Protection from sudden surges

Surge protection is a vital aspect of protecting your electrical installations and equipment from sudden voltage spikes or surges. Surge protectors or suppressors are used to divert excess electrical energy away from your devices and installations, preventing any potential damage.

There are many ways a surge event can occur, for example:

  1. Lightning Strikes/ Lightning discharges (LEMP)
    The technical term for lightning discharge is LEMP. This stands for lightning electromagnetic pulse. Lightning strikes during storms cause extremely high transient overvoltages. They are much higher than surge voltages that are caused by switching operations or electrostatic discharge. However, they occur a lot less frequently than other causes.
  2. Switching operations (SEMP)
    Switching operations are referred to with the abbreviation SEMP. This stands for switching electromagnetic pulse. In this context, switching operations mean the switching of powerful machines or short circuits in the power supply network. During such operations, significant current changes occur in the affected cables in a split second.

  3. Electrostatic discharges (ESD)
    The abbreviation ESD stands for electrostatic discharge.
    Here, an electrical charge is transferred when bodies with a different electrostatic potential approach or come into contact with one another. A familiar example of this is when a person becomes charged while walking over a wall-to-wall carpet and then discharges to a metal grounded object, such as a metal rail.