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To ensure that a person who is in the vicinity of earthed facilities during a fault is not
exposed to the possibility of a fatal electric shock.
To provide a low impedance path to earth for currents occurring under normal and fault
conditions.
Earthing standards
There are a variety of national and international standards available, which provide empirical
formulae for the calculation of earthing design parameters and shock potential safety limits. There
is some variation in formulae between the different standards. Three standards, which are widely
referred to, are:
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GroundRod AC Substation Earthing Tutorial
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The substation earth grid is used as an electrical connection to earth at zero potential reference.
This connection, however, is not ideal due to the resistivity of the soil within which the earth grid
is buried. During typical earth fault conditions, the flow of current via the grid to earth will
therefore result in the grid rising in potential relative to remote earth to which other system
neutrals are also connected. This produces potential gradients within and around the substation
ground area as depicted in Figure 1. This is defined as ground potential rise or GPR.
The GPR of a substation under earth fault conditions must be limited so that step and touch
potential limits are not exceeded, and is controlled by keeping the earthing grid resistance as low
as possible.
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In order to ensure the safety of people at a substation, it is necessary to ensure that step and
touch potentials in and around the yard during earth-fault conditions are kept below set limits.
These maximum permitted step and touch potentials are addressed within various national and
international standards. An illustration of step, touch, mesh and transferred potentials is provided
in Figure 1.
4.1 Step potential
The step potential is defined as the potential difference between a persons outstretched feet,
normally 1 metre apart, without the person touching any earthed structure.
4.2 Touch potential
The touch potential is defined as the potential difference between a persons outstretched hand,
touching an earthed structure, and his foot. A persons maximum reach is normally assumed to be
1 metre.
4.3 Mesh potential
The mesh potential is defined as the potential difference between the centre of an earthing grid
mesh and a structure earthed to the buried grid conductors. This is effectively a worst-case touch
potential. For a grid consisting of equal size meshes, it is the meshes at the corner of the grid that
will have the highest mesh potential.
4.4 Transferred potential
This is a special case of a touch potential in which a voltage is transferred into or out of a
substation for some distance by means of an earth referenced metallic conductor. This can be a
very high touch potential as, during fault conditions, the resulting potential to ground may equal
the full GPR.
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GroundRod AC Substation Earthing Tutorial
Soil resistivity
In order to calculate the GPR, the grid resistance firstly needs to be calculated. To do this, the
resistivity of the soil at site needs to be determined. This should ideally be obtained via site
measurements but if not possible can be determined from soil resistivity maps or tables available
in the standards. The Wenner test method is commonly used for site measurements.
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GroundRod AC Substation Earthing Tutorial
The soil resistivity can vary quite widely over a site and it is thus important that the measurements
are taken at several points in the site area. The average site value is thus calculated. Due to the
difference in resistivity with depth, two or more layer resistivity models are normally determined.
6.
Design considerations
6.1 Conductors
A substation earthing grid will consist of a system of bonded cross conductors. The earthing
conductors, composing the grid and connections to all equipment and structures, must possess
sufficient thermal capacity to pass the highest fault current for the required time. Also, the
earthing conductors must have sufficient mechanical strength and corrosion resistance.
It is normal practice to bury horizontal earthing conductors at a depth of between 0.5m and 1m.
This ensures that the conductor has the following properties:
Electrically connecting the fence to the earth grid, locating it within the grid area or
alternatively just outside.
Independently earthing the fence and locating it outside the grid area at a convenient place
where the potential gradient from the grid edge is acceptably low.
In America, the common practice is to extend the grid sides to 1 metre beyond the fence line. The
common practice in the UK is to erect the fence away from the grid sides, typically 2 metres, and
to earth the fence independently. This will, however, present a problem should the fence
inadvertently be connected to substation equipment, and hence the earthing grid.
6.4 Other earthing
The GPR at a substation is reduced by:
Overhead line earth wires which are connected to the substation earthing grid. This diverts
part of the earth fault current to the tower footing earthing.
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GroundRod AC Substation Earthing Tutorial
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Cables entering and leaving the site. The armouring of such cables is usually earthed to
the substation earthing grid at both ends. Part of the earth fault current will thus be
diverted to a remote earthing grid via the cable armouring.
Earthing design calculations
Performing earthing design calculations, using one of the standards above, is an involved and time
consuming process and there are various subtleties which need to be considered. The
GroundRod spreadsheet provides an easy-to-use, fast and accurate means to perform these
calculations. The program can perform the calculations in accordance with any of the three above
standards.
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