Lightning related damages and costs are regarded being one of the largest issues for wind turbine operators in certain regions of the world, and the effort in improving designs, manufacturing quality and scheduled maintenance of modern wind turbines has become very important for the manufacturers. Particularly the blades are very exposed, being the most expensive single component of the turbine and which also causes the longest outage time once damaged. Since 2010, wind turbines may have been certified according the IEC 61400-24 Wind turbines – Part 24: Lightning protection, requiring verification of the applied protection measures. The certification and the required verification process have improved the design performance a lot, but there are still a large variety of blade designs which experience damages in field.
Global lightning Protection Services have since 2014 developed the Lightning Interception Blade Implant (LIBI), which will become the future industry standard for wind turbine blade lightning protection systems (LPS). The system is a concept which is designed and verified up front, and where only a minor adaption to the geometry is required for implementing it into a new blade. The LIBI has been tested mechanically and electrically, to ensure its outstanding performance and to provide confidence in the market. Further more the LIBI has received a DNV/GL component certificate, meaning that wind turbine manufacturers can easily adapt this new technology in their existing type certificate of blades, making the transition from their existing blade LPS to LIBI very simple.
The specific project aims at demonstrating the technology in real blade designs, such that 8-10 blade OEMs identified throughout the project will be equipped with LIBI and exposed to the verification tests. By proving the performance of the systems in this demonstration project, we expect to convince the market that LIBI is the most robust solution for blade LPS, it is cost competitive, it is easy to install, and provides a protection efficiency superior to all other blade LPS on the market.
