# Method for Calculating of Lightning Impact Level on Overhead Transmission Line
###### Abstract
[[https://doi.org/10.3390/app1146609](https://doi.org/10.3390/app1146609)]([https://doi.org/10.3390/app1146609](https://doi.org/10.3390/app1146609))  
Footnote †: journal: journal: Applied Sciences  
**Citation:** [PERSON]; [PERSON] Method for Calculating of Lightning Impact Level on Overhead Transmission Line. _Appl. Sci._**2021**, _11_, 6609. https://doi. In some cases, a buffer area or corridor is used to calculate the impacts of lightning on overhead transmission lines (OHTLs). Usually, the width of the corridor ranges from a few hundred meters to a few kilometers. For example, in [9], a map plot was obtained with a corridor of 9 km on each side of the line. It notes that lightning discharges beyond this distance no longer affect OHTL. There it is also suggested that the chosen corridor width corresponds to the margin of error from the lightning detection system (LDS) while providing the data, which seems a too large value for the LDS. The constructed corridor also uses square cells, visually larger than 20 km \(\times\) 20 km. In [10], a method of constructing a lightning density map along the overhead line route during long-term lightning registration is proposed. The study area is divided into 5 km \(\times\) 5 km cells, the size of which is conditioned by the accumulation of a sufficient number of discharges (100-150) in the cell over a five-year observation period. To determine the lightning density in the OHTL area, grid cells crossing the overhead line route and located near the route at a distance of less than 1/5 of the length of the grid cell side are used. As a rule, in various calculations for power lines, the ground flash density N\({}_{\text{g}}\) is used. For example, [11] gives an overview of techniques to estimate flash incidence to a line over ground. All these studies using the strokes' densities provide approximate information about the expected impact on the power line, but they do not provide information about the flash incidence of specific sections and towers of the power line. For example, different cell sizes from 5 km to more than 20 km are used, while the span between the transmission towers of high voltage class overhead lines usually reaches only a few hundred meters; or uncoordinated distances are used to determine the buffer distance. At the same time, information about lightning strikes along the entire length of power lines is required for electrical lineman of energy companies and utility companies in order to identify sections that require special control [12]. Thus, there is currently no simple tool to assess the level of lightning impact on OHTLs along their entire length. Despite the importance of lightning density maps for estimating lightning incidence to power lines in general, we wish to devise a measure of the average annual lightning impact intensity along the entire length of the overhead line, taking into account the lightning discharges that actually occurred over a long period. To do this, the study used raw data from the LDS and the coordinates of the transmission towers. The purpose of this work is to show a simple method for assessing the lightning's impact on overhead power lines along their entire length, using lightning historical data in recent years, by the example of the Murmansk region of the Russian Federation. The method shows the importance of the buffer area for assessing the level of lightning impact on a power line along its full length. The proposed method has been tested on 200 OHTLs located at the territory of the Kola Peninsula of the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation. The majority of overhead lines have the most frequently affected areas identified.