Design of Lightning Protection of Photovoltaic Systems by means of Surge Rods

Owing to the installation of photovoltaic systems in outdoor, transient overvoltages caused by lightning surges is one of the important factors that could lead to disruption in performance or failure of photovoltaic systems and equipment. So, lack of the proper protection system can cause failure and damage to various parts of the photovoltaic system. This paper presents the design of a protection system for photovoltaic systems against lightning surges by means of surge lightning rods. The proposed method considers the induced overvoltages caused by lightning surges. In order to perform the presented method, the solar power plant of Birjand university, taking into account the accurate distance between PV modules and surrounding structure of power plant, has been simulated in MATLAB environment. Thereafter, design and placement of lightning rod has been performed by Electrogeometric model of power plant and rolling sphere theory. Due to the randomness of the lightning occurrence on the area of the power plant, the design and placement of lightning rods is based on the Monte Carlo method. By comparison the cost of the proposed protection scheme to the previous methods, the more economical of the proposed protection scheme is confirmed.