Abstract To ensure the reliability and safety of the power grid system, it is of great significance to carry out electric meteorological monitoring for transmission channels. In this paper, a method for optimizing the placement of transmission line monitoring devices based on the probability of meteorological disasters is proposed. By considering the climatic characteristics near the transmission line, the probability of occurrence of adverse meteorological faults for each transmission tower in the transmission line is analyzed and calculated by using existing meteorological and GIS elevation data. Meanwhile, the historical failure data and voltage levels of transmission lines are combined to achieve the optimization of the installation position of monitoring devices in transmission channels. This method was applied to a 220 kV transmission line for practical analysis, achieving dense monitoring in areas with high failure rates and sparse monitoring in areas with low failure rates.