National Electric Company (NEC)

In 2015 Paradise Electric designed a lightning protection system in five hydropower plants of the National Electric Company (NEC).

These are: “Boyana” HPP, “Byal Izvor” HPP, “Tazha” HPP, Ustovo HPP and “Beli Iskar” HPP.

NEK’s technical requirements for the design of lightning protection for these hydroelectric plants included:

lightning protection with E.S.E system
covering the building, the building site and the area around the HPPs with its diagram; to have a separate and completely independent earthing loop to be galvanically and spatially separated from the hydroelectric grounding ground, and the proposed E.S.E lightning rods must have two down conductors according to NFC standards 17-102: 2011 and UNE 21186: 2011 “

In the project it was necessary to present a measurement of the specific soil resistance at the site designated for the construction of the ground loop in order to accurately determine its configuration.

The proposed grounding configuration was based on calculations using professional software.

The projected lightning protection system for each hydroelectric plant offers the use of lightning counters that will allow to control and track statistics of lightning strikes on the hydropower concerned.