IEC versus IEEE/ANSI MV Switchgear: Matching the Standard to the Application

Companies are increasingly expanding into overseas operations, often in countries where IEC standards are common. For simplicity, commonality and increased reliability of operations and for economies of scale in procurement the companies prefer to buy common products across all operations. When it comes to switchgear, the issue of which switchgear standard to follow then becomes critical with the IEC and IEEE/ANSI ones being most common. New versions of relevant circuit breaker and switchgear standards have been released by both IEC and IEEE in the past couple of years. An increasing degree of commonality can be seen in these standards. It is an opportune time to revisit the topic of whether it matters which set of standards is followed. In this paper, we cover the key similarities and differences between the underlying breaker standards and the switchgear standards, e.g., IEC 62271-200, IEEE C37.20.2 & C37.20.7, and see what the implications are for the applications seen in our industry.