Overview of the Kansas Windfarm 2013 field program
Initial observations of lightning attachment to wind turbine generators at a Kansas wind farm in 2012 resulted in a number of insights and left several open questions. This led to the planning and re-deployment for the summer or 2013. Ten groups have collaborated on this 2013 field project, resulting in the following suite of instruments and observations: 10-station 3D lightning mapping array (LMA), 8-station slow antenna array, 4 electric field mills, 2 continuous, standard-speed, fixed-location video cameras, three mobile high-speed video observation vehicles, remote charge-moment observations, remote low-light cameras focusing on upper-atmospheric discharges, and upgraded U.S. National Lightning Detection Network observations of both cloud and cloud-to-ground discharges (including continuous waveform data). In addition, all turbine generators are equipped with devices that provide estimates of lightning peak current within the blades. This presentation will provide an overview of the 2012 and 2013 observations, including a brief discussion of the instruments, seasonal overviews of lighting incidence by type, turbine attachment statistics, and an example of downward attachment to wind turbines.
