Sparks Electrical News September 2018

EARTHING & LIGHTNING

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KEEPING HOSPITALS SAFE FROM LIGHTNING AND SURGES

F rom the skills and training of medical staff members to the sensitive equipment and sterile measures that are used on patients, hospitals are synonymous with efforts to save lives and improve health and well-being. The greatest threats to sensitive life-saving equipment are chron- ic intermittent utility power issues and frequent light- ning strikes. The latter can be assisted by installing the proper surge protection. “At different times in my life,” says an anonymous spokesperson, “and for various reasons, I have been in situations where I have seen my father, another member of my family, and a friend’s child on life support machines. The idea that a power surge could have crippled the equipment that was keeping them alive at the time is truly terrifying”. And this, in a nutshell, sums up exactly why hospitals so urgently need to be safe fromequipment failure caused by power surges, including those that may be related to lightning strikes. Julienne Puttkammer, part of the Technical Team at DEHN AFRICA, the local subsidiary of DEHN, says, “When we look at the importance of protecting hospitals from electrical surges and/or lightning strikes, the preservation of human life is usually of paramount importance. As with data centres, when it comes to hospitals and their sensitive electronic

“Such upgrades to the hospital itself, which then bring to attention the need to upgrade existing lightning and surge protection systems, include the building of additional hospital wings, or the addition of rooftop PV systems to supplement the electricity source from the power utility, or upgrades to the cooling systems.” South Africa is a country in which lightning strikes and surge voltages cause a high risk of personal and physical harm or damage to electrical and operational systems. “In addition to damaging critical patient care equipment, the destruction that lightning and power surges can cause to electrical and operational systems can be costly to repair or replace. Ensuring that hospitals are equipped with fit-for-purpose lightning protection systems is therefore of critical importance. Today’s modern hospitals are generally built with state of the art equipment, but the need to address lightning and surge protection in older hospitals in South Africa remains crucial,” concludes Puttkammer. DEHN is a globally active electrotechnical company offering comprehensive services, products and solutions in the field of surge protection, lightning protection and safety equipment. reflecting safety in the industry. • Maximise the message: ‘Are you in or out? Sav- ing lives first or in it for the money?’ • Maximise the message: ‘ELPA builds the indus- try so that everybody wins’. It must be understood that the only persons and companies that will not benefit from ELPA are those who are more concerned with ‘self’, and they will lose not only themselves but those around them. ELPA is not magical and cannot transform the industry without the industry. The industry is ELPA and ELPA is the industry. You are either in or out: the industry will speak and we must be listening and responding. How are the current standards and guidelines causing confusion for contractors? RE: Lightning protection systems are required based on the results of the ‘Lightning Risk Assessment’. A good lightning risk assessment quantifies ‘Does lightning threaten life and property?’ If yes, then the only question is: “How much lightning protection do I need?” Where the standards and guidelines do not de- mand the lightning risk assessment, they have lost their relevance to our industry. The method to quantify the lightning risk assessment may be too complicated or we have not yet found an optimal way to ‘say it like it is’. In principle, our standards and guidelines may be guilty of ‘talking too much and doing too little’. Is there any other information you would like to share? RE: ‘Rome was not built in a day,’ and competency did not start when ELPA was launched in June 2017. ELPA is simply the alignment of the industry to the goal of saving lives and protecting property. Every electrical contractor must strive to imple- ment lightning safety compliance. It is the invisible killer and will kill if you ignore it. Statistically ‘one-in- a-million’ may sound like good odds until that one is you. The higher the ground flash density, the greater the chance that it will be you or somebody you care about. When ELPA succeeds, the demand for good LPS is going to increase dramatically. We must gear for these demands or accept failure before we start. We must evolve to: • Implement more cost-effective solutions. • Provide more cost-effective materials. • Eliminate useless solutions that cost money. • Eliminate useless materials that cost money. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Enquiries: +27 (0)11 704 1487

a risk assessment, we zone the areas of the hospital into different parts, and distinguish between offices, waiting room areas, theatres and intensive care units (ICUs), for example. While all the areas of a hospital, in general, need protection from power surges, theatres and ICUs obviously carry supreme importance.” Puttkammer notes that South Africa boasts hospitals that offer world-class care, both in the public and the private sectors. Nonetheless, some of the country’s hospitals feature unique risks and challenges when it comes to surge protection. He says, “These risks include load shedding schedules, and from the perspective of nature, parts of the country are habitually at risk of lightning strikes as they are situated in high lightning strike density areas. On top of this, hospitals in general are larger buildings and are more susceptible to direct lightning strikes. “In addition, some of the country’s hospitals are situated in ageing buildings. Older buildings often have inadequate surge protection – even if they do have lightning protection installations – and this needs to be addressed. When existing hospitals are upgraded, the weaknesses of the older system can be revealed and this is where the need to improve the whole system can arise. 2004 through good leadership. Humility and placing the industry ahead of personal agendas is probably the most humbling perspective I walked away with. Competitors in the industry have put their differenc- es aside for the good of the industry and together are able to reap the positive fruits of their labour. In South Africa, we are taking the positives from the USA evolution and combining them with our own context. The fresh perspective has delivered a more effective business and financial model that was approved at our recent leadership meeting, which was made up of the ELPA Board, the ELPA NEC and major stakeholders in the lightning protection industry. This means that ELPA is changing, and the follow- ing are the most critical changes to note: 1. ELPA membership moves from emphasis on the individual lightning protection professional to the companies that are responsible for delivering lightning protection solutions. 2. Inspections will become compulsory and meas- ured compliance non-negotiable. 3. Certification is a measure of competence – this is not a change. However, a certification based on specific competence is required. Rather than a single certification level, ELPA will investigate and implement a multi-tiered certification commensurate with design compliancy and installation competency, with approved designs aligning with South African electrical competencies such as the master electrician. 4. The funding model will drive inspection and cer- tification costs down. 5. Skills development will allow individuals to pur- sue a career in lightning protection at all levels, from tradesman to professional graduates, with opportunities across the board. ELPA will not provide training but will endeavour to build a collaborative environment across all education infrastructure to support this skills development. Skills development is a first requirement to com- petency and compliance. What are ELPA’s other short-term goals? RE: • Implement the new business model. • Maximise the message: ‘Compliance is what saves lives and protects property’. • Establish a working certification framework that meets all requirements to successful lightning threat management: • Cost-effective design compliance. • Cost-effective lightning protection materials that do the job - dissipate lightning! • Optimised professional installations. • Honest and diligent inspections, with results

equipment, there are two main types of risk when it comes to electrical power surges, namely lightning strikes, both direct and indirect hits; and switching surges. “Switching surges can be external – from the power utility itself, or internal – potentially caused by the switching of a cooling system’s inductive load or possibly a generator switching over from the utility supplier.” Puttkammer says that because life support systems and other types of electronic monitoring equipment in hospitals are so important, they all run off battery operated uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems. “UPS systems reduce the chances of down-time significantly and, in fact, many steps are taken electrically to make sure systems are always on, and available and stable. However, there is always the risk of surges so surge protection is desirable, as it will complement and round off the whole protective system for optimal results, meaning ensuring a constant electrical supply. In short, you want the surge protection to try and make it infallible. “When we consider town planning in the broader scheme, as per IEC 62305, the best protection should always be implemented in hospitals to mitigate risk. When we at DEHN AFRICA carry out

LIGHTNING: IGNORANCE IS OUR ENEMY

RE: The first objective must be to equip the messengers. Every electrician and electri- cal contractor is a messenger. Across the country you see and work with the general public. We cannot hope to reach the gen- eral public with a sustainable message if it runs only surface deep. Legislation and regulations are artefacts of our intelligence and ambitions. Today, our ambition is to make them relevant, and to do that effectively, we must substantiate the reality with reliable statistics. Fatalities of any kind other than natural causes are unaccep- table. Death or injury by lightning through ignorance is not ‘death by natural causes’. We must build reliable records of fatalities in South Africa and then we need to reduce those deaths each and every year. Our role is to support the progressive elimination of unnecessary losses of life and property. Dreams are the start of all ambitions. Architects realise dreams and lightning protection systems (LPS) can be moulded to minimise any deviation of those architec- tural dreams. Timeously considered, an LPS can be aesthetically incorporated. ELPA will align with South African national associa- tions representing architects and engineers alike. Already we have started establishing

who represents whom and when they gather. In storm season, we will review any and every me- dium to send out messages directly relevant to the tar- get audience – people at risk to the threat of lightning. Have your recent travels to the USA given you a fresh perspective on where you want ELPA to go in the future? RE: Without a doubt, wisdom is required to deter- mine when to change and when to hold fast with a sound endeavour through a difficult stage. Our origi- nal business model was based on a healthy South African business model, but the key criteria placed a financial burden on the individual installers and did not address the real issues of market compliance, saving lives and protecting property. Simply coordi- nating and regulating is not what South Africa needs. The perspective gained from the USA experience was not simply ‘from the USA’ but from the largest lightning regulation body in the world, with the same fundamental expectations and carrying the same bur- den of expectation. In their case, the model evolved as a collective since 1936 with the United Lightning Protection Association (ULPA), and the launch of the Lightning Protection Institute (LPI) in 1955. The LPI really became a catalyst in the US from

lives and protecting property from lightning. ELPA is the culmination of South Africans call- ing for something better; achieving more with less; reaching more families, communities and industries across our society and making a difference; breaking the strongholds that hold us back from prosperity in a safe and vibrant economy. Bad decisions are made when good information is not available or has been purposely removed from consideration. What challenges is the lightning protection industry currently facing? RE: Confusing leadership and ignorance. In a coun- try where lightning is so prevalent, opinions abound, folklore and traditions intertwine, truth gets blended with myth, and good principles get poorly executed, which lends credence to false philosophies. Safety gets jeopardised, poor designs fail to protect, des- perate suppliers compromise on quality, over-priced materials and advice dissuade compliance, and poor articulation of standards and corporate bullying en- courage ambiguous application of rulings. Ignorance is our enemy and arrogance its ally. What are your plans to educate the general public on the dangers of lightning?

Enquiries: www.elpasa.org.za, +27 (0)82 372 3886 or info@elpasa.org.za

SEPTEMBER 2018 SPARKS ELECTRICAL NEWS