Getting more people into electric vehicles is a major component of the Biden administration's plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According the US Department of Energy, the U.S. has over 44,000 public charging stations for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs), with over 180,000 charging ports. ¹However, the government's $2 trillion infrastructure bill calls for a whopping 500,000 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations by 2030.

That's an ambitious goal, given that over 30 percent of charging stations reside in one state—California, which leads the nation in EV sales. Other states with strong EV sales include Florida, Texas, and Washington.²

Big hopes for EV boom
While the EV revolution has been slow to arrive in other parts of the nation, experts predict a rapid increase in BEVs and PHEVs sales as prices gradually fall and major manufacturers, including Ford and General Motors, ramp up production to catch industry leader Tesla. In 2020, BEVs and PHEVs represented slightly more than 2% of vehicle sales in the United States, totaling just over 295,000 vehicles. ³In order for EV adoption to occur at desired levels, the EV charging infrastructure must expand—and fast.

Electrical surge protection in an industrial setting has significant differences from residential, retail, and typical office settings – it is quite literally “no place like home.”

To begin with, the electrical service is different than it would be at home. Residential and non-industrial settings most often make use of single-phase power service at 120 or 240 volts. Electric service in commercial buildings is usually 120/208 volt three-phase power; in larger facilities service may go up to 277/480 volts. In contrast, industrial sectors like critical infrastructure, gas and oil facilities, factories, chemical plants, food processing plants and mining operations have much larger power requirements. In these settings, three-phase power with nominal service voltages of 240, 480 and 600.

It’s a fact that electronic systems live longer and are more reliable when they’re protected against power surges and spikes. As an integrator, if you fail to include Surge Protection Devices on new system installs, you could be failing your customers by not providing them with your best quality of service.

If any of the four reasons listed below sounds like something you might say, you need to keep reading. For each one, we are adding some useful information that will help you provide the best guidance and service possible – and keep your customers coming back to you and recommending you to others.

When a concerned mother came to her daughter’s school to review surveillance video that would confirm or dispel her fears about whether her daughter might have been harmed at school, she was told the video had been deleted in a “freak accident” according to a news story in Delaware Online. School staff reported that there had been a power surge in the days just after the alleged incident that wiped data from the hard drive of the school’s surveillance system. Months later, even after enlisting the help of the security company that had sold the system to the school, officials were still unable to produce the video or determine if it would ever be possible to do so.

Protection against transient surges is only as good as the quality of the surge protector. Even if an electrical grid never experiences a massive transient surge, the hundreds of daily surges slowly deteriorate the surge device. It’s important to remember that these devices need to be replaced because faulty SPDs can create as many issues as not having a device installed at all. At DITEK, there are both AC Power Products and Low Voltage Products that have indicators built in that show if they’re ready for replacement. Some also have an alarm that sounds when it’s time to replace, but more often than not, a dedicated person needs to visually inspect each device.