Philadelphia Energy Company Case Study

On June 21, 2019, there was a fire at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery in Philadelphia. While this fire resulted in no immediate fatalities, it was the latest of several fires at this facility going back decades. This fire turned out to be the proverbial straw, that broke-the-camel’s back and led to the closure of the largest refinery on the U.S. East Coast and the loss of tens of thousands of well-paying jobs.

With this loss of jobs fresh in the minds of the Philadelphia region, a local Energy company hired LEC to perform a lightning site survey at its refinery and surrounding facilities in the greater Philadelphia area to ensure that lightning would not be the cause of any future catastrophic events.

The site survey was performed in December 2019 and identified those locations with substantial lightning-related risk. Lightning-related risk includes risks from both direct and nearby lightning strikes that could cause ignition of flammable materials and or damage to electrical and electronic equipment. It should be no surprise that a refinery is loaded with flammable materials, electrical equipment, motors, pumps, electronic equipment, instruments, control systems, and more.

Fuel Tank Lightning Protection

As a result of the LEC site survey, the local energy company identified several domed, floating roof petroleum storage tanks of particularly high risk.

These tanks are within an area that is surrounded by a suburban neighborhood, including an elementary school less than a mile downwind.

These tanks contain a flammable, volatile material (gasoline) which, should they ignite, would cause a catastrophe and result in the nearby community being evacuated.

To prevent this from happening, LEC recommended that the fuel tank lightning protection done by both Dissipation Array Systems and Retractable Grounding Assemblies.

The DAS systems will prevent direct lightning strikes from terminating on the tanks, thus eliminating the possibility of ignition due to lightning.

The RGA’s will prevent arcing between the floating roofs and shells of the tanks, thus eliminating the leading known cause of ignition of floating roof tanks.

By taking these proactive steps with Lightning Eliminators to protect their petroleum storage tanks, Monroe Energy has greatly reduced its exposure to fire, and created a safer environment for the neighborhood surrounding these tanks.