Why Surge Protectors Do Not Require 3c Certification - You May Not Know Yet

Some project bidding documents require surge protectors to have 3C certification. When encountering this situation, we often communicate with customers to ask why surge protectors do not have 3C certification.

1. What is 3C certification?

The full name of 3C certification is "China Compulsory Product Certification", the English name is China Compulsory Certification, and the English abbreviation is CCC. It is a product conformity assessment system implemented in accordance with laws and regulations in order to protect the personal safety of consumers and national security and strengthen product quality management. 3C certification is my country's compulsory certification standard. According to my country's laws and regulations, products in the 3C compulsory product certification catalog must obtain 3C certification before they can be sold in the domestic market. Otherwise, it will violate the law. Once it is found by the local quality supervision bureau, it will be punished with varying degrees of severity, ranging from fines, sealing of goods to forced suspension of business for rectification. However, products that are not in the compulsory product certification catalog do not need 3C certification, but can apply for CQC voluntary certification, which is equivalent to 3C certification.

2. Why does a surge protector not need 3C certification?

According to the 3C mandatory product certification catalog, electrical distribution products that need 3C certification include: leakage protectors, circuit breakers (including RCCB, RCBO, MCB), fuses, low-voltage switches (isolators, isolating switches, fuse combination appliances), other circuit protection devices (protectors: current limiters, circuit protection devices, overcurrent protectors, thermal protectors, etc.), relays (36V<voltage<1000V), other switches (electrical switches, vacuum switches, pressure switches, thermal switches, liquid level switches, temperature switches, transfer switches, automatic transfer switches, etc.), other devices (contactors, signal lights, auxiliary contact assemblies, master controllers, etc.), which do not include surge protectors. Therefore, surge protectors do not need 3C certification.

3. What kind of certification does a surge protector require?

Although surge protectors do not require 3C certification, it should be noted that the basic requirements of the country for surge protectors are that they must comply with relevant international standards and have highly authoritative certification certificates and test reports. Surge protector manufacturers should be able to provide type test reports and certification certificates for relevant performance to ensure that surge protectors can operate effectively in power systems and protect equipment.

At present, the legal institutions in China that can do third-party surge protector testing include: Beijing Lightning Protection Center, Shanghai Lightning Protection Center, Guangdong Lei Ningpu, Beijing Lei Shan, Zhengzhou Institute of the Ministry of Information Industry, Guangzhou Institute of the Ministry of Information Industry, Qingdao Angong Institute (Petrochemical) and other laboratories. They have the qualification certification of inspection and testing institutions issued by the State Administration of Technical Supervision.

At present, many surge protector manufacturers in China have type test reports or test reports issued by the above institutions, and a few manufacturers also have CQC certification. The third-party test report of domestic surge protectors is only responsible for the samples sent, while CQC certification will assess the production factory, and its authoritative ranking is: CQC certification> type test report> test report.