| This thesis analyzes the spatial and temporal distributions of lightning and explores the unique characteristics of adverse weather caused line-related transmission line outages for several voltage level transmission lines in Alberta. The Lasso regression variable selection procedure and Cp criterion are applied to express the duration of the lightning-caused line-related transmission line outage as a function of weather and lightning elements. The major results and conclusions are as follows: (1) The spatial and temporal distributions of the lightning flashes are not uniform. The mean and variance of lightning flashes reach maxima in central Alberta. (2) The range of the weather elements, which cause the serious outages to the power transmission lines are documented. and (3) The major lightning and weather elements that cause the power transmission lines outages are identified for three transmission line voltage levels. Future lightning-caused line-related transmission line outages can be predicted by the resulting functions. |
