Office and administration buildings are generally equipped with PCs, servers, networks and telecommunication systems. Should these systems experience failure, work processes and operations can be brought to a standstill. Lightning and surge protection specialist DEHN Africa, the local arm of global company DEHN + SÖHNE, offers comprehensive surge protection solutions.

Protection of power supply systems

The table shows examples of the types of surge protective devices that can be used inside an administrative building to protect it from surges. Combined arresters such as DEHNvenCI (1) and DEHNguard® (4) surge arresters can be used to protect power supply systems.

DEHNrail (5), SFL Protector (9) or DEHNsafe (11) protect terminal devices from surges and reduce induced voltages and switching overvoltages to safe values.

Protection of information and telecommunication systems

To ensure safe operation, both data and voice transmission require adequate protection elements. Networks are typically designed in the form of universal cabling systems. Even if fibre optic cables between building and floor distributors are standard today, copper cables are typically installed between the floor distributor and the terminal device. Therefore, the HUBs, bridges or switches must be protected by NET Protector LSA 4TP (8).

DEHNpatch (6) cables are used to protect terminal devices. The DEHN equipotential bonding enclosure (2), which can be fitted with LSA disconnection blocks and lightning current carrying DEHNrapid® LSA plug-in SPD blocks, can be provided for information technology lines extending beyond the building.

To protect the telecommunication system, NET Protector (10) can be installed in the floor distributor to protect the outgoing lines to the system telephones. A data protection module (12), for example, can be used for the system telephones.

Protection of building automation systems

Failure of building automation systems can have serious consequences. If the air-conditioning system fails as a result of surges, a data centre may have to be disconnected or a server may have to be shut down.

As shown in the table, bus systems such as KNX / EIB or LON can be protected by BUStector (13), DEHNconnect (14) or BLITZDUCTOR® XT (15).

Availability is increased if surge protective devices are installed according to the particular system and concept.