The world needs lots of electricity. In fact, the world burns endless amounts of coal, oil, natural gas, and other things to generate electricity. This is on top of using solar panels, wind turbines, and other green energy solutions.

On the other hand, when a large thunderstorm is rolling through, people and infrastructure can be seriously damaged by the massive amounts of electricity in the lightening. There is an estimated ¥100 to 200 billion (somewhere between $650 million and more than $1.3 billion US) in damage due to lightening strikes each year in Japan.

Japanese telecom company, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) is hoping to solve both problems at once, using an innovative drone-based system that will be able to protect areas from lightning strikes while also harnessing their electricity for use in cars and other devices.

The team working on this system set up a drone that is protected by a cage, which then has a wire coming off of it. The drone system attracts the lightening, and then uses the wire to direct its path where they want it to go. Needless to say, the science behind it is a little more complicated, but it has been shown to work.

Between December 2024 and January 2025, the team had their drone fly up to about 900 meters (2953 feet) in Hamada City, Shimane Prefecture while a thundercloud was rolling in. The drone flew near to the clouds as the electric field increased, signaling that lightening was going to strike.

When the lightening started, it hit the cage around the drone, and traveled down the conductive wire, which was connected to a switch on the ground. The team observed the wire to have a large electrical current traveling through it, reaching as high as 2000 volts. After the lightening strike, the team landed the drone to inspect it and found that it was not damaged other than some melting of the protective cage.

This setup was tested using artificial lightening that went up to 150 kiloamperes (five times stronger than normal lightening in nature) without trouble.

Showing that they are able to attract and direct lightening is very important and could be put to use to establish a level of protection around cities, key infrastructure, and other areas. The system would essentially pull the lightening toward itself and direct it safely where it needs to go. They hope to run these wires into batteries on the ground to collect the electricity for later use in cars or other areas.

Check out this video put out by NTT to see how it works:

The concept is relatively simple, but the tests are promising. Being able to direct lightening strikes is something that has been done in other ways for generations. Simple lightening rods in large buildings, for example, are used to draw in lightning to an area where it can safely hit and the electricity can be directed into the ground.

This new system using drones simply takes that concept a step further.

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