Electrical Surge Protection: March 2022

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Electrical Protection Saves Operational Budgets

When you think about nearly every product or service you utilize in the modern world, it probably connects to industrialized operations. Only small and artisan crafters produce products that do not utilize some form of industrial process, even if that utilization is of raw materials produced industrially. Everything from communications and power generation to the manufacture of the essential products is connected to operations that can be considered “industrial.” However, these processes are not the way many people picture them, with images coming to mind of large facilities of huge machines run on coal or oil. Computers control most industrial processes almost entirely, utilizing an electrical power source to provide life to these components. Through computerization, processes are streamlined and made more effective, ultimately bringing down the prices of the goods and services we consume. These computers and data processors rely on electricity to do their jobs, but one of their main threats is also that same electricity. Power surges that take the regular flow of electricity outside of the normal and safe operational levels damage and destroy the circuits necessary for functionality. These surges either degrade the circuits and contacts over time or immediately destroy the component. Luckily, the damage can be minimized or eliminated by using technologically advanced electrical protection devices and systems. When these systems can operate to the fullest extent of their capabilities, industrial systems can stay online longer and perform their functions better.

Switching errors degrade circuitry over time. Each time a piece of equipment is switched on or off, it surges the power to the degree that it causes minor damage. This ongoing degradation shortens the operational life span of that equipment and causes the need for repair or replacement before the expected time. Lightning strikes destroy equipment if they hit the equipment directly. But indirectly, they also create a power surge that can couple into the copper power lines and hybrid data transfer cables directly connected to those pieces of equipment. These connections are how a typical system setup can suddenly work against the components themselves. The same power lines that feed the necessary electricity also allow an overwhelming amount to transfer to the parts in the system. Through the installation of surge protection devices along these pathways previous to the equipment components, that voltage level can be monitored constantly, and a circuit can be broken if the levels go outside the desired range. The lightning itself can be diverted away from the systems to a certain degree using lightning rods and overhead shielding. This attracts the lightning to strike fixtures where the power can be successfully redirected to the ground safely, preventing the transfer of power to the system nearby. The combination of these elements and processes is generally referred to as “electrical protection for industrial facilities,” and they are specifically designed to save operational budgets.

Electrical Protection Is Critical For Modern Industry

The evolution of the industrial form of doing business started during the aptly named "industrial revolution," where machinery systems were utilized in tandem with one another to create products or services more cheaply, more efficiently, and many times more robustly than handcrafted goods. The ability to produce large amounts of something for public consumption drives the prices down to be affordable by more people, ultimately providing access to these types of goods and services by a wide variety of people. As industrialism grew, more and more of the things we consume on a daily basis have been moved into "industrialized" forms of production. Industrial facilities consist of heavy-duty machinery and constant activities, and often operate in areas away from where people live and congregate so that they may operate without bothering people. This physical positioning often makes them vulnerable to the weather and lightning strikes, as they can be the tallest structures in an isolated area, not surrounded by taller structures. The location itself can provide a specific danger to the facility, where lightning that strikes the installation or nearby could destroy equipment used in the industrial process. This destruction comes in two forms: strike-related explosions and fires and surge-related damage resulting from the following power surge. The damage at the strike point itself is difficult to avoid as lighting is one of the most powerful things on earth. The electrical surge damage can be minimized and potentially even eliminated by installing technologically advanced surge protection devices along all the pathways that electricity can travel from component to component. One drawback to an industrialized process is that machinery can rarely operate independently without connecting to a mission-critical component that controls it. Being dependent upon these components means that a power surge originating at that exposed piece of machinery can then flow along conductive pathways, overwhelming and damaging any connected components. This flow is stopped, and downstream equipment salvaged only by providing effective surge protection devices. Electrical surges are related to external lightning strikes and internal switching errors. The powering on or off of a piece of equipment in a system can create degradation in the system. These mini-surges or overvoltages will degrade the circuitry and shorten the equipment's life span.

Electrical protection is the method by which damage may be avoided in industrial settings, either by diverting the source of electricity completely or stopping the damaging flow from reaching other circuitry. For example, lightning rods and overhead shields draw lightning strikes away from the critical components and distribute the excess electricity safely. In addition, surge protection devices cut the ability for the electricity to flow past them if a situation is detected where the flow levels exceed safe ranges. Through a combination of these types of efforts, industrial facilities can operate more efficiently and safely than ever before.

Electrical Protection For Industry

Electrical protection is a growing necessity for businesses of the “industrial” type, as operations become increasingly computerized. Many people think of the images from the industrial revolution in America when they picture an industrial business. Large machines belching steam and smoke may have been how an industrial facility used to look. Still, today they have become increasingly technological in an attempt to improve the functionality of operations. This is simply because the more computerized and automated a business can be, the more inexpensively it can continue to provide the product or service it is designed to. Modern industrial companies look more like high-tech firms than you would ever expect, even though they operate in harsh conditions and are frequently isolated in their locations. This increasing reliance upon computers and circuit-driven equipment to streamline operations has a downside, as power surges can negatively impact the bottom line. These sensitive pieces of equipment need to be repaired or replaced when there are power surges. Only through minimizing the damage directly associated with these events can operations be truly optimized. Power surges come in several forms, resulting from several occurrences. Each occurrence has a different methodology to thwart the damage and uses various forms of equipment and devices to accomplish that goal.

Ongoing switching errors cause overvoltage, which in turn causes the degradation of circuitry over time. These overvoltages can occur every time a piece of equipment is turned off or on, resulting in a small surge of power. These excesses in voltage are generally not enough to achieve perceivable damage but ultimately shorten the life span of that piece of equipment if they go unchecked. The installation of voltage limiting equipment can reduce this degradation by consistently monitoring the level of power flowing to a device, then gapping or diverting that flow if it exceeds a certain level. Voltage limiting equipment continually assures that the power flow to the equipment is within the safe range and lengthens the operational life of that equipment. Extending the active life span saves money and reduces downtime.

Lightning strikes and significant power surges will oftentimes destroy equipment, especially at the strike point itself. Because of this danger, other equipment is used to attract the strike to themselves instead of the power lines that feed components or the components themselves. The idea is to prevent strikes from happening near the system and allow the strike to be safely diverted to earth without any impact on the nearby system. Through lightning attractants like overhead shields and lightning rods and surge protection devices installed redundantly along the pathways, electricity can flow, electrical protection for the installation can be maximized. Of course, there is almost no expectation of a perfect system that will see no damage, but through minimization of expected damage, the bottom line can be improved. This is the crux of electrical protection for industry.

Electrical Protection For Critical Components

Within industrial facilities in the modern age, there are different types of machinery. The most obvious are the components positioned in the field or in prominent visual locations on the floor of the facility itself. The others consist of the control equipment that is usually shielded from sight. The main reason for this differentiation is that the computerized control equipment is “less industrial” as far as its construction. Industrial operations rely upon incredibly robust and heavy-duty machinery designed to withstand harsh conditions imposed on it. For example, a wind tower is designed to withstand heavy wind gusts and is built from high-strength materials that allow it to function under that stress. The positioning of that wind tower to perform at an optimum capacity is remote, as you would not want to have the flow of wind be impeded by structures surrounding the tower. The same is true for solar panels. You do not wish to have nearby tall structures that would stop the sun’s rays from getting to them. These physical positions make both of these exposed industrial installation primary targets for lightning strikes should a storm move through that general vicinity.

For this reason, industrial structures are designed to be able to withstand inclement weather, including lightning strikes, as much as possible. There may also be lightning attractants like lightning rods positioned on or around them that will attract a lightning strike and divert it so that it won’t create damage to the primary or nearby systems. What is unseen in these examples is a large amount of computerized equipment directly tied to these structures, either inside them or connected through cables. When a lightning strike happens to a wind tower, blades, for instance, are generally destroyed and need to be quickly replaced to provide optimum functionality. That same strike produces a power surge that couples into the structure itself or the wires running through it, ultimately moving along those pathways to impact the sensitive control equipment. These components are overwhelmed by the power surge and are damaged as a result as well. This means that a lightning strike will produce damage at the strike point and large distances away with equipment that is nowhere near the strike itself. This can be reduced and potentially avoided altogether through components and tactics called electrical protection and surge protection devices. These combinations of equipment designed to divert lightning strikes to safe areas and provide a method of stopping surging electricity if it does make it into the system are the only effective way to avoid some of the most unpredictable natural events there are, which create havoc within industrial businesses. A single lightning strike can cripple operations, and ongoing degradation of the equipment through minor surges that are unchecked or mitigated ultimately reduce the life span of that equipment. The industrial business was created to produce goods and services more inexpensively, and the introduction of electrical protection to your industrial facility to improve it even more.

Components That Make Up Electrical Protection Systems

Industrial businesses and facilities are prone to damage due to exposure to the elements and inclement weather patterns. Due to zoning regulations and inexpensive land and remote locations, many industrial businesses operate in regions that are either remote or surrounded by other types of industrial facilities. You are not going to find many housing developments surrounding industrial areas, nor will you find many apartment buildings or structures reaching further into the sky than the structures within the industrial facility itself. The regulations that lead to these citings come from various reasons, but namely they endeavor to protect those living in a region from the noise, dust, and ongoing activity that happen within an industrial area. The facilities within these regions operate many times around the clock, providing the functionality they were designed for without the encumbrances of the types of associations that make residential life pleasant. Because of the remote nature of these facilities, they are usually the ones that bear the brunt of the weather and lightning strikes. They represent exactly the features that lightning seeks out to provide the path of least resistance to the earth. They represent the tallest structures and are almost always made from materials that will allow for electricity to be conducted, in order to provide strength against the elements. Because of the frequency of lightning strikes, most industrial facilities integrate electrical protection systems into their setups.

Electrical protection is a combination of methods and devices that divert lightning strikes away from critical components and provide ways of stopping electricity in its path if it does enter. The sensitive components in the systems that power surges can easily damage are directly connected to those components in the exposed field, providing ample power surge that follows a lightning strike to do damage. The strike point is usually always destroyed, but the connection wires and cables and structures offer a pathway for the subsequent power surge to travel. This massive surge of electricity moves along these pathways, overwhelming the circuitry of these components and creating far more damage than that seen at the strike point itself. This is why surge protection devices' integration is critical, both along these pathways and in a redundant fashion. Stopping the flow of excess electricity can save both equipment and uptime of industrial processes and equipment, creating a more streamlined and efficient facility.

Electrical protection is not only the surge protection devices that stop the surges, but also the diversionary components that draw the strikes themselves away from the systems. These products can be various things ranging from overhead shields to lightning rods, all designed to draw the strike and surge to themselves and distribute it safely. Through the prevention of strike damage and the damage caused by power surges of all types, industrial facilities can function more efficiently and safely.