The role of standards as enabler of optimized MV switchgear design

Electrotechnical switchgear used for network operation has high stakes in term of safety and power availability. For this purpose, it is essential they rely on high level standards such as IEC, IEEE, GB or GOST standards. Using a marketing approach, the main expectations from standardization are to meet customer values. For the best efficiency, standards and consequently customer specifications should be expressed to look for the optimization of the products. In that sense, open functional approach in standardization rather than fixed technological approach is preferable. Optimized technical specification rather than over-specification allows for lower cost and is more environmental friendly. Because of its international nature, IEC functional approach, allows for the best optimization of MV switchgear designs. It is seen that other major standardization bodies now have close links with IEC.