Industrial Surge Protection
As a variety of industries grow more technologically advanced, they find the challenge of protection of the crucial assets of their processes to be increasingly important, and difficult. Although there is generally a driving down of the prices of computerized equipment over time as it becomes more widely distributed, industrial applications are typically on the cutting edge of the technology itself, essentially utilizing equipment that has yet to see price reductions. This is due to an ever increasing demand from the public for more advanced services, faster connectivity, longer uptimes, more data transfer, clearer communications, increased capacities and larger customer loads. The demands that are placed on industrial businesses relentlessly increase due to both consumer demand as well as cutthroat competition, and the only way to keep up is to utilize the latest technological advancements that are available. This is expensive, and can be a nightmare to service over time.
Take the example of the telecommunications industry, which at one point in the past was tasked only with providing connections between telephones for audio calls. The demands of customers drove the industry to increase data transfer capacities without wirelines, a seemingly impossible task at one point that is now completely taken for granted. Cell phones are expected to connect calls, receive and send texts, connect to the internet, stream videos and more. As a result of these demands, the telecom companies must provide faster speeds and wider connectivity ranges for huge file transfers, all needing unbelievably expensive bandwidth and equipment in order to accomplish the tasks. In addition to this equipment needing to be the absolutely most technologically advanced, there also has to be a lot of it, and positioned in exposed areas within cell sites, which are natural attractants for lightning strikes. Customers only care that they are connected at all times, and as a result the lack of connectivity as a result of a lightning strike to a tower is not only going to provide a loss as far as equipment, but potentially customers as well. For these reasons, industrial surge protection systems must be as technologically advanced and robust as the equipment they protect.
Industrial surge protection is crucial to the processes of nearly all industrial businesses, as exposed equipment sits in constant danger of damage as a result of lightning strike related surges. This happens when a lightning strike to a structure or nearby will result in a powerful electrical surge traveling through connectivity lines and ultimately reaching equipment that has a finite capacity. If this equipment is overwhelmed by a surge too great, the sensitive circuitry and data transfer systems will be damaged or completely destroyed; creating repair and replacement costs that can be significant. The survivors in the industrial world will be the businesses that not only provide the best services through the most cutting edge equipment, but also the ones that can reduce costs of ownership through the extension of equipment lifespans. Industrial surge protection systems and devices are an excellent line of defense, and can be part of the solution when trying to survive and thrive.
