Transients are large, very brief and potentially destructive increases in voltage. They can be caused by lightning strikes – often many miles away – or by the switching of large electrical loads such as motors, transformers and electrical drives. Although they generally only last thousandths or millionths of a second, transients can devastate sensitive electronic systems. They disrupt system operations through data loss or corruption and unexplained crashes, degrade equipment components and circuitry, and shorten equipment life.
As the diversity of the UK’s generating plant increases, with relatively small-scale renewable power stations replacing older fossil fuel and nuclear plants, more switching is required to match supply with demand. Transients are therefore becoming more common at a time when businesses are more dependent than ever on vulnerable IT and data storage systems.
