Solar farms can be particularly vulnerable to lightning-related damage if proper protection measures are not implemented. SLS recently performed a lightning vulnerability study for a large solar farm in North Florida. The solar farm had previously experienced damage as a direct result of lightning. SLS executed a thorough drawing review and a site visit to perform a detailed inspection and a series of bonding, loop resistance, and ground-to-earth resistance measurements. The inspection results and measurements allow SLS to identify existing vulnerabilities and propose detailed mitigation strategies to the customer.

SLS frequently performs similar lightning damage mitigation studies. Many times, the resolution to addressing lightning damage is not straight forward. SLS’ utilizes our combined expertise in lightning instrumentation and protection to recommend necessary modifications to existing lightning protection, instrumentation/power cable routing, shielding, and bonding, grounding topologies, surge suppression, etc. to mitigate lightning damage concerns.