Essential requirements for earthing system determining the efficiency of lightning protection

One of the important factors in designing an efficient lightning protection (LPS) system is to determine if a considered object, system or installation is exposed or not to electromagnetic interference. An exposed system or installation is vulnerable to unwanted sources of current and voltage including the most severe interference sources, which are lightning currents with wide range of statistical parameters. A reliable lightning protection system (LPS) requires installation of earth termination and effective bonding system. In design process of any kind of earthing system it is important to assure high quality of its components and stability of their performance and technical characteristics. Most important are here adequate mechanical strength of material used for electrodes, conductors and clamps and their high corrosion resistance in different type of environment determined by soil parameters and climatic conditions. Bonding refers to the electrical interconnection of conductive parts designed to maintain a common electrical potential. The paper is addressed to characterization of fundamental requirements for LPS, given in new series of IEC 62305 and IEC 62561 (EN 50164) standards and presents the discussion on new required parameters and tests of lightning protection components related to requirements for conductors and earth electrodes, which are still under consideration within adequate maintenance teams and working groups of TC 81 IEC and CENELEC (CLC) TC 81X.