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.
Learnings
Outcomes
NGET provided a use case dataset to the supplier, University of Bath, containing NERs on faults linked to lightning strikes as captured by the delayed auto-reclosing switching scheme. The supplier then performed an initial deep-dive analysis utilising other credible and official lighting data platforms e.g., the Meteorological Office Lightning Electromagnetic Emission Location by Arrival time difference (LEELA) datasets, Earth Networks datasets, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Copernicus Climate Change Service, and European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT). The case study analysis has already begun to yield decision-making supporting outcomes such as:
- Hourly surface temperature datasets allowing for more granular analysis of short-term variations,
- Daily datasets (mean, minimum, and maximum temperatures) that provide aggregated values for long-term trend studies.
- The monthly thunder hour data over the past 10 years (calculated mean annual thunder hours for 2015–2024) have been analysed, revealing that thunderstorms generally begin to increase in May, peaking in July and August, and subsequently decline from October onwards.
- The hourly lightning activity data over the 10-year period (2015- 2024) reveals distinct spatial and temporal patterns in thunderstorm occurrences across the UK, showing that while lightning activity is generally low, certain areas exhibit higher frequencies of thunderstorms during specific times.
- The southeast region of England consistently experiences the most intense and frequent thunderstorm activity, particularly during the late afternoon and evening hours, notably between 15:00 and 18:00 UTC.
- The studied patterns highlight the UK seasonal and diurnal nature of thunderstorms aligning with
understanding that July, the height of summer, brings the most convective activity in the UK, driven by daytime heating and atmospheric instability.
- The geographical spread shows that lightning tends to concentrate in southern and eastern parts of the UK, particularly in areas with higher population density and possibly greater urban heat effects, while northern and western regions, such as Scotland and Northern Ireland, show less frequent lightning activity. However, the NGET-provided NER shows a concentration of faulty events distributed away from the lightning hotspot. This discrepancy might be due to the limitation of NER collection and potential errors of manual recording and checking. With a standardised and regular NER collection system, the spatial distribution of trip events might align more closely with the lightning intensity map.
- Outputs have been analysed from the latest satellite in the MTG series designed to continuously monitor and detect all types of lightning i.e., both cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground across Europe, Africa, and surrounding areas.
Recommendations for further work
The project is generating numerous additional research questions likely to be addressed fully in offshoot projects beyond the current scope. These potential areas for further exploration will be detailed in the next regulatory reporting iteration.
Lessons Learnt
There are no significant lessons to report at this stage.
Dissemination
Two conference papers (one on long-term lightning risk assessment and the other on short-term lighting risks) were presented at the European Geosciences Union Conference 2025 in Vienna, Austria from 27 April–2 May 2025.
