In the recently published reports on hard wired surge suppressors I had estimated the consumer segment of the American market for Main Service Entrance (MSE) surge suppressors at a mere ~$4.5M but had projected a CAGR of ~14% as I expected them to catch on with homeowners.
Here's the thing though. As I see it, I don't think that suppliers and their channels are doing nearly enough to promote them. At best, I see a 10% market penetration but that is only in extremely lightning prone states/regions.
I recently decided that I would have one of these things in my own house. I realized that although I of course use plug-in/line cord surge in all the usual places like my home entertainment and home office, equipment, elsewhere they are impractical. In the mean time, appliances, hot tubs, saunas, and the like all have electronic displays, controls and/or panels. These things likely have some internal surge protection but I'm pretty sure it's only good enough to minimize warranty expenses. After that, these items are a high margin cash cow for the suppliers. I live in the northeast and we do ocasionally have severe storms and I live near the top of a hill so it got me thinking that I should install one of these MSE surge suppressors.
I went looking for them in both of the big orange and blue home inprovement stores with very poor results. If they have them at all, they are hiding them among other commodity type electrical circuit breakers and similar products. If you are lucky, there will be one or two MSE somewhere in the 6 or 7 orange and/or blue stores in your vicinity. I also checked orange/blue inventory in other more lightning prone zip codes and found similar results. The in-store sales personnel I met were not very helpful. They indicated selling some MSE surge but only infrequently when people upgrade their electric panels or, slightly more frequently, after they already got hit by lightning and saw the impact of not being protected. Finally, I was able to obtain an MSE suppressor but it took even more effort to make sure it was a UL 1449 3rd edition certified unit.
In closing, I'm wondering why I have not seen these things being promoted more. How much would it take to get them in the orange and/or blue store's weekly fliers? Perhaps a run of commercials or infomercials would help promote demand. Unless this happens, (and perhaps I'm missing it because I'm in the northeast), it might be problematic to get to the ~14% CAGR I estimated.
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