On May 17, a lightning strike caused damage to a wind turbine at the Crow Lake Wind Project near White Lake, South Dakota. The damage was a split in one of the tower's blade tips.

“When storms come through, our wind turbines get hit by lightning a lot more than people realize,” said Kevin Tschosik, Basin Electric manager of distributed generation. “When they do get hit, you usually don’t know it, because the tip of the blade has a lightning receptacle that is grounded through the blade all the way to the base of the tower. This results in the lightning strike voltage going through the ground, so the turbine keeps running.”

Read more at https://basinelectric.com/news-center/news-briefs/wind-turbine-struck-lightning

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