From June 12 to 15, 2023, the 12th Asia-Pacific International Conference on Lightning (APL 2023), hosted by the Universiti Putra Malaysia, was held in Langkawi, Malaysia. The conference offered academic exchanges on topics such as lightning discharge, lightning protection in new energy power systems, lightning detection and warning, and lightning protection in railway and electronic systems.

Background board of the opening ceremony

The paper “Initial Results of the Triggering Lightning Experiments Associated with an Elevated Wind Turbine Blade on the Ground” completed by Dr. Eng. Yang Guohua and postdoctoral fellow Li Quanxin from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Applied Electronics (EEA) under the supervision of Professor He Jinliang won the Best Paper Award at the conference. The paper reported the latest research results of Professor He Jinliang’s team in the study on large wind turbine rocket lightning triggering experiments and lightning damage mechanism in recent years.

Dr. Eng. Yang Guohua from EEA received the Best Paper Award

In addition, Professor Zhang Bo from EEA also gave a keynote speech entitled “Latest Progress in Experimental Research on Transient Characteristics of Lightning in China’s High Voltage Power Grid” at the conference. Starting from four perspectives, namely the diversion characteristics between towers and ground wires, the impact characteristics of real-type grounding devices under high current impact, the corona characteristics of high-voltage DC conductors under the action of space charges, and the transient characteristics testing method of grounding grids, he introduced the current field test research on China’s power transmission and transformation equipment, and discussed the correlation between simulation calculation and experimental results.

Professor Zhang Bo gave a keynote speech and received an honorary certificate

The Asia-Pacific International Conference on Lightning (APL) was initiated and established by Professor He Jinliang and others from Tsinghua University in 2003. Currently, Professor He Jinliang serves as the Chairman of the Executive Committee of this international conference. The conference is held every two years in the Asia-Pacific region. So far, it has been held for 12 times. The 13th APL will be held in Bali, Indonesia in 2025.