Lightning Eliminators and Consultants

10 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 4 exposure, costs them carbon credits, and results in lost product, all caused by their system tripping offline.” LEC’s protection and system reliability solutions are encompassed in its three main offerings; direct strike protection, good grounding practices, and surge protection. “The foundation of what we offer is helping customers maximize uptime or reliability,” Carpenter says. “We ensure their facilities can operate safely and continually during an electrical storm. They’re not going to shut down or flare, factors which help them meet their goals of maximizing efficiency and profitability while avoiding the negative effects of such events.” “For instance, if a petroleum tank holding tens of thousands of barrels catches fire, they might be able to put the fire out though they will still sustain losses.” “If they don’t manage to put out the fire, and the tank blows up, they could lose millions of dollars worth of product, depending on how big the tank is, including the tank and all other adjacent equipment. In such a scenario, they’ve lost the tank and product and gotten bad PR and emissions from a lightning strike event.” While at face value, the superiority of LEC’s systems is apparent when competing with entrenched and cheaper Franklin rod technologies, convincing a customer can be an uphill task, as Lanzoni explains. “Our biggest challenge is overcoming the dominant standards across the world, which are all written around lightning rods,” he says. “As a very entrenched method, many engineers are reluctant to implement a solution that does not conform to these standards.” “However, for those willing to put the standards off to the side for a minute and consider the physics behind the thunderstorm, lightning event, and static dissipation, a light bulb goes off. They see why our approach might make more sense, especially for a plant managing flammable materials or having much electrical equipment.” L IGHTNING EL IMINAT ION AND CONSULTANTS