Voltage spike (transients) are by far the single most destructive, costly and common power quality event. Transient voltage surge related activity costs worldwide companies billions of euros (dollars) per month in equipment damage, system downtime and lost opportunity.

Other events such as power outages, sags, swells and harmonics cause problems that are, relatively speaking, minor from an operational and cost standpoint. By contrast, a single high energy transient can take an entire system down for extended periods of time, causing process interruptions, shipping delays and significant loss of revenue.