Lightning as a new renewable energy source

Abstract

Lightning is a massive electrostatic discharge which occurs naturally. It consist of huge amount of voltage and current. It has been estimated that 40 to 50 lightning strike somewhere on the earth surface in a second. Annually around 1.4 billion of lightning strike occurs worldwide. Although the number of strike is very high lightning energy could not be convert to useful energy yet. Malaysia is one the country with tremendous lightning activity. As such, it better to initiate a study on lightning harnessing and promote it as new renewable energy sources that could be converted to useful electrical energy. Lightning can be a solution for the power crisis which is mostly depends on the non-renewable resources. However, there are some challenges in considering lightning as an alternative choice of energy. It is very hard to predict the location of lightning strike and harness the lightning energy because lightning strike occurs within few microseconds. In this research, the possible methods of converting lightning energy into useful electrical energy are studied and the best method that could practically applied will be proposed.