The Morphological Characteristics of Lightning Channel of High-Altitude Region and Its Influence on Transmission Line Shielding

The lightning activity in Xizang is relatively less frequent than other low-altitude region, however, the incidents of power system in Xizang caused by lightning is severe. The Lightning discharge shows different characteristics in Xizang high-altitude region. The Lighting Observatory in High Altitude region of Xizang (LOHA) has been established to observe the natural lightning activities, study the mechanism of it and find methods to protect power system from it. In this paper, the shape of lightning channel is analyzed by extracting the morphological feature via 147 optical images. The influence of leader angle of lightning discharge on the lightning shielding of transmission line is investigated. The results can be used to optimize the assessment method of lightning shielding of transmission line.