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roykav NEUTRAL GROUNDING IN PARALLEL CONNECTED Options

Visitor
GENSETS
11-02-2014 12:22 AM

hi all,
There is 4nos. 3.3kV, 2000kVA gensets which is parallel connected. all of its neutrals are grounded individually without
NGR, and each gensets are provided with e/f protection by neutral cts in the neutral to ground cable. but i seen most of
he systems are usually grounding only one geset neutral. my question if only genset is grounded, how the rest of the
gensets will be protected from earth fault, please share you valuable knowledge. see the attached sketch for the
present system design. thanks.

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see-deif Re: neutral grounding in parallel connected gensets Options

Contributor 11-11-2014 04:35 PM

Hi
Is you power system 3 wire or 4 wire? MOST medium voltage systems are only transformer or motor loads, making
them 3 wire systems. I will ASSUME you are dealing with a 3 wire system (no phase-to-Neutral connected loads).
Are your alternators fully rated insulation or partially rated insulation? That is, can the run ungrounded? Some MV
alternators have only partial insulation near the N point and MUST be solidly grounded.

In the case of a 3 wire system, any '51N' current in your drawing is really ground current. Your drawing shows only 1
earth/ground connection per gen. That won't work well if gens are operated in parallel. Let's assume you have a phase
to ground fault in the swbd with gens paralleled. You won't know how much ground current will return via which
generator. It is possilbe to have very high ground currents and never trip any generators since the fault current will split
between gens.

An alternative could be to connect all the neutrals together, then go to ground only at one point. Then meter that one
point. That is not optimum because you will trip all the gens off for any ground fault, but it is better than not tripping at
all. (OK, I know that is opinion, but I am erring on the safe side.)

Do your feeder breakers have ground fault? Probably by zero sequence? You MIGHT be able to coordinate tripping,
but it is going to require the gen N relaying have some time delay. It is essentially impossible to coordinate instantenous
overcurrent tripping. (You can use Zone Selective Interlocking.)

SO, to answer your question, yes you will be protected on each generator for a ground fault. Probably too much! Any 1
fault will probably, eventually, trip all gens off. Fault current could be very high, perhaps exceeding the KAIC rating
of the breakers. This is not a good system and will result in either excessive tripping (no coordination) or no tripping
(arcing / higher impedance fault).

You are wise to be concerned!

Good luck
Steve

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