Exploring the Effect of Wind Farms on Lightning and Storm Development

With the growing use of alternative energy generation such as wind turbines, it is important to understand their effect on the environment and, in turn, on storms. One environmental parameter that could be directly impacted by wind turbines is lightning, since tall objects can enhance lightning development. Additionally, wind turbines can potentially alter the boundary layer of storms, which can cause changes in the low-level winds within the storms and affect their evolution. Several studies have been performed focusing on the lightning trends directly over specific wind farms, the attachment and upward development of lightning from turbines, and the protection of wind turbines from lightning in general; however, few studies have performed large-scale analysis of the effect turbines have on lightning and storms. This study analyzes the trends in lightning not only occurring over the wind farms but surrounding the wind farms on both a storm level, and at larger temporal and spatial scales. For this analysis, the Earth Networks Total Lightning Network (ENTLN) and the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) provide extensive lightning datasets covering CONUS, while radar data from the Multi Radar Multi Sensor (MRMS) platform offers information on storm development.  Preliminary results show a potential change in both the lightning patterns and characteristics, as well as radar echoes with storm passage over wind farms, indicating some effect may be present.