Performance evaluation for a lightning location system based on observations of artificially triggered lightning and natural lightning flashes

Performance evaluation for the lightning location system (LLS) of the power grid in Guangdong Province, China, was conducted based on observation data of the triggered lightning flashes obtained in Conghua, Guangzhou, during 2007-11 and natural lightning flashes to tall structures obtained in Guangzhou during 2009-11. The results show that the flash detection efficiency and stroke detection efficiency were about 94% (58/62) and 60% (97/162), respectively. The arithmetic mean and median values for location error were estimated to be about 710 and 489 m, respectively, when more than two reporting sensors were involved in the location retrieval (based on 87 samples). After eliminating one obviously abnormal sample, the absolute percentage errors of peak current estimation were within 0.4%-42%, with arithmetic mean and median values of about 16.3% and 19.1%, respectively (based on 21 samples).