When standards do not set the standard

Occasional reason for complaints: Conflicting statements on the same thing in different standards

Different standards often make divergent statements on the same part or component of an installation. This is because, firstly, one standard deals with electrical safety (e. g. IEC 60364-5-54), another one with functionality and EMC (e. g. IEC 60364-4-44) and possibly yet another with lightning protection (e. g.  IEC 62305).

In many cases, the limits given in standards are mere estimates, so the respective bodies, since they all consist of technical experts, will always come to similar, but not necessarily the same limit values! Because standardisation, especially at an international level, is a very complex task, there is often a lack of communication between any two (or even more) bodies dealing with the same object from different perspectives. This is how the conflicting statements come about.

The table below gives a compilation of partly conflicting requirements. At present, attempts are being made to overcome these small, technically irrelevant, but all the more confusing deviations. For instance, the following requirements are given in the present Table 54-2 of draft IEC60364-5-54 (64-1610/CD):

It was also noted that copper and mild steel are mentioned as viable options to make an earthing electrode, but not stainless steel, although it is also used. Since it was not possible to motivate any representative from the stainless steel industry to take care of this matter, the copper representative did it, acting in deputy. Consequently, the draft now under discussion looks like this:

Further, a table of the conflicts and gaps found so far was compiled, and it looks like this:

Now these matters are being addressed and worked upon between the IEC technical committees TC 64 and TC81, so hopefully, the data will be less conflicting in these different standards after the next respective releases!