Comments on “lightning and surge protection ofsubststions”

The author comments on the paper by R. B. Carpenter and R.A Auer (see ibid., vol.31, no.1, 1995). The author congratulates the original authors for producing a short tutorial on application of surge protection for substations. He points out that they have outlined the problems and briefly discussed the reasons for selecting surge protection and the installation of series hybrid surge arresters. He suggests that the balance of the paper is pure commercialism, lacking experimental evidence to support conclusions and lacking the ability to duplicate and confirm the work as suggested in the IAS' Author's Guide. The author argues that the paper has questionable objectives and is of dubious technical merit. The author's discussion focuses on the technical aspect of the Multipoint Discharge System (MPDS), a noncommercial term, and the misuse of IAS to meet NFPA suggestions to legitimize the method