{"id":176703,"date":"2025-09-29T02:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T02:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/176703\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T02:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T02:37:10","slug":"the-firm-protecting-the-worlds-tallest-towers-from-lightning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/176703\/","title":{"rendered":"The firm protecting the world’s tallest towers from lightning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asha Patel, East Midlands<\/p>\n

\"ABBABB<\/p>\n

Furse started off as a steeple-jacking business more than 130 years ago<\/p>\n

A Nottingham firm that has protected buildings around the world from lightning strikes for more than 130 years, says climate change is pushing demand for its services. <\/p>\n

Electrical engineering company Furse was established by William Joseph Furse who acquired a steeple-jacking business in the city in 1893. <\/p>\n

In its history spanning more than a century, it has gone from protecting bell towers and church steeples to protecting the Burj Khalifa, currently the world’s tallest structure. <\/p>\n

Now ABB, the global electrical engineering corporation which owns Furse, has opened a new 9,500 sq m (102,000 sq ft) facility in Nottingham at a cost of \u00a327m. <\/p>\n

\"RegReg Baker<\/p>\n

Traffic Street in Nottingham used to be home to a number of Furse facilities<\/p>\n

The firm said an increase in extreme weather, that it attributed to climate change, has led to an increased demand in earthing and lightning solutions. <\/p>\n

According to the Met Office, there are about 1.4 billion lightning strikes each year – about 44 strikes every second. <\/p>\n

How does lightning protection work? <\/p>\n

Lightning strikes can cause serious, visible damage, including damaging trees, damaging buildings and even causing death. <\/p>\n

But ABB said “secondary effects” of lightning can also cause “catastrophic” damage to electronic systems inside buildings, including CCTV equipment, computers, alarm systems and more. <\/p>\n

Lightning strikes even a kilometre away can disrupt or destroy electrical equipment inside buildings, the firm said.<\/p>\n

Using the principle of a Faraday cage – an enclosure used to block some electromagnetic fields – ABB puts a mechanical system around buildings.<\/p>\n

That system is able to “catch the lightning and bring the energy to the ground”, Andrea Castella, ABB’s Europe region leader said.<\/p>\n

It also creates electronic systems that act as barriers to protect buildings from surges caused by lightning further away. <\/p>\n

\"ReutersReuters<\/p>\n

The Burj Khalifa and other tall towers are protected by the Nottingham-founded brand<\/p>\n

Paul Onyett global market development manager for ABB said while climate change was “one of the biggest factors” driving demand, changes to the way we work and live also played a role.<\/p>\n

He said: “In cities we’re seeing taller buildings so they need more protection. <\/p>\n

“We’re also seeing the transformation of digitalisation.<\/p>\n

“So we’re seeing more and more data centres coming online and those particular data centres need much more protection from lightning activity and surges.”<\/p>\n

Data centres are giant warehouses which house powerful computers used to run digital services – such as online banking, film streaming and AI processing. <\/p>\n

In the UK, 100 new data centres<\/a> – in addition to the estimated 477 currently running – are expected to be built over the the next few years.<\/p>\n

As well as protecting digital infrastructure, Furse has also worked with some of the world’s most iconic buildings. <\/p>\n

It is now working on the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, which once built, will surpass the Burj Khalifa as the world’s tallest structure.<\/p>\n

More than 100 employees will relocate from the existing Furse foundry in Wilford Road to the new facility at Fairham Business Park. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Asha Patel, East Midlands ABB Furse started off as a steeple-jacking business more than 130 years ago A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-176703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}