Surge Arrestors

Lightning arrester - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There may be, it depends upon where in the overall system the arrestor is going to be installed, so simply substituting an identical looking arrestor can be a formula for disaster. Two of the key parameters are the amount of energy available and its duration.

A lightning strike in the middle of a radial transmission line might be less severe because the major source of energy is that contributed by the lightning bolt, which is of very short duration (relatively speaking). On the other hand a strike on a transformer that is located in a switchyard with multiple transmission lines, or worse, fed by multiple generators, has many times more available energy and of longer duration, meaning that the amount of power that the arrestor has to dissipate is much greater.

Grounding in the latter case is also much better (of lower impedance) so that the current has a shorter path and is much higher than it would be when faced with the combined impedance of the tower, its footings, and the local earth loop return path in the case of an isolated line line strike.

See the flowchart on page 8 of this ABB product brochure for info on how to make the proper selection

Have you considered taking some courses in electricity?

Yes and no.

No, there is no difference in the type of function these devices perform. Both will protect downstream components from a surge. Often they will sacrifice themselves to protect things downstream.

Yes, there is a significant difference in the amount of power each will allow to flow downstream, the amount of energy they will successfully stop without any damage and the amount of energy they will stop with damage.

This info may help you

Surge Arrestors

> Is there a difference between surge arrestor for line and surge arrestor for transformer

All do the same solution. How it is done varies significantly.

An ABB example of how all surge protection works:

http://www05.abb.com/global/scot/scot245.nsf/veritydisplay/abe7dffae47234f7c125736e0021458c/$File/pexlink.wmv