Zone-Based Lightning Protection Method for High-Performance Photovoltaic Power Plants

In the name of sustainability, renewable energy production plays an increasing role in the electricity generation. With the spread of photovoltaic power plants, new challenges are emerging for experts to maintain grid stability due to their dependence of sunlight intensity. The fact, that power generation of these power plants can be unpredictable, must be considered. In addition, growing in numbers also means that the lightning protection of photovoltaic power plants is more and more important to ensure their energy generation during appropriate weather conditions. According to the standardized procedure, the lightning protection of these systems can be constructed. The paper indicates, the calculations strictly based on the standard are leading to a protection system that is not cost-efficient and - in most cases - elements of the primary protection system can be neglected without significantly lowering the protection level. In order to demonstrate a more efficient way to create primary protection, a real photovoltaic power plant is featured in this article. The method to examine the geometry and plan a more efficient primary lightning protection system is based on the PMAS theory. Different zones of the examined photovoltaic power plant are selected to present the calculation.