According to [Could We Harness Lightning as an Energy Source?][1]: > An average bolt of lightning, striking from cloud to ground, contains roughly one billion ($1,000,000,000$) joules of energy. According to [Visible light][2]: > Red photons of light carry about $1.8$ electron volts (eV) of energy, while each blue photon transmits about $3.1$ eV. So let's take an average photon energy of $2.5 \text{ eV}$. Then we can calculate the number of photons in the average lightning. $$ N = \frac{10^9 \text{ Joule}}{2.5 \text{ eV}} = \frac{10^9 \text{ Joule}}{2.5 \cdot 1.6 \cdot 10^{-19} \text{ Joule}} = 2.5 \cdot 10^{27}$$ [1]: https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2012/05/could-we-harness-lightning-as-an-energy-source.html [2]: https://scied.ucar.edu/visible-light