There is an urgent need to understand, quantify, and assess the lightning risk threat on the fast-expanding electricity network assets. Previous related projects focused on real-time fault management for distribution networks offering limited transmission level insights. Yet, growing evidence has it that climate change is influencing lightning, in terms of formation, severity, patterns, frequency, and distribution. This project aims to develop novel strategies to assess lightning risks for NGET transmission infrastructure assets considering past climatological data and adding superimposed long-term climate site-specific trend projections. Because climate change influences lightning occurrence and patterns, the project can inform the design and location of new energy infrastructure, ensuring appropriate lightning protection. The project will improve system planning, regulatory compliance, lead to reduced damage, downtime and maintenance costs. 

Benefits

This project will study how lightning strikes will change change during climate projections and seek to demonstrate how NGET electricity infrastructure is affected by lightning strike changes due to climate change. By connecting data from multiple interdisciplinary domains, applying novel machine learning and data analytics approaches the benefits of this project will be to inform more robust and resilient electricity network planning and operation.