What is Class 1, Division 2, Classification

Stand-alone Solar Electrical Installations in
Hazardous Locations ….
What is the Class 1, Division 2 Classification?
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Stand-
alone Solar Electrical Installations in Hazardous Locations ….
What is the Class 1, Division 2 Classification?
A Quick Primer
The Oil & Gas Industries have been major customers of the Off-
Grid Solar Electric Industry for many years. At a recent training
event—
Choosing the Right Charge Controller for Off-Grid Solar
Electric Systems—we learned that many of you want to learn more
about “What the Hazardous Locations (Class 1, Division 2 Groups
A-D) Classification means & Why you should look for this
important certification classification” when you purchase and
install charge controllers in a stand-alone solar powered industrial
electrical systems. This Primer answers those questions and
provides a quick, high-level overview of the Classification
Standards.
Protecting electrical equipment in hazardous locations, like the one
pictured below, requires special considerations to make sure that
the electronics (and their enclosures) are designed and operate in a
way that is ignition & explosion proof. Industrial solar
electrification systems that operate in hazardous locations in and
around the U.S. or Canada, (like those in the Oil & Gas Industries)
must be explosion proof and their electrical specifications must
comply with both the U.S. National Electrical Code (NEC) Division
and Canadian Standards Association (CSA) hazardous locations
classification systems—the NEC and CSA define hazardous
locations by class and division.
In other parts of the world, areas containing potentially explosive
atmospheres are dealt with using a “Zone System” classification
scheme. Zones are based predominantly on the International
Electro-technical Commission (IEC) and the European
Committee for Electro-technical Standardization (CENELEC)
standards. The most significant difference in the “Zone System”
is that the level of hazard probability is divided into three Zones
as opposed to two Divisions, as with the NEC and CSA
standards. Here is a quick summary chart illustrating these
Hazardous Location Basics:
Protecting electrical
equipment in
hazardous locations
requires special
considerations to
make sure that the
electronics (& their
enclosures) are
designed & operate
in a way that is
ignition &
explosion proof.