Retrofitting SPDs - Industrial Environment

Hi, apologies if this has been discussed previously but I’m after advice on retrofitting SPDs onto an existing installation which doesn’t currently contain any in an industrial environment. The installation is a 400V DNO supply to a main MCCB switch in one building which then supplies a large 400V Panel in a separate building, which contains multiple existing supplies and a spare switch which I am planning to use to supply my new equipment.

 

The DNO and MCCB switch don’t have anywhere practical to connect the SPD device which would mean amending the supply arrangement so the SPD can be added in.

 

Is it as simple as If I am not amending the existing supply arrangement, I just need to add a Type 2 SPD to protect my new supply and a potentially a Type 1 SPD onto the Panel for additional protection if it is easy to do so?

 

In the regs it says the SPD should be installed ‘as close as possible to the origin of the electrical installation’ but the SPD manufacturer stated it should be as close as ‘practicable’. Is the practicable statement correct or is that just a common sense approach?

 

Thanks in advance for any advice. 

Parents
  • ‘as close as possible to the origin of the electrical installation’

    To my mind there's a correlation between SPDs and bonding - after all it's no good shorting live conductors to c.p.c.s if the extraneous-conductive-parts some of your equipment is in contact with are at some completely unrelated potential. Given that where a single installation spans several buildings,  we repeat main bonding at the intake of each building, it makes sense to me to repeat the "origin" SPDs at that position too. The flipside of that argument coin is that if you've already put origin style SPDs in your local building (to cover all your new work), is there any immediate need to do the same at the official "origin" of the installation in a different building?  I'd suggest (from the point of view of physics rather than the lettter of the regs) probably not.

       - Andy.

Reply
  • ‘as close as possible to the origin of the electrical installation’

    To my mind there's a correlation between SPDs and bonding - after all it's no good shorting live conductors to c.p.c.s if the extraneous-conductive-parts some of your equipment is in contact with are at some completely unrelated potential. Given that where a single installation spans several buildings,  we repeat main bonding at the intake of each building, it makes sense to me to repeat the "origin" SPDs at that position too. The flipside of that argument coin is that if you've already put origin style SPDs in your local building (to cover all your new work), is there any immediate need to do the same at the official "origin" of the installation in a different building?  I'd suggest (from the point of view of physics rather than the lettter of the regs) probably not.

       - Andy.

Children
No Data