Asia-Pacific Conference on Environmental Electmmagnetics

CEEM’ 2003 Nov. 47,2003 Hangzhou ,China

A Novel Measurement System for Substation Grounding Resistance

Ruifeng Huang, Bo Zhang, Lin Li
(Department of Electrical Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Baoding Hebei, 07 1003, China)

calculate the grounding resistance and the ground potential rise

Abstract: A measurement system including a notebook PC for
(GPR) of the grounding system [I].
substation grounding resistance has been developed. The
Step 2: Given the position of the current electrode, we
measurement method is based on short lead wire of current
simulate the situation of actual measurement and calculate the GPR,
electrode and a frequency inverter AC source with relatively low
in the software, between the grounding system and the current
power. Results of computation and measurement based on this
electrode.
novel method and the traditional method are presented to illustrate
Step 3:In the result of step 2, we find out a point between
the effectiveness of the measurement system. ’
which and the grounding system the potential drop is equal to the
Key words: Grounding resistance, substation, ground potential rise, GPR calculated in step 1.The point is the compensating point.
measurement system. In later measurement, we put the current electrode to the
1 Introduction position given in step 2, and the potential electrode to the
compensating point.
Traditional measurements of grounding resistance are based
2. 2 Principle of Low Power Source
on the fall-of-potential method. The method requires a long lead
Due to the background noise, in traditional measurement, large
wire of current electrode, so that the current electrode will be far
power source is needed to raise the Signal-to-Noise Ratio.
away from the zone of influence of the grounding system. And
In the novel measurement system, background noise is firstly
generally, in order to eliminate the influence of the background
measured. Then scan the frequency band around 50Hz to find a low
noise, a large AC current is injected into the grounding system
noise window in the ambient noise and set the power source
under test. Large current not only needs a large power source but
frequency to that. Thus the measurement current need not be very
also makes the measurement dangerous. All of these make the
large. Usually 0.5A is enough.
measurement difficult. In this paper, a novel measurement system
with low power source is presented which requires a relatively 3 Hardware Overview
short lead wire of current electrode.
n
2 Principle of Measurement
PI CI
2. 1 Principle of Short Lead Wire of Current Electrode

The fall-of-potential method has several variations. Of all, the

0.618 rule is the most widely used [2]. In order to apply the 0.618 I I I
2 z
rule, the following conditions should be satisfied: G R S
WIDER IESI
m FmE”
ELECTIDODE
1-
ELECTRODE
1. A fairly uniform soil
Figure 1 Configuration of Hardware
2. Large spacings so that the electrodes may be assumed
hemispherical The whole measurement system is mainly composed of four
Generally, the above conditions are hard to meet. In the parts: notebook PC, data acquisition (DAQ) card, PT&CT and a
condition of multi-layer soil and short lead wire of current electrode, frequency inverter AC source. The configuration of the
in order to get the true resistance of the grounding system, we can measurement system is showed in figure 1.
calculate the compensating point where the potential electrode 4 Field Test
should be put in the following steps: Tests were done to verify the measurement system. The
Step I:Given the structure and characteristics of the soil, the grounding system under test is composed of a main grounding
grounding system under test and the metal network around, we system, an auxiliary grounding system and a horizontally

57 1
suspended grounding electrode. Around the grounding system,
there are^ three buildings.
The soil resistivity was measured with the Wenner
Four-Electrode Configuration Method. The computation result of
the soil structure is showed in table 1.
6 References
[IIZhang Bo, Cui Xiang, Zhao Zhibin, et al).Analysis of grounding
grids at lartge scale subatations in frequency domain, Proceedings
of the CSEE, 2o02, 22 (9): ,j9-63
[Z]AMSI/IEEE Std 81-1983, IEEIE Guide for Measuring Earth Resistivity,
Ground Impedance, and Earth Surface Potentials of a Ground
System[sl

Table 1 Soil Structure

Layer Resistivity(0hm.m) Thickness(m)
114 1.4
5.891 1.717
351.8 9.425
16-27 CO

Before the measurement, the ambient noise was scanned. The

spectrum of the noise is showed in figure 2. From the spectrum, we
can select 45 Hz and 55 Hz to perform the measurement. The
ultimate result was got by interpolation.
c.333-
:I

Figure 2 Ambient Noise Spectrum

The measurement result of the grounding resistance, based on

long lead wire of current electrode, with the lead wire of potential
electrode perpendicular to the lead wire of current electrode and
almost having the same length, is 0.770 ohm. We take it as the true
resistance of the grounding system. The computation result is 0.785
ohm. Results of measurement based on the novel method and the
0.618 method are presented in table 2. It can be seen that the
method in this paper is better than 0.618 method and the length of
the lead wire of current electrode can be much shorter than other
method.

Table 2 Results Comparision

Length of lead wire 0.6 18 method Novel method
of current electrode Result Error Result Error
200m 0.860 11.7 0.810 5.2
150m 0.890 15.6 0.874 13.5
1OOm 0.955 24.0 0.833 8.2

5 Conclusion
A novel measurement system using low power source and
short lead wire of current electrode is proposed to measure the
grounding resistance. Tests show that the system is effective. The
measurement is easy to perform due to the short length of lead wire
of current electrode, and is safe to perform due to the low current
injected into the grounding system under test.

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