From July 12 to 14, 2017, Adhoc Group 19 of the IEC Lightning Protection Committee (81) was held at the headquarters of the American National Standards Institute Headquarters (https://www.ansi.org/) in Washington DC on the initiative of the host Mitch Guthrie (USA).
As a reminder, this group was formed at the last plenary meeting of the Committee 81.
During the last committee meeting in Poland in October 2016, Mr Chris Agius, IECEx + IECQ Executive Secretary, led a brief discussion on certification of persons and product conformity assessment. The benefits of an IEC conformity assessment program were discussed along with the requirements of its implementation. It was unanimously agreed to establish an Ad Hoc group to review the information provided, study possible actions to be undertaken by TC 81 in Conformity Assessment in the field of lightning protection. The Ad Hoc group will report to TC 81 at the next TC meeting.
In addition to the local participation of Germany, Spain, France, Japan, Portugal and the USA, documents were provided by England, Belgium and Italy to establish a comparative situation of certification in the various countries listed.
It is clear that the situation is very disparate most countries only dealing with part of the activity (usually products or installation) or does not require certification. Only France with its Qualifoudre
system (https://www.ineris.fr/fr/presentation) has a complete system which processes the products, the study, the installation and the verification and which in addition certifies the companies (the other international systems when they exist certifies only the people or the products).