New analysis by Vaisala reveals the US wind farms at greatest risk from lightning strokes and damage.
In its 2023 Annual Lightning Report, Vaisala revealed that a total of 77,494 lightning strokes occurred at or near 1500 wind farms in the US in 2023.
A wind farm in Hansford County, Texas, and another straddling Blaine and Custer Counties, Oklahoma, saw more than 1000 strokes each, according to the report.
In Oklahoma, a wind farm in Pushmataha Country saw an average of 14.4 lightning strokes per turbine in 2023, followed by a wind farm in Freeborn County, Minnesota, with 12 lightning strokes per turbine.
In total, three wind farms received more than 10 cloud-to-ground lightning strokes per turbine on average.
On the flipside, one-third of US wind farms saw no lightning strikes at all in 2023.
Lightning damage costs the industry more than $100m annually and accounts for 60% of blade losses and almost 20% of operational losses overall, Vaisala said.
The data comes from the Vaisala US National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN), a continuously operating and scientifically validated lightning detection network and the Vaisala Global Lightning Dataset (GLD360).