In this episode of the Uptime Podcast with Allen Hall, we discuss how lightning strikes affect wind turbine blades, what protection most turbines have, and how effective it is. Wind turbines operate in some of the toughest conditions on earth, and there are a lot of myths about how frequent, how damaging and how powerful lightning strikes on these machines can be. Lightning protection expert Allen Hall dispels some myths about improving uptime in the renewable energy business.

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Podcast Transcript

Dan: Welcome! This is the first episode of the Uptime Podcast. I'm your co-host Dan Blewett and I'm here with lightning protection expert Allen Hall. Allen, how are you? 

Allen: Great Dan, how are you? 

Dan: Doing well here in self-isolation in Washington DC, and you're out in Massachusetts right? 

Allen: Out in western Massachusetts. It's a snow storm right now. We're supposed to get 6 to 8 inches of snow today, so self-isolation is going to happen no matter what. It's still in the midst of winter over here. At least there’s sunny weather south of us, but up here we're all buried in our holes trying to survive the winter.

Dan: DC's not too bad, and that's what's been kind of eerie about the whole coronavirus thing. There's been some really nice days recently, and it's 65 and sunny and there's not a human to be seen. This is so weird especially for this time of year where everyone's excited for spring, and you just want to be outside on those days. But it's just a ghost town.

Allen: Yes, we see a lot of people running up and down the street jogging when the sun does come out. Even when it's mildly warm they'll be up and running down the street, but they're self isolating when they're running even. So instead of seeing the normal packs of college kids running down the street you’ve spread out. So there you’ve got to be careful when you're driving down the roads because they're self isolating when they're running too.

Dan: So here on the Uptime Podcast our goal is to talk about the wind turbine industry and how we can keep these crazy big machines operating. Obviously they keep getting bigger every year. Some of the challenges that these are facing are being in some of the harshest conditions, like in the middle of the ocean, up on mountain ranges, in the snow and the rain and the sleet. This whole theme of Uptime.  If you're a wind farm operator working in the renewable energy sector, keeping these machines running is a huge challenge. Obviously, we have the technology to produce tons and tons of electricity, but can we actually keep them running 24/7 or as close to it as possible? So Allen, my first question for you today, because you've been in the lightning protection industry for two plus decades, what does the common person not know about wind turbines? And as they keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger - now they're soaring, I know GE’s new turbine is now over eight hundred feet, which is crazy - how do we keep these things protected from lightning specifically?

Allen: Well, as they get taller they become more and more of a lightning rod. I think even the layman can kind of see that.  If you have any wind turbines that are around your home or business, you've watched them get taller and bigger and produce more energy. Each one's producing more and more energy as we go along.  That's for economy of scale. You want to produce the maximum amount of energy in the smallest amount of footprint. So what's happening now is as we're getting taller and taller blades and turbines is that they're becoming lightning attractors in a sense. They're actually triggering a lot of lightning events, and the issue with that really is if we're starting to trigger lightning...