ATEX Volt Stick LV12 developed for Brent

CenterPoint Energy are a US utilities company supplying natural gas to 4 million homes and businesses in six states: Indiana, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Ohio and Texas.

As part of their ongoing investment and improvement to their gas supply network they are in the process of replacing old cast-iron pipe with state-wide plastic pipe infrastructure.

In 2020, CenterPoint demonstrated their core values of ‘safety, integrity, accountability, initiative and respect’ when they contacted Volt Stick to help them deliver improved safety procedures to their gas technicians in the field.

CenterPoint field techs were using a non-contact voltage detector to check their working environment for stray voltages of 12 Volts or above on pipe work and metallic surfaces before they could be safely worked on.

The non-contact voltage detector they were using at the time had a variable sensitivity, making it over-complicated and potentially dangerous if it was on the wrong setting.

In January 2020, CenterPoint asked to try our industry standard Volt Stick LV50 as they were looking to replace their existing non-contact voltage detector with our easier-to-operate, intrinsically-safe version.

Although, at the time, CenterPoint stated a preference for a 12 Volt version, we explained that our ATEX and IECEx Certified intrinsically-safe versions were only available in either 50, 110 or 220 Volts, and so samples of the Volt Stick LV50 were issued to CenterPoint for trials.

Whilst CenterPoint trialled the LV50, their operations department continued to request a 12 volt version as this would offer their workers a larger safety factor and, as CenterPoint was a 14,000 employee company operating in 6 states, we couldn't ignore this request!

Despite the global Coronavirus lockdown, Volt Stick continued to develop a 12v version, and CenterPoint continued to gather feedback from their LV50 field trials. A few months later, CenterPoint's engineers came back with feedback that there were voltages lower than 50 volts which their engineers could come across, and so a 12 Volt version would still be preferred.

In April 2021, CenterPoint's Tool Committee met and confirmed their requirement for a 12 volt version of the LV50 and, as we had continued to develop it in the background, samples of the newly-deveoped Volt Stick LV12  were ready for field testing just a few weeks later.

CenterPoint field-tested the samples and their Tool Committee responded with their preferred option in August 2021.

We were then able to make a small batch of 50 units at our ATEX factory in Denmark until the full production was enabled in May 2022.

Contact the Volt Stick team for more information

Volt Stick has the widest range of non-contact voltage detectors in the world due to specialist products we have developed for specific markets over the years. If you have any special requirements for Non-Contact Voltage Detection then we’d love to discuss your project.

For more information email us now at info@voltstick.com or call us on: UK: +44 (0)115 9770075  |  US: +1 315 314 3112