Estimation of lightning striking points based on measurements of vertical E-field

Abstract

Accurate estimation of the lightning striking points is practically important to find the fault location of the power line. Recent progress of the lightning locating technique has made it possible to estimate the striking points with the accuracy of less than 1 km. To enhance the location accuracy, the authors measure the vertical electric field at six points around Shirakawa area in Fukushima prefecture. The distance between measuring points is about 10 km, which is less than one tenth of the distance of the direction finders (DF) of the lightning location system. In this paper, the authors estimated the location of the lightning striking points by using the time of arrival technique and compared with the results obtained by the lightning location system. Furthermore, the cause of the discrepancy between estimated lightning striking points is discussed, and the location accuracy by the authors' method is evaluated. © 2008 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.