equipment inside wind turbines is damaged, it could cause safety issues and outages for energy customers. Additionally, wind turbines are difficult and expensive to service, making minimizing maintenance due to damage especially important.
nVent lightning protection systems protect thousands of wind turbine blades around the world. Recently, one of nVent’s wind energy customers in Europe turned to our nVent ERICO brand for protection of vertical-axis wind turbines from lightning strikes. They required a reliable and scalable safety system to reduce downtime and maintenance due to damage from lightning and help keep people safe. This customer also needed to make sure they complied with international standards for lightning protection of wind turbines.
This customer needed to protect three blades, six struts and one turbine tube for each wind turbine with equipment that would capture lightning strikes and transport them safely to the ground without damaging electrical equipment. Each turbine blade is over 20 meters long and held in place by two 25-meter struts.
This customer required a custom lightning protection solution that met the protection needs of the specific material that the blades were constructed from. nVent experts worked with the customer to assess technology options and design the ideal lightning protection solution for the turbines. nVent proposed to lay copper mesh on both the strut and blade surface to create a full lightning protection solution. For blade tips, nVent suggested using a specialized receptor with a lightning strip laid along its surface.
In addition to designing and installing lightning protection for the turbines, nVent also provided grounding solutions including cables, conductors and grounding equipment to safely ground electrical currents from strikes.
nVent offers a wide range of foundation grounding, bonding, power connections, surge protection and lightning protection solutions for the wind energy industry. In addition to our extensive product offering, our engineers and designers provide design assistance for facilities worldwide using our proprietary lightning protection design software.
Lightning protection assemblies have been installed on thousands of wind turbine blades worldwide. nVent project managers, engineers and researchers have decades of domain expertise and continue to develop new products for improved performance and installation efficiency for the ever-evolving wind power industry. We are trusted to deliver cost-effective, long-term solutions through rapid-response engineering, design and integration services for the unique demands of the wind energy industry.