The SPARCARB research project is a European project under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, Innovative Training Networks (ITN). The main aim is to address the electrical, thermal and mechanical response of wind turbine (WT) blade, carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) components to lightning impulses, as well as the development of novel CFRP material systems (main focus on nano-modified resin systems) and equipotential bonding concepts. SPARCARB is composed of four PhD individual projects (subprojects) and two of these are within the EPE group.