Lightning and surge protection course
IEC 62305 Edition 3:2024
This page is the course brochure. Print it, or save it as a PDF from your browser, if you need a copy to send.
What this course is
PQRS Lightning and Surge Protection Course is aligned to IEC 62305 Edition 3:2024. The course content covers general principles, risk, the outside lightning protection system, and surge protection inside the building.
The course is a pre-recorded online course and candidates can work through it at their own pace. The short-form lightning risk calculator on this site is a reference guide while you learn and go through the training material and concepts. It does not design the LPS or the SPD layout. How to do the design is also covered during the course.
Who it is for
- Electricians and electrical contractors.
- Solar installers.
- Sales and technical staff who have to explain a site to a client.
- Engineers who need a working grasp of IEC 62305.
- Small business owners who want to understand the risk process before they buy protection.
Candidates doing this course do not need prior lightning risk experience or knowledge, but might need to be comfortable with ordinary electrical work and with reading a site. A high-level understanding of DB boards, what surge protection devices look like, and electrical infrastructure layout will be advantageous.
How it runs
- Self-paced pre-recorded on-demand videos which can be watched when students have time, in the convenience of a preferred environment, office, home or during short breaks on site.
- Worked examples and straightforward calculations.
- The short-form tool on this site, to see how a change on the site moves the risk.
Create a PQRS account, pay for the course, then watch on the course page. The same login is the one you use for the calculators.
What we cover
The standard has four parts and the course content trains on all four. The short-form calculator was built on Parts 1 and 2, which cover the mathematical calculations.
Parts 3 and 4 are taught from the standard: how to specify the LPS and the SPDs that the risk result asked for.
Part 1 — general principles
What lightning is, and why it threatens structures and the systems inside them. Ground flash density: how often a site is likely to be struck. Lightning waveforms versus surge waveforms on a line, and why that split matters when you pick an SPD.
Part 2 — risk
The three kinds of loss in the 2024 standard: injury to people, physical damage to the building and what is in it, and failure of the electrical and electronic systems inside. How to work out the risk components, and how to bring the result below the limit you set for that building. How an LPS, bonding, SPDs, and fire measures each move the number.
Part 3 — lightning protection system (LPS)
Physical protection of the structure. Classes of LPS, and which class belongs on which building. Air termination, down-conductor material and spacing, earthing, and bonding so strike current has a path that does not jump through people or equipment. Step and touch voltage near a strike: the voltage difference in the ground that can hurt a person or an animal standing there. The calculator can tell you that an LPS is still needed. This part is how you then design it.
Part 4 — surge protection (SPDs)
Protection of the electrical and electronic systems inside the building. Coordinating more than one SPD so surge energy is shared, not dumped into the first device. Bonding at the incoming power and data lines. Matching SPD type to the waveform and to the withstand of the equipment. The calculator can tell you that surge protection is still needed. This part is how you then specify it.
What you should be able to do afterwards
- Read a site: how often lightning will hit, and where a surge can enter.
- Run a risk assessment to IEC 62305-2:2024, and see whether the result is still too high.
- Tell a client whether they still need an LPS, SPDs, or both — and why.
- Use Parts 3 and 4 of the standard to take the next step: class of LPS, bonding, and a coordinated SPD scheme. How far you can go on a given job still depends on your other qualifications and experience.
Price
R5 000 including VAT. Pay on the course page or on your account page once your email is confirmed.
After the course
Candidates attending this course can join the technical WhatsApp group for questions on the standard, on calculations, and on design.
What to do next
Open the course page to pay and watch. If you do not have an account yet, create one first. If you only want a first look at a site, run the short-form calculator — that part is free on screen.
Course page Create a PQRS account Short-form calculator
Public pages on this site cite IEC 62305. In South Africa the 2024 IEC text was adopted as SANS 62305 in 2025. We use IEC so people outside South Africa can still follow the same course and the same calculator.