Lightning Protection

Lightning protection, as its name implies, offers protection to electrical equipment and systems from the direct and indirect effects of lightning activity. Lightning protection is a set of features typically designed into grounding systems at locations subject to lightning damage – which pretty much covers any place on the planet surface! – and is essential in high altitude locations, sites with towers, chimneys or other tall structures.

Truly functional lightning protection systems must be able to dissipate the energy (> 1 Gigawatt), of a direct lightning strike as well as mitigate the indirect consequences of lightning, notably electrical surges and pulses. Damaging surges and pulses are generated on power lines, telephone wires, RF waveguide and other metal infrastructure, from where they can be carried into buildings and electrical equipment, sometimes traveling surprisingly great distances measured in miles or kilometres.

It is a basic axiom that lightning energy will find a path to ground. Therefore, it is essential to deploy robust protection systems that will dissipate extreme lightning energies in ways that prevent personnel injury and equipment damage.

Like electrical protection systems, lightning protection systems are also the connection of bonded metallic systems through engineered, low impedance paths to earth. It is not uncommon to combine the two objectives in a single engineered system offering total protection against all predictable and random electrical events.

What We Offer

SAE lightning protection technology shifts the unpredictable destructive effects of a lightning strike from the realm of an “act of God” to a controlled, manageable event. To obtain maximum protective performance, SAE lightning protection systems are designed around the core of our highly effective, low impedance grounding systems, and offer:

An engineered combination of low impedance, high efficiency external ground plane design, inside single point grounding designs and layers of surge protection that has consistently proven to work effectively in some of the most lightning prone areas on earth
Robust external electrodes featuring low impedance, large conductive surface areas that provide superlative ground contact and the ability to repeatedly and safely dissipate lightning strike energy without damage
External electrode networks correctly oriented to best match to actual lightning behaviour patterns, thus maximizing the dissipation of energy, while reducing flash arc-over and the risk that lightning discharges will seek more agreeable alternate paths through sensitive equipment
Engineered single point grounding systems augmented by layers of surge protection that efficiently isolate equipment racks from electrical surges and pulses penetrating from outside sources
Purpose built products to monitor and record lightning strike behaviour and initiate alarms
An engineering design process that integrates site geography, soil characteristics and soil resistivity data with advanced computer modeling tools to ensure that client lightning protection specifications are met or exceeded
Complete installation and project management services for the deployment of lightning protection systems
All of the beneficial and desirable characteristics inherent to our low ambient noise, high performance

How You Benefit

SAE engineered lightning protection systems provide exceptional value to infrastructure owners and to the environment with:

Improved workplace safety due to lower risk of flash arc-over and violent equipment damage
Low impedance, high performance system that isolates and protects electrical equipment and systems against lightning related failure
Improved customer and subscriber service due to significant reductions in unplanned downtime or service outages caused by lightning activity
Reduced maintenance costs due to theft resistant, long life system design built to manage and dissipate multiple lightning strikes without damage
Improved bottom line financials due to reductions in expensive loss-of-service outages and reductions in budgeted and unplanned maintenance expenses
Greater flexibility to meet individual client requirements, as our lightning protection systems can be tailored for specific site or geographic locations and soil conditions
Greater deployment versatility, as effective SAE low environmental impact lightning protection systems can be safely installed and operated in virtually any geographic environment without risk of soil, aquifer or air contamination
Improved lightning event tracking and visibility, especially at remote and other important designated sites, that can aid maintenance operations and planning
Reduced project delivery risk and better project visibility when using SAE project services

Conducrete®
SAE Services
Grounding Systems
Satisfied Clients
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