Ready-to-go Commercial SPD Boards

Com­mer­cial SPD Boards

Mike Lawrence, Commercial Mar­ket­ Man­ager, ex­plains how our new mar­ket-lead­ing surge pro­tec­tion device (SPD) boards for com­mer­cial in­stall­a­tions are of­fer­ing elec­trical con­tract­ors a ‘ready-to-go’ in­teg­rated solu­tion.

We now of­fers one part num­ber for every size of its TPN dis­tri­bu­tion boards with the in­comer and surge pro­tec­tion kits fact­ory fit­ted, sav­ing con­tract­ors time oth­er­wise spent in­stalling the in­di­vidual ele­ments.

A com­bin­a­tion of full surge pro­tec­tion device in­teg­ra­tion within the MCB dis­tri­bu­tion board, and a num­ber of fea­tures and be­ne­fits to im­prove surge pro­tec­tion ef­fect­ive­ness, means elec­tri­cians and end-users can be as­sured that fit­ting our com­mer­cial SPD board guar­an­tees the very best surge pro­tec­tion.

One of the con­se­quences of the 18th Edi­tion of the Wir­ing Reg­u­la­tions has been an in­creased fo­cus on equip­ment pro­tec­tion against surge tran­si­ent voltages. In com­mer­cial in­stall­a­tions, the reg­u­la­tions cla­ri­fied why and where a surge pro­tec­tion device should be fit­ted, and out­line that it is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the elec­trical de­signer to en­sure the in­stall­a­tion is com­pli­ant.

The reg­u­la­tions are clear. Pro­tec­tion against tran­si­ent over­voltages needs to be provided where the con­se­quences caused by over­voltage could:

- Res­ult in ser­i­ous in­jury, or loss of hu­man life, or
- Res­ult in in­ter­rup­tion of pub­lic ser­vices and/​​or dam­age to cul­tural her­it­age, or
- Res­ult in in­ter­rup­tion of com­mer­cial or in­dus­trial activ­ity, or
- Af­fect a large num­ber of co-loc­ated in­di­vidu­als

Such scen­arios ac­count for the ma­jor­ity of com­mer­cial in­stall­a­tions, ran­ging from pub­lic build­ings and busi­ness premises, and re­quire the in­clu­sion of surge pro­tec­tion. In the un­likely event that a non-do­mestic in­stall­a­tion is not covered in the four scen­arios above, then a risk as­sess­ment needs to be per­formed.

Should the out­come of the risk as­sess­ment in­dic­ate that surge pro­tec­tion devices are needed, then it will be a reg­u­lat­ory re­quire­ment that they are in­stalled. Like­wise, if the risk as­sess­ment is not per­formed, then surge pro­tec­tion devices should be in­stalled.

New from us – full integration of SPD kits within the distribution panel board

To sup­port elec­trical con­tract­ors to re­duce in­stall­a­tion times, meet com­pli­ance re­spons­ib­il­it­ies, and al­le­vi­ate the need to pur­chase and fit sep­ar­ate pro­tec­tion device items for boards, the in­dustry can now be­ne­fit from our fact­ory fit­ted and fully in­teg­rated com­mer­cial SPD board to provide op­timum surge pro­tec­tion per­form­ance.

The new com­mer­cial boards have been en­hanced to en­able all surge pro­tec­tion kits to fit within the dis­tri­bu­tion board – as op­posed to be­ing loc­ated in a sep­ar­ate en­clos­ure. This in­nov­at­ive and mar­ket-lead­ing solu­tion provides the shortest con­nec­tions to the surge pro­tec­tion device from the in­com­ing sup­ply, and bet­ter per­form­ance when it comes to pro­tect­ing im­port­ant and of­ten valu­able equip­ment.

No secondary upstream protection devices required

In the past, surge pro­tec­tion devices re­quired an MCB/​​MCCB or fuses in the dis­tri­bu­tion board to provide backup pro­tec­tion us­ing one of the out­go­ing ways in the dis­tri­bu­tion board. Our new solu­tion re­moves this re­quire­ment. For ex­ample, a four-way board re­tains the abil­ity to be used for four TP ways rather than only three due to the SPD re­quir­ing one ded­ic­ated way. Re­mov­ing the re­quire­ment for a sec­ond­ary up­stream device sim­pli­fies and speeds up in­stall­a­tion times­cales.

SPD kits for TPN boards

Our Type 1 SPDs have been tested to en­sure they work ef­fect­ively in con­junc­tion with a Type 2 SPD in a down­stream TPN board. With the new reg­u­la­tions ad­vis­ing that SPDs should be se­lec­ted from a single man­u­fac­turer to en­sure they work to­gether, we have gone fur­ther with veri­fied test­ing to en­sure ef­fect­ive co-or­din­a­tion.

All Hager Surge Protection kits are CT2 type arrangements

To con­form to Sec­tion 534 of the 18th Edi­tion, our new surge pro­tec­tion kits in­cluded in the com­mer­cial SPD boards are CT2 type ar­range­ments. This means our SPD devices are ap­plic­able for all com­mon UK earth­ing ar­range­ments such as TNC-S (PME), TN and TT earth­ing sys­tems and re­move the risk of in­cor­rect se­lec­tion.

We have also in­tro­duced solid cop­per earth links in all SPD kits, achiev­ing a best in class up ef­fect­ive per­form­ance meas­ured at the main bus­bars of the dis­tri­bu­tion board.

To en­sure op­timum surge pro­tec­tion per­form­ance and re­li­ab­il­ity so that equip­ment can be fully pro­tec­ted, our new solu­tion of­fers fact­ory fit­ted and full SPD device in­teg­ra­tion for ‘ready-to-go’ in­stall­a­tions, the re­moval of the need for sec­ond­ary pro­tect­ive devices, the use of shorter con­ductor paths, and the in­clu­sion of solid cop­per earth links.

It all adds up to a power­ful, prac­tical and ef­fect­ive surge pro­tec­tion solu­tion that will aid pro­fes­sional con­tract­ors and re­as­sure end-users alike.

 

See ori­ginal art­icle on electricalcontractingnews.com