Sola AC Line Surge Protection
Sola AC line surge protection devices are engineered to shield electrical systems from transient overvoltages that can damage sensitive equipment. These surges can originate from lightning strikes, utility switching, or internal load changes within a facility. Sola’s surge protectors work by detecting sudden increases in voltage and safely diverting the excess energy to ground, preventing it from reaching connected devices. This protection is critical in industrial environments where automation equipment, PLCs, sensors, and control panels rely on consistent power quality to operate efficiently.
Sola’s surge protection line includes hardwired and modular units designed for both single-phase and three-phase systems. Their products use high-quality metal oxide varistors and hybrid circuitry that respond in microseconds, providing reliable clamping performance under repeated surge events. Many Sola surge protectors are built to meet UL 1449 and IEEE standards, with diagnostic indicators and status monitoring to simplify maintenance. These features help maintenance teams identify potential protection issues before failures occur, ensuring continuous uptime in demanding electrical applications.
Surge Protection Basics
What causes power surges?
Lightning strikes are one of the most common causes of power surges and can affect an electrical system even if the strike occurs miles from the electrical source. Conductors buried underground can still transmit the energy of the strike to electrical equipment located indoors. Lightning rods and other grounding equipment can help, but do not completely eliminate the risk.
Switching equipment such as motors, transformers and other equipment can cause a sudden change in load, power loss and disconnection of circuit breakers. This sudden switching can cause overvoltage, leading to power surges. The closer the switching occurs to the electrical system, the more threat it will pose to the equipment.
Operations that a user performs can cause surges, but typically have a very short duration. Examples include: starting a motor, opening circuit breakers and welding equipment.
What is the best way to stop power surges?
By using transient surge suppressors, the problems associated with most transient surges can be eliminated. They provide protection by either blocking or shorting the voltage over its operating limit to ground, protecting circuits downstream of the suppressor. The best way to approach this is in tiers.
Tier 1 – The protection is closest to the incoming power source. This is the main protection for a particular location.
Tier 2 – This is in an area that will be protecting multiple devices that have branch protection. An electrical control panel would be an example of this type of application.
Tier 3 – Individual protection. In the case of an industrial control panel, this would be protection for each instrument entering the panel.