As far as I know, we have yet to figure out how to capture power from a lightning strike. There is a lot of energy there, but it's static electricity which is completely different from what any grid runs on.
That means very high peak power, making your whole capture infrastructure extremely expensive, but even capturing 100% of an average lightning bolt is worth <$100 in electricity.
yea, i think the low efficiency (plus how to predict where lightning would hit!). Might as well just put up a wind turbine, since wind is much more predictable, not to mention easier to harvest.
As mentioned, you can't do it with batteries.
To capture the 1.21 GW from a lightening strike requires a flux capacitor.
As far as I know, we have yet to figure out how to capture power from a lightning strike. There is a lot of energy there, but it's static electricity which is completely different from what any grid runs on.
You'd probably use some kind of capacitor
To capture it? Quite a few I'd imagine. The energy you could collect though from one hit is quite low.
It's around 1MWh within a fraction of a second.
That means very high peak power, making your whole capture infrastructure extremely expensive, but even capturing 100% of an average lightning bolt is worth <$100 in electricity.
Which is why nobody even attempts this.
An actual generation scheme would probably do something with the potential difference prior to dielectric breakdown actually occurring, at any rate.
yea, i think the low efficiency (plus how to predict where lightning would hit!). Might as well just put up a wind turbine, since wind is much more predictable, not to mention easier to harvest.