Introduction to NEMA Arresters

Managing your surge protection assets is a critical task in the onerous responsibility of achieving a reliable power system. The purpose of this site is to assist users of surge arresters, in their arrester asset management decisions.

In the late 1970’s the surge protection industry experienced a significant paradigm shift in the surge protection of power systems. Since that decade, most surge protection decisions for power systems has involved Metal Oxide Varistor (MOV) technology.

There were several reasons for this shift in protection technology, but the primary reason was for better protection for the equipment on the lines. This improved protection from lightning and switching surges have lead to more reliable power systems throughout the world.

However porcelain housed Silicon Carbide (SiC) arrester technology can still be found on power systems today in spite of the fact that they are subjecting the systems with higher risk of outages due to lightning than can be achieved with MOV technology. The decision to remove these old arresters is difficult so this site was created to help make those decisions easier and understandable.

What we can do for you

  • This site can show you how to quickly determine where your system is at higher risk due to the use of the last generation SiC technology
  • It can show you the best course of action to replace those assets
  • It can advise you on how to select the replacement protection
  • It can show you options on installation
  • It can help you improve your system reliability in the end
  

Useful Info.

Make old arrester replacement a part of your Preventative Maintenance Schedule.

This is an accepted method worldwide. Preventative Maintenance is a known method of improving systems.

Use it….