NPI Launches New Project on Lightning and High-Energy Atmospheric Phenomena Using Wind Turbines

In addition to their role in renewable energy production, wind farms can also serve as powerful tools for studying atmospheric electrical phenomena. On July 1, 2025, the Nuclear Physics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (NPI CAS) launched a new research project titled “Wind Turbines as Efficient Generators of Electrical Discharges, X-rays, Relativistic Electrons and Upward Lightning”. The project, supported by the Central Bohemian Region’s MERIT programme (Mobility for Excellence in Research, Innovation and Technology), is being conducted by the Department of Radiation Dosimetry.

The aim of the project is to link lightning physics, high-energy particle physics, and the radio detection of in-cloud discharges. A key role is played by collaboration with the European LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) radio telescope, which enables precise tracking of radio signals from lightning-related events. Researchers plan to investigate discharges and particle acceleration processes occurring near wind turbines and to use these events to calibrate the LOFAR antenna system. The project will provide new insights into the formation of lightning, especially the amplification of relativistic electrons and positrons in thundercloud electric fields.

The main investigator of the project is Dr. Aleksandr Kostinskii. This new colleague of ours is an internationally recognized expert with a long-term interest in the physics and chemistry of gas discharges and electrical processes in complex environments – such as thunderstorms, volcanic eruptions or dust storms. Before 2022, he headed the Laboratory of Hazardous Geophysical Phenomena at the Institute of Mathematics and Electronics of the HSE in Moscow, and in 2022–2025 he worked at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, in the Plasma Physics and Pulse Power research group.

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