Industrial Surge Protection Solutions

Read More: raycap.com

 

 

What is industrial surge protection?

 

Industrial businesses function within spaces that can be more threatened by weather and natural phenomena than others. Industrial surge protection is a suite of products and processes that protect from one of the main threats to equipment and functionality in the field: electrical surges and lightning-caused overvoltage. This happens because of the exposed nature of the equipment involved in industrial processes, spanning a wide variety of business types and configurations. Essentially, the issue is that equipment that must be positioned in exposed areas needs to be powered and able to communicate with other equipment involved in the process. The connection lines and structures that hold these pieces of equipment make them vulnerable to the massive spikes in electrical flow that happen after a nearby lightning strike. When excess electricity is introduced into the industrial system either through a lightning strike or through failures in the grid system that supplies power, all equipment at the site is in danger. This excess electricity travels along the conductive surfaces or connectivity lines that interconnect these components, overwhelming the circuitry of each one in the process. The electrical surge moves along these cables and from element to element until it reaches the earth. Along the way, it is continuously causing damage to equipment that was not originally the subject of the strike or switching error. This compounds the amount of damage that is done, and makes restoration to functionality more expensive, more difficult and more time-consuming. The only effective way to combat this issue is through the proactive installation of devices that either reroute the electrical flow outside of a safe range or create a gap that the electricity flow cannot cross. This is the essence of surge protection in general, the utilization of a pass-through device that can detect excess power outside of a safe range and stop that electricity from moving past the point of installation. Through the elimination of a pathway to flow on, the electricity cannot impact devices installed past the point of installation of that SPD. This functions to minimize the damage that occurs when the unfortunate but inevitable power surge happens.

 

Industrial surge protection functions essentially the same way that the surge protectors you have in your home function, creating a stop gap that excess electricity cannot pass through, thereby protecting the devices installed beyond it in the flow path. The industrial level of surge protection needed is far more extensive, as the levels of power to allow functionality at an industrial installation are far greater. The surge protection devices themselves must be more robust and technologically advanced, as they protect equipment worth far more than any household would ever have. They also need to allow for fast restoration to functionality after an event, as many industries that utilize them require uptimes that are nearly 100%. Because the threats are greater, the electrical surge protection must also be more significant.