Guest Speakers from Austria NGN: Dr. Lukas Schwalt

“Lightning Phenomena in the Alpine Region of Austria”

In the first part of this presentation, an introduction about thunderstorm formation and lightning physics will be given and secondly the key findings of Dr. Schwalt’s PhD thesis "Lightning Phenomena in the Alpine Region of Austria" will be presented. The motivation for the PhD thesis was to gather lightning ground truth data for Austria out of on-site measurements, because this area shows high lightning activity. For this purpose, real processes of cloud-to-ground flashes were recorded with a high-speed video camera and an electric field measurement system. Analyses of this exclusive data set provide insights about lightning characteristics in general and for the alpine region in particular.

Short Bio of Lukas Schwalt

Lukas Schwalt is a CIGRE NGN AT member and he is a Post-Doc researcher at Graz University of Technology, Institute of High Voltage Engineering and Systems Performance. After completing his master in Electrical Engineering at Vienna University of Technology, he successfully defended his PhD thesis "Lightning Phenomena in the Alpine Region of Austria" at Graz University of Technology in 2019. His main areas of research include cloud-to-ground lightning, measurements of lightning discharges, performance of lightning detection systems, lightning protection concepts and transient voltages on power lines. He is also involved in the Austrian Association for Electrical Engineering in the field of lightning protection, CIGRE B2 and C4 and served as the technical secretary for CIGRE International Colloquium on Lightning and Power Systems ICLPS 2019” in Delft, Netherlands. He received the “Young Scientist Award” at the International Conference of Lightning Protection ICLP in 2018 and the “Award of the Association of Austrian Electricity Companies”, department research and innovation, for his PhD thesis in 2020.

Guest Speakers from UK NGN:

Dr Diptargha Chakravorty , “Effect of Network Parameters on the Transient Over-Voltage Phenomenon During System Restoration ”

System restoration is currently a transmission-led approach of starting large conventional generators with self-start capability and energising a skeleton network. Increasingly, transmission connected fossil-fuelled generators are decommissioned around the world to meet the emissions targets. This makes it imperative to explore the possibility of using distribution connected DERs to support the whole system restoration. However, energisation of network elements such as circuits and transformers pose significant challenges such as switching transients, Temporary Over Voltage (TOV) etc which can reduce the available options to restore a network and lead to a higher number of circuit breaker switching to avoid damaging equipment. This presentation will discuss the impact of different network parameters such as the strength of the system, saturation characteristic of transformers etc on the TOV and ways to manage it during restoration.

Short Bio of Dr Diptargha Chakravorty

Dr Diptargha Chakravorty is a Senior Consultant with TNEI Services. He is an electrical engineer with over 8 years of experience in the power industry, including a 4-year PhD on the impact of demand response on system stability from Imperial College London. He specialises in modelling and analysis of transmission and distribution networks and automation of system studies. His core expertise includes stability analysis, grid integration of renewable energy and power electronics converter control. He is currently the vice-chair of the Cigre UK NGN steering committee.

Please note that the webinar is free and open to all members, however, the registration from NGN members will be considered first if the register number beyond our host capacity.

The event will be hosted via the Zoom Online Conference Platform and will be recorded. Please sign up using Eventbrite and you will receive the Zoom link and detailed agenda by email a few days before the event.