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Production Facilities

Modern manufacturing industry consists of complex and vulnerable production facilities. Lightning protection, earthing, and equipotential bonding are vital measures to ensure personal safety as well as operational reliability.

Electricon assists with risk assessment in accordance with different protection levels

Electricon is the right partner to handle the installation and maintenance of protection systems, ensuring that operations are safeguarded against electrical damage from direct or indirect lightning strikes, as well as other damage resulting from transients or overvoltages, for example via supply lines.

In addition to direct electrical damage, spark formation can be a concern and must therefore be prevented. In ATEX environments, for example involving powder handling, gases, or chemicals, spark formation can lead to an explosion hazard.

In these environments, Electricon has extensive experience in establishing equipotential bonding.

Equipotential bonding is also a vital part of personal safety, both in the event of direct contact and in equalizing electrical potential between building components.

Agriculture

Farmers today depend on electronics functioning properly in, for example, computers, ventilation systems, milking robots, and feeding systems.

Although a direct lightning strike poses a risk to the building—and of course also to animals and machinery inside the building—most damage is usually caused by overvoltages that affect electrical equipment and electronics via the power supply network.

Lightning can find its way in many ways. A lightning strike to an electric fence has direct access to the sensitive equipment in the barn.

If no lightning protection system is installed, the lightning will find the most efficient path to earth. This is rarely the most appropriate one.

When lightning strikes the ground, the current spreads through the soil in all directions. Because there is resistance in the ground, voltage differences will arise, and if a person—or a cow—is nearby, a large voltage can occur between the legs. This is known as step voltage. This voltage—which is current—can be fatal.

Silos and tanks

Silos and tanks rise prominently in the landscape and therefore present an increased risk of lightning strikes. At the same time, these large storage facilities are often filled with powder or flammable liquids, which increases the risk of consequential damage in the event of a lightning strike.

In addition to traditional lightning protection for these structures, Electricon is also familiar with the specific ATEX requirements, meaning protection against electrical discharges in explosion-hazardous environments.

Warehouse buildings

Modern warehouse buildings today are filled with electronics. For example, automated warehouses are highly dependent on advanced systems to place and locate goods throughout the building.

A lightning strike can very quickly put this advanced technology out of operation, and therefore lightning protection is necessary to secure operations.

In such buildings, internal lightning protection is very important. This involves ensuring proper equipotential bonding, so that all electrically conductive parts such as pipes, cable trays, cranes, machine components, and similar elements are electrically connected. This ensures they have the same potential, thereby reducing the risk of injury to people and damage to machinery in the event of a direct or indirect lightning strike.