Bus bar systems for industrial and commercial facilities are often designed to save costs, with the bus bars sized to the minimum safety requirements permitted by local electrical codes. Often the future operating costs are ignored during the design stage, which can result in large amounts of wasted electrical energy due to the inefficient bus-bar conductivity or heating. While opting for larger cross-sections of bus bar can result in more efficient power distribution grounding systems – with less heating and lower operating costs – the optimum system is one that properly balances initial costs with operating costs in order to minimize total life-cycle cost.
At the National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE) conference, Storm representatives kept getting comments from tower installation professionals, stating they had a serious need for grounding bars with expanded capacity, which could accommodate more cable terminations. Storm Copper prides itself on is the ability to respond to special needs or requests from customers. Very shortly after the conference, Storm introduced a new grounding bar and optional kit that is well on its way to raising the industry standard from what has been historically a 4” bar.
