A Method to Obtain Lightning Peak Current in Indonesia

Lightning is a modern societal problem that continues to increase in line with technological growth. Today’s infrastructure is very vulnerable to disturbances caused by weather conditions. The most influential weather phenomenon in this regard is the weather produced by cumulonimbus (CB) clouds. Almost every year, tanks and refineries in Indonesia explode due to lightning strikes. Furthermore, there have been several instances of outages in transmission and distribution lines, as well as lightning-related fatalities in mining areas. Lightning characteristics are widely used as important data for designing lightning protection systems. However, in Indonesia, there is still a need to obtain proper lightning characteristic data. Indonesia is a maritime country located in the tropics, making its geographical conditions highly conducive to the formation of cumulonimbus (CB) clouds. Therefore, this paper presents direct lightning peak-current measurements using magnetic tape, which has been installed in several provinces in Indonesia. The paper reports the local lightning characteristics for these provinces and presents a method for obtaining lightning data. To efficiently collect lightning data on a large scale, we propose a measurement system consisting of a lightning-event counter and magnetic tape. While magnetic tape has been widely used in laboratory testing, this research discusses its application and measurement results in natural lightning conditions in the field. The novel lightning characteristics obtained for several provinces in Indonesia are expected to assist professionals in designing lightning protection systems that match the local lightning characteristics, ultimately minimizing the impact of lightning damage.