World’s second lighting research center settles in Suzhou

2020-09-01 15:30:00

The CIGRE 2020 in Paris saw the launch of the International Center for Lightning Research in Suzhou City, the second such institute in the world after the International Center for Lightning Research and Testing (ICLRT) in Florida, the United States.

Authorized by the International Symposium on Lightning Protection (SIPDA), the Suzhou Center received recognition of the CIGRE, a global community committed to the collaborative development and sharing of power system expertise, and will be established by the Jiangsu branch of State Grid. The center will focus on researches of new fields including dynamic lightning protection and AI-assisted lightning protection for the power system and other sectors.

Traditional lightning protection technologies can minimize lightning damage but cannot eliminate it completely. As an update, Dynamic Lightning Protection (DLP) is a kind of flexible protection mode for improving the lightning performance of a power grid. In recent years, Jiangsu branch of State Grid and local power supply company in Suzhou have led the DLP research and won recognition in the international community.

Tong Chong, vice chairman of the Technical Council of CIGRE and senior engineer of the Suzhou power supply company, said the new research center will build an international exchange and cooperation platform, lead the development of a series of international standards, and also focus on the application of the latest research results in various industries at home and abroad.

The new center has won support of researchers from universities and labs including MIT, University of Florida, University of Toronto, Wuhan University, Southeast University, and Hunan branch of State Grid.