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WINDFARM GROUNDING

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 2016 CIGRE C4 International Colloquium on EMC, Lightning and Power Quality
Considerations for Renewable Energy Systems

WINDFARM GROUNDING

Paulo Edmundo da F. Freire

PAIOL Engenharia
Unicamp
Paulínia, Brazil
paulofreire@paiolengenharia.com.br

Abstract— This paper presents a review of the typical design
and the commissioning methodology of wind farm grounding
system. This kind of large area generating plant is often built
on high resistivity grounds. The wind turbines are structures
highly exposed to lightning, due to its height and geometric
aspect, besides being located in treeless and lightly undulated
plains. High ground resistivity results in high grounding
resistances for the towers individually, and for this reason, the
design of a windfarm grounding system needs to be conducted
in an integrated manner, considering at least the contribution
of the foundations reinforcement steel and the interconnection
of the towers’ bases within a wind turbines cluster.
The design of grounding systems of large facilities, such as
industrial complexes, petrochemical, power plants etc., with
dimensions of the order of hundreds of meters, are usually
developed with the same methodology applied to conventional
substations, which typically have dimensions on the order of
tens of meters.
This work presents the limitations of the typical methods used
for the design of wind farms grounding systems, and suggests
a more compatible approach, considering the following
aspects:
 resistivity measurements and geoelectric modeling of the
ground;
 simulation of large groundings, considering the non-
equipotentiality of this kind of system; and
 the need to reduce the transient impedance of the wind
turbines groundings, considering its lightning performance.
Keywords — windfarm; grounding; lightning protection.
I. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WINDFARMS
The typical wind farm has the following structure:
 wind turbines separated from each other for about 400 m,
generating energy at low voltage (400 V to 600 V);
 a transformer located in a cubicle at the base of each
turbine raises the voltage to 34.5 kV, feeding an overhead
or underground energy collecting network;
 the turbines are grouped within one or more windfarms,
which are interconnected by medium-voltage lines to an
interface substation, which makes the interconnection with
the transmission system;
 the typical grounding of each wind turbine comprises two
rings of 70 mm² bare copper cables, interconnected to the
steel reinforcement of the tower foundation, and these
rings may be complemented by steel-copper rods and by
radial grounding conductors;
 the foundations of neighboring towers are eventually
joined by buried bare copper cable or by the shield wires
of the 34.5 kV lines.
Windfarms and their medium voltage transmission lines, can
be classified as facilities with extreme exposure to the effects
of lightning, usually due to a combination of several critical
conditions, such as:
 unsheltered areas, sometimes very exposed to the direct
incidence of lightning;
 very tall towers, which favor the formation of ground-to-
cloud lighting;
 high resistivity ground, which makes it difficult to obtain a
good grounding;
 very frequently the interconnections are done by overhead
medium voltage lines, also very exposed to the effects of
direct and indirect lighting.
The grounding of a wind turbine tower can be analyzed from
the point of view of two parameters:
 impulsive impedance - ground response to a current
impulse, the case of the front wave of a lightning, which is
the ground impedance viewed by the lightning at t = 0+,
immediately after its incidence; and
 leakage resistance - valid for low frequencies, as is the
case of a short-circuit to ground in the medium voltage
network, which can be seen as the resistance to the impulse
tail that appears after the transient associated with the
lightning front wave.
II. DESIGNING AND COMMISSIONING CONSIDERATIONS
A. Restrictions to the Typical Design Methodology
The grounding design of windfarms very often is limited to a
typical drawing of the tower base grounding, and when
resistance calculations are done, uniform ground model is
used. Ground models are obtained based on a few resistivity
measurements, usually made by the Wenner technique with
spacing, at most, ranging up to 32 m.

1

B. Restrictions to the Typical Commissioning Practice
The grounding resistance and step/touch potentials
measurements, usually performed when commissioning the
facilities, are very frequently unreliable. Typically, the
resistance is measured with low power equipment and using
small distances for the remote current probe, incompatible
with the size of the base of the wind turbines and the
resistivity of the local ground. The usual practice is to apply
the potential drop method, with the measurement of only three
points on the ground, at a distance about 62% from the total
tower to current probe spacing (between 50 to 100 m), without
the construction of the complete resistance curve, and taking
the average of the three resistances as the grounding resistance
of the tower.
As the ground where the windfarms are constructed present,
usually, high resistivity, and considering that the remote
electrode current is not located at a sufficient distance to
ensure uncoupling with the base of the tower, the measured
resistance is actually only a fraction of the real value, allowing
to the wrong conclusion that the resistance is low and
acceptable.
It should be noted that the higher the ground resistivity, the
farthest the remote current probe shall be positioned, for the
correct measurement. For the typical windfarm, the proper
distance between the remote current probe and the tower base
is usually much higher than three times the base diameter.
Another typical situation in the field is the resistance
measurement without verifying if the base of the tower is
connected to the neighboring towers, either through bare
copper buried cable or by the shield wires of the medium
voltage transmission line.
In the case of step and touch potentials measurement, the
difficulty is the same, as the reference source used to simulate
the short-circuit needs to be enough spaced from the base of
the tower, under the risk of measuring only fractions of true
step and touch potential. Here also, it is important to take into
account the existence of ground interconnections with other
towers and substation, and also the measuring alignment with
respect to buried cables.
It can be concluded that the commissioning tests of the
grounding system of a wind farm is dependent not only from
the local ground characteristics, but also on the topology of the
grounding system and on the construction stage of the
windfarm. The complexity of this process requires a field team
that knows very well the work to be done, familiarized to the
grounding design of the wind farm and with the
commissioning procedures.
III. WINDFARM GROUNDING DESIGN
Among the various aspects that shall be considered in this type
of project, it is worth to mention:
 the grounding of the windfarm as a whole, including the
tower bases, buried interconnections, medium voltage
shield lines and the interface substation;
 the non-equipotentiality of the grounding system, which
due to its dimensions, certainly will result on potential
differences, even for power short-circuits (60 Hz), and
 the ground model – which shall be representative of the
specific windfarm subsystem that is being studied, what
may be a tower cluster or the interface substation.
The windfarm grounding design should start with a field
campaign for the measuring of ground resistivity, including
the following set of electroresistivity soundings:
 by the Wenner arrangement, with up to 64 m spacing at the
construction site of each tower and also at the substation;
 by Schlumberger arrangement, with higher spacing (if
possible up to 1000 m between current probes) at selected
alignments, preferably coincident with the towers rows.
These soundings should be complemented by the geotechnical
survey of the area, with the evaluation of the local lithology
and geological structure.
Based on this data it is possible to build ground models that
are effectively representative of the ground volumes involved
in the dissipation processes of electrical currents into the earth,
upon the occurrence of lightning or short circuits to ground.
From the electrical and civil drawings, it can be evaluated the
options of grounding system for the windfarm. At this stage of
the work is necessary the availability of a short-circuit study,
considering faults phase-to-ground at the substation buses and
at the medium voltage cubicles at each tower. This short-
circuit study should determine the phase-to-ground short
circuit currents, including the contributions of the lines that
feed each faulting point. The study of the windfarm grounding
system shall include two types of simulations:
 phase-to-ground faults in the medium and high-voltage
systems (60 Hz); and
 injection of high frequency current (25 kHz) on the towers
bases, in order to simulate lightning.
This set of simulations allow for the evaluation of the selected
grounding topology for the windfarm, resulting on the
following information:
 design values of the resistances of the substation grounding
grid and of the windfarm towers, at 60 Hz and 25 kHz;
 step and touch potential mapping in the substation and on
the bases of the towers;
 transferred potential between different parts of the
windfarm, in the event of faults to ground.
Among the results of the grounding studies, it shall be defined
if the substation grounding grid has to be interconnected the
towers groundings.
IV. GROUNDING PERFORMANCE AT HIGH-FREQUENCIES
The application of sinusoidal high-frequency currents for the
evaluation of a grounding grid, either as a field measurement
or by a computer simulation, is a useful method for the
evaluation of the ground response to the wave front of a
lightning discharge.
2
The IEEE Guide 81/1983 - "IEEE GUIDE FOR
MEASURING EARTH RESISTIVITY, GROUND
IMPEDANCE", in item 12.6 "High-Frequency Earth
Resistance Meter", presents the technique for the measurement
of grounding resistance of transmission line towers with an
equipment that operates at 25 kHz.
For the evaluation of the response of wind turbine towers to
direct lightning, the technical literature recommends the use of
the 10/350 wave, which is characteristic of positive polarity
lightings generated at the top of high and thin structures
(which are only 1% of the lightning). These structures are
considered "triggers" of ground-to-cloud lightning, which
have return strokes with higher peak values (dependent on the
wave front) and energy (associated with long wave tail). The
10/350 wave simulates also the effect of the superimposition
to the lightning surge current, of the traveling wave resulting
from the reflection/refraction process of the lightning return
wave at the top and the base of the tower.
The sine wave at 25 kHz has the period (T = 1/freq.) of 40 μs
and is situated around the middle of the range from 1 to 40
kHz, where the 10/350 standard impulse wave presents the
largest energy content. Also, both the 25 kHz sine wave and
the 10/350 μs impulse take the same 10 s to reach the peak
value. It can be considered, therefore, that the grounding
response at the frequency of 25 kHz is a good approximation
of the 10/350 standard impulse wave.
Fig. 1. Superposition of a 25 kHz senoidal wave on the 10 x 350 s standard
impulse wave.
V. SIMULATION OF TOWER GROUNDINGS
It was simulated a few different configurations of wind turbine
groundings, considering two uniform soil resistivity values:
550 Ωm (medium resistivity) and 1000 Ωm (high resistivity).
Figure 3 shows the simulated groundings, constituted by the
steel foundation reinforcements of a 16 m tower base
diameter, 13 m long vertical anchor bolts and a 70 mm² bare
copper wire ring, 19m in diameter, on the outer perimeter of
the tower base.
VI. EVALUATION OF THE SIMULATIONS
In the following evaluations, to facilitate the understanding of
the text, the 60 Hz calculated values are treated as grounding
resistances, while the 25 kHz calculated values are treated as
ground impedances.
It shall be noted that the grounds constituted by lumped
elements (foundation reinforcement, anchor bolts, copper
cable rings or relatively short radial conductors) present quite
similar resistance and impedance values, but when the long
wires are applied (which are the only solution for effective
reduction of ground resistance), the resistance values are
reduced more than the impedance values. It is evident that the
performances of the grounding for short-circuits and lightning
are quite different.
For separated towers, where the grounding is provided only by
the steel reinforcements of its foundation and by the 70 mm²
bare copper cable rings, the ground resistivity of 550 Ωm
results on almost equal values for the resistance and
impedance, around the 10 Ω threshold design value typically
specified by the wind turbines manufacturers. For 1000 Ωm
ground resistivity, the simulations show that the local
grounding alone is not able to comply with the 10 Ω criterion.
The complementation of the foundation ground with four rods
9 m deep results in a less than 10% reduction of the grounding
resistance and impedance values. The connection of two
relatively short radial conductors (50 m in length) promotes a
reduction of about 25% of the resistance and impedance
values, not enough to attend the desired limit of 10 Ω at high-
resistivity grounds. In these grounds, only the use of long
counterpoises enables the resistance and impedance reduction
to values below 10 Ω.
In Tables 1 and 2, the simulations are sorted in descending
order of grounding resistance, and it can be seen that longer
groundings present lower resistances. The analysis of the
impedance values shows a not so systematic variation, which
depends on the extension and also on the number of radial
conductors.
3
 TABLE I. CALCULATED RESISTANCES/IMPEDANCES FOR UNIFORM RESISTIVITY GROUND MODEL

ρ = 550 Ωm ρ = 1000 Ωm

Grounding Configuration R (60 Hz) Z (25 kHz) R (60 Hz) Z (25 kHz)

1 Single AG (fig. 4a) 9,59 Ω 9,63 Ω 17,43 Ω 17,47 Ω

2 AG + 4 x 9 m rods (fig. 4b) 8,65 Ω 8,72 Ω 15,72 Ω 15,78 Ω
3 Single AG with 2 x 50 m radial counterpoises (fig. 5a) 7,07 Ω 7,50 Ω 12,85 Ω 13,17 Ω
4 Single AG with 4 x 50 m radial counterpoises (fig. 5b) 5,39 Ω 5,88 Ω 12,25 Ω 12,39 Ω
5 Single AG with 2 x 100 m radial counterpoises 4,93 Ω 7,12 Ω 8,96 Ω 10,83 Ω
6 Single AG with one 250 m radial counterpoise (fig. 6a) 4,19 Ω 9,09 Ω 7,60 Ω 15,07 Ω
7 Two AG interconected by a 250m counterpoise (fig. 6b) 3,21 Ω 4,68 Ω 5,84 Ω 7,83 Ω

Fig. 2. Geometry and dimensions of the grounding and tower foundation of the simulated AG base.

Fig. 3. Basic grounding and tower foundation and improvement with 4 x 9 m rods.

4
 Fig. 4. Application of two and four 50 m radial counterpoises.

Fig. 5. Single and two AG interconected by 250 m counterpoise.

5
 VII. CONCLUSIONS
The impedance grounding "viewed" from the point of
application of the disturbance is be different, depending on the
disturbance nature - a short-circuit (low frequency) or a
lightning (high-frequency). This fact is extremely important
for the analysis of grounding systems that are spread over
wide areas, with several square kilometers, as is the case of
windfarms.
For the medium or low-resistivity grounds (below 500 Ωm),
the foundations steel reinforcement is enough for obtaining
resistance and impedance below than 10 Ω (depending on the
dimensions of the tower base). For the high-resistivity grounds
(above 1000 Ωm), the complementation of the local grounding
with counterpoises is important to reduce the resistance and
impedance values to the required 10 Ω.
For a given condition of geoelectric structure, only by carrying
out simulations of different grounding combinations it can be
possible to optimize the performance of the grounding system
for both short-circuits and lightning discharges.
Finally, it is worth remembering that, in general, the
measurement of grounding resistance of wind turbine towers
with conventional earth meters, which work with low
frequency, will not result in reliable values, mainly for
grounds with high resistivity or in the case long
complementary grounding conductors. In these cases, it is
important to measure the impedance grounding by means of a
high-frequency ground meter (25 kHz).
This statement it is not new at all, since the IEEE Guide
81/1983 - "IEEE GUIDE FOR MEASURING EARTH
RESISTIVITY, GROUND IMPEDANCE", in item 12.6
"High-Frequency Earth Resistance Meter", proposes and
recommends the measuring of ground resistance of
transmission line towers, by means of an earth meter which
operates at a frequency of 25 kHz.

VIII. REFERENCES
[1] IEC-TR61400-24 - Wind Turbine Generator Systems - Part 24:
Lightning Protection
[2] Paulo Edmundo da F. Freire e Edgard Pane, Sistemas de Aterramento de
Parques Eólicos, Brazil WindPower 2012, Rio de Janeiro, agosto/2012
[3] Paulo Edmundo da F. Freire, Ariel Costanzo, Marcos Villarreal, Edgard
Pane, Parque Eólico Água Doce – Medições de Resistividade do solo e
de Resistências de Aterramento, Brazil WindPower 2013, Rio de
Janeiro, agosto/2013
[4] Paulo Edmundo da F. Freire, Medição de Aterramentos com o
Terrômetro de Alta-frequência – Aplicação a Parques Eólicos, ENIE
2014, São Paulo, agosto/2014
[5] Heidler F., Zischank W., Flisowsky Z., Bouquegneau Ch., Mazzetti C,
Parameters of Lightning Current Given in IEC-62305 – Background,
Experience and Outlook, 29th International Conference on Lightning
Protection, Uppsala/Sweden, jun/2008

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