Comments on "Lightning and Surge Protection of Substations"

In this paper, the authors are to be congratulated for producing a short tutorial on application of surge protection for substations. They have outlined the problems and briefly discussed the reasons for selecting surge protection and the installation of series hybrid surge arresters. 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 paper has questionable objectives and is of dubious technical merit. Allowing the paper to be presented would be equal to endorsement by the IEEE and could and probably would be used for commercial exploitation. A similar paper was presented at the I&CPS 1993 meeting and a disclaimer and discussion was attached. This discussion will focus 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.