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Substation Grounding Studies With More Accurate Fault Analysis and

Simulation Strategies

Article  in  IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery · January 2016

DOI: 10.1109/TPWRD.2016.2598176

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Substation Grounding Studies with More Accurate
Fault Analysis and Simulation Strategies
Xuan Wu, Member, IEEE, Vinod Simha, Senior Member, IEEE, Yiyan Xue, Senior Member, IEEE,
and Ronald J. Wellman
Abstract—this paper describes hands-on modeling and
simulation experience for designing substation ground grids.
The grounding studies enable an optimized ground grid design
to protect utility personnel and the public. These optimized
ground grids meet the IEEE-80 standard [1] for safety and have
been simulated and designed using more accurate transient and
steady-state fault current calculations. The SI and MI methods
are used to simulate the actual fault locations and fault currents
at a small station and a large EHV station, respectively. The
simulations primarily focus on substation specific data for the
application rather than utilizing pre-determined split-factor
curves and the decrement-factor table in IEEE-80. In addition,
the new clearing time analysis and grounding study safety
assessment strategy will be implemented instead of using the
widely-applied longest clearing time and its corresponding
threshold calculation, which could further optimize the ground
grid. With AEP’s research and applications, the authors hope it
can benefit similar industrial substation design projects.
Index Terms — MI method, multiple fault current magnitudes,
decrement factor, body absorbed energy, touch potential,
simulation, optimization.
ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
AEP – American Electric Power, IEEE-80 – IEEE Guide
for Safety in AC Substation Grounding, EHV – Extra High
Voltage, PSCAD – Power System Computer Aided Design,
an electromagnetic transient simulation software, ASPEN –
Advanced Systems for Power Engineering, a network short
circuit simulation and relay coordination study software,
CDEGS – Current Distribution Electromagnetic Fields,
Grounding and Soil Structure Analysis, a grounding study
software, P&C – Protection & Control Engineering, SI –
Single Injection Point Method, MI – Multiple Injection Points
Method, 1LG – Single line-to-ground fault condition.
I. INTRODUCTION
A safe and optimal ground grid can protect the substation
working personnel and the public from touch and step
potentials in a fault condition with minimum installation
material and labor cost. Typically, a grounding study consists
of three major parts: soil modeling, fault analysis and
grounding system optimization based on touch potential
1
calculation and its comparison with the allowable threshold.
The soil modeling is not going to be discussed in this paper,
whereas the other two parts are focused here.
Presently, two methods are available for calculating touch
potential, which are the SI and MI methods. The SI method is
used for the smaller substation, whereas the MI method is
more suitable for a large EHV substation. The detailed process
of how to utilize the MI method is discussed in [2], and in [3]
the factors of using MI method are analyzed. Since the large
EHV stations with larger ground grids will have more
opportunities for ground conductor savings, the MI method
(aimed for larger EHV stations) is the primary focus in this
paper.
For the touch potential calculation in ground grid design,
the fault current distribution analysis is important. The
grounding fault current will return to the remote sources
through earth and overhead shield wires. The models and
methods of how to calculate the split factor between earth
current and shield wire current are discussed in [4]-[13].
However, all the fault analysis methods from the above
references are based on only one fault current magnitude with
a longest calculated fault clearing time. Additionally, the only
publication listing the decrement factor calculation is the
IEEE-80 [1]. As a result, the major contributions of this paper
are listed below:
1. A full category of the fault current scenarios
including staircase-shape fault current plots by
segmenting the fault clearing time with different
fault current magnitudes is summarized.
2. A new and more accurate fault current decrement
factor simulation and calculation method is proposed
by considering the true fault current transient
waveform instead of using IEEE-80 approximations.
3. Considering the segmented fault clearing time and
multiple fault current magnitudes, using body
absorbed energy as the parameter to be compared
with the allowable energy threshold is developed
instead of relying on the conventional touch
potential calculation and comparison with its
threshold based on the IEEE-80.
4. A real case study with actual ground conductor
savings is implemented and discussed.

II. FAULT CLEARING TIME ANALYSIS
Fault Clearing Time Significance on Grounding Studies
Based on IEEE-80 [1], the fault clearing time is very
important and has a significant impact on the tolerable body
current limit which can be interpreted in the following
equation:
𝑆𝐵 = (𝐼𝐵 )2 × 𝑡𝑠
where IB is the rms value of the current through the body in
amps (A), ts is the fault clearing time in seconds (s), and SB in
unit of A2·s is the absorbed energy of body during a fault
condition. The standard describes SB as the maximum
absorbed energy that can be survived by 99.5% of persons
weighing approximately 50 kg (110 lb), which equals 0.0135
A2·s. From experience, the touch potential is the decisive
factor in grounding study safety assessment, so the IB
mentioned in the following part of the paper is based on the
calculated maximum touch potential. Furthermore, the IB is
closely related to the grounding system. For instance, a denser
ground grid will have smaller worst touch potential and cause
smaller IB when compared to a sparse ground grid. On the
other hand, the value of ts is determined by the P&C design in
terms of relay choices, settings and coordination. For instance,
a redundant protection system will reduce ts when considering
the primary protection system failure during a fault. The fault
clearing time in this paper aims at the backup clearing time
with one contingency scenario being considered, such as a
breaker failure condition. Double contingency is not taken into
account.
In this paper, the objective is to design a safe and optimal
ground grid. The ground grid safety metric (IB) can be
considered as a variable while the fault clearing time (ts) is
deterministic. Furthermore, it is suggested to optimize the
ground grid with IB changing correspondingly to make the
calculated SB smaller than and closer to the threshold of
0.0135 A2·s. Even though the fault clearing time may not be
changed, it is prudent to determine the most accurate value. If
ts is too small, it will be too optimistic and may cause some
safety issues. If it is large, a considerable amount of ground
conductors may be wasted with an overly conservative fault
clearing time value. In order to show the difference of
optimally and safely designed ground grids by using different
fault clearing times and then quantify the ground conductor
wastage if using a longer clearing time, an example for
illustration is shown in Fig. 1.
(a) (b)
Figure 1. Ground grid plots for (a) original grid with ts of 0.33 s; (b) revised
grid with ts of 1 s
2
Fig. 1a shows the original ground grid design using ts of
0.33 s. However, it would be an issue if the fault clearing time
is increased to 1 s and thereby the mitigations have to be
implemented to let the calculated touch potential meet the
threshold of 492.2 V instead of 846.1 V at 0.33 s.
Correspondingly, the ground conductors and rods with total
length of approximately 8,900 ft are necessary with the 1 s
(1) fault clearing time, comparing to the previous 4,020 ft at 0.33
s. Note that this case in Fig. 1 is a simple example to show the
significance of clearing time in a grounding study in terms of
saving ground conductors and it is not related to the following
case study in Section IV. More details including input
information associated with this specific example case are
presented in Appendix A.
Fault Clearing Time Categories & Shapes
Figure 2. Bus fault & line fault
An example of a 138 kV substation is used in this section
to demonstrate the impact of fault clearing time. The 138 kV
breaker-and-half layouts of both local and remote stations are
illustrated in Fig. 2. A grounding study of the local station is
needed. Two fault categories are considered, which are the bus
fault and the line fault. For most ground grid designs, only the
bus fault scenario is considered because bus faults typically
produce the highest fault current. It may be acceptable to use
bus fault current to represent the incoming line fault as shown
in Fig. 2, because the line fault occurring inside the station
could be considered so close to the bus location that the
difference of total grounding fault currents between line fault
and bus fault is negligible. However, the differences will
appear when different types of contingencies are taken into
account. From another perspective, different relay functions
and settings will obviously influence the fault clearing time.
For example, the breaker A2 fails to operate for the line fault
shown in Fig. 2, the remote-end breaker F1 and F will trip in a
few cycles if the line #3 protection has a communication-aided
pilot scheme. Without a pilot scheme, the tripping of the
remote breakers F1 and F will depend on the back up
protection of which the delay could be from 0.5 s to 1.0 s.
Therefore, the fault location, contingency and relaying
scheme have an impact on the fault current during the fault.
Fig. 3 shows 19 fault clearing time scenarios in a tree format
and the numbers 1-19 on the right-hand side of Fig. 3
coordinate and represent the fault current plot numbers of
Table I.

Figure 3. Fault clearing time scenario tree
In the above “tree”, it is necessary to start from the left and
end all the way to the right with the corresponding scenario
number. For example, assuming a bus fault occurs, there are
two branches connected to the bus fault node, which point to
breaker failure and bus relay failure, respectively. If the
breaker failure is selected, there are two objective conditions
to be checked—with and without communication-aided
protection scheme to remote stations. If a communication-
aided scheme exists, scenario 1 is chosen and its
corresponding fault current plot can be found in Table I.
3
Generally, the blocks with words of “fault” or “failure”
mean they belong to the subjective assumptions. On the other
hand, the blocks without any words of “fault” or “failure”
represent the objective conditions of relays or communication
paths, which are already designed or installed. In other words,
all the objective conditions can be determined based on the
actual relay scheme at the site. However, all the fault and
contingency scenarios need to be checked and compared.
More specifically, the P&C engineer should check the relay
scheme and setting for each feeder and then cross out some of
the relay scheme blocks on the right of the tree in Fig. 3. For
 4

example, if there is a grounding study for a brand-new EHV 1LG fault occurs at one specific bus. Finally, it is necessary to
station, based on the current AEP rule, all the relays must be go through the fault and contingency category nodes
set up with high-speed protection that is relying on sequentially until reaching the corresponding scenario number,
communication channels. Therefore, scenario 2, 6, and 8 can which is used to obtain the relevant fault current plot from
be neglected from the beginning. The second step is to find Table I shown below.
one feeder with the greatest fault current contribution when a
TABLE I. FAULT CURRENT PLOTS

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9

10 11, 13, 16, 17, 19 12, 18

14 15

Table I has 14 different types of fault current plots and
some of them are with segmented clearing times and multiple
fault current magnitudes. For instance, we assume scenario 2
occurs at the local substation in Fig. 2. There is a bus fault and
breaker A2 fails to open. In the first 6 cycles, breaker B2 and
C2 are operated and this situation is maintained for another 10
cycles before breaker A is operated by detecting the failure of
breaker A2. As a result, the total fault current will flow
through breaker A2 to feed the fault for 16 cycles. After 16
cycles, the fault current is reduced to a smaller value with only
one feeder connected with breaker A2 contributing the fault
current. Since there is no communication/pilot system between
this local substation and the remote substation, the remote
protection system takes another 14 cycles (or even longer) to
sense the fault and trips out breakers F and F1 to clear the
entire fault current.
The conventional method of using one continuous clearing
time with the largest fault current magnitude for ground grid
designs recommended by IEEE-80 is conservative. Meanwhile,
the new approach is more detailed, which could result in cost
savings if utilities decide to use this fault scenario analysis in
detecting the worst case.
III. NEW METHOD OF GROUNDING ANALYSIS
A. New Ground Grid Safety Assessment Method for
Staircase-Shape Fault Currents
In Table I, the normal safety assessment method is
adequate for scenarios 1, 3, 4 and 10. Because there is only
one fault current magnitude through the entire fault duration, it
 5

is necessary to calculate the maximum touch potential based the total fault current magnitude. Each fault current
on this fault current magnitude and compare the calculated magnitude will be the input to the FCDIST module [14] and
value with the maximum allowable value that can be obtained the corresponding maximum touch potential will be calculated
through the IEEE-80 equation [1]. However, it is not using the MI/SI method [2]. After all the touch potentials
straightforward to get a threshold for the other scenarios that associated with different fault current magnitudes are obtained,
have multiple fault current magnitudes. A new approach of plug numbers in equation (5) and calculate the body absorbed
utilizing body absorbed energy as the threshold for designing energy which can be compared with the threshold.
a safe and optimal ground grid is developed in this paper.
The below equations show how to calculate the body IV. CASE STUDY
absorbed energy for multiple fault current magnitudes, and the Station NP is an existing 765/138 kV EHV station, and a
safety threshold is 0.0135 based on IEEE-80. new 765 kV Line #2 is requested to be added by the
𝑅𝑓𝑜𝑜𝑡 Transmission Planning group, which will bring higher
𝑅𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑐ℎ = 𝑅𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑦 + (2) grounding fault current. Therefore, a grounding study is
2 needed to review the existing ground grid, which has both 765
𝑛
𝑉𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑐ℎ,1 2 𝑉𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑐ℎ,𝑖 2 kV and 138 kV yard ground grids tied together to better
𝐸𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 = (𝐷 ∙ ) ∙ 𝑡1 + ∑ [( ) ∙ 𝑡𝑖 ] (3) protect both yards from touch and step potential hazards. The
𝑅𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑅𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑐ℎ
𝑖=2 existing ground grid layout is shown in Fig. 5. Note that the
where Rtouch is the resistance between hand and the feet which existing ground grid is compliant to IEEE-80 before the
is used for touch potential calculations; Rbody is the body addition of the new 765 kV line.
resistance, typically, 1000Ω; Rfoot is the foot resistance,
including surface material (i.e. stones) influence; Energy is the
energy absorbed by the body; D is the decrement factor which
can be calculated with the method mentioned in Appendix B;
ti is the ith fault duration due to different fault current
magnitudes with the order of occurrence, thereby the total
fault current magnitude duration is always the first duration;
Vtouch, i is the ith maximum calculated touch potential in the
correspondent ti with the corresponding fault current
magnitude.
B. Grounding Analysis Process

Figure 5. Ground Grid Layout

As marked in Fig. 5, “FL” means selected fault location,

which could be either the 138 kV bus or the 765 kV bus.
“Xfmer” represents the 765/138 kV transformer bank
locations. “SW” shows the approximate locations that shield
wires connect to the ground grid.

Figure 4. Grounding Study Process Flowchart

The flowchart shown in Fig. 4 describes a novel grounding

study process especially for the cases with stair shaped fault Figure 6. Diagram showing worst-case fault current flow
current. Since the DC offset effect almost disappears after
changing from one fault current magnitude to another, the As mentioned in section II, it is necessary to go through
decrement factor will only be involved in the first period with the entire fault clearing time scenarios in Fig. 3 and refer them
 6

to Table I until finding the worst-case scenario. Then, the For this case, the calculated touch potentials for the total
grounding analysis method discussed in section III will be grounding fault and the reduced grounding fault contributed
implemented. by 138 kV Station#3 only are shown in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10.
For this case, all the busses have double relay protection
systems. All the feeders have double line protection systems
and they all have high-speed communication channels except
the 138 kV line #3. If either a line fault or a bus fault as shown
in Fig. 6 occurs, the breaker(s) in the 138 kV Station #3 will
take 60 cycles to detect and clear the fault from the remote end.
Therefore, scenario 2 and 6 will be picked as the worst-case
scenarios from Table I due to the actual site conditions and
their PSCAD simulation results are shown in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8.
Note that this case study is the same one shown in Appendix B.

Figure 9. Touch potential plot for total grounding fault current

Figure 7. Graph for phase A-to-ground instantaneous fault current

Figure 8. Graph for phase A-to-ground rms fault current

With fault current rms value in Fig. 8 and curve fitting in Figure 10. Touch potential plot for reduced grounding fault current
Excel, the following equations can be obtained and utilized to
solve the first-period effective fault current magnitude. As a result, decrement factor (D), touch potential for the
first fault current magnitude (Vtouch,1) and touch potential for
I F ,rms (t )  10235622.14t  39476995.42t
6 5
the second fault current magnitude (Vtouch,2) are obtained with
 63293232.29t 4  53994241.25t 3  25847950.3t 2 (4) values of 1.21, 506.8, and 121.1. The foot resistance can be
calculated from CDEGS and its value is 6,456 Ω for this case.
 6583595.76t  697064.45 After plugging all these parameters into equation (4) and (5),
the calculated touch resistance and body absorbed energy are
  I F ,rms (t ) dt
2
1 0.75
4,228 Ω and 0.005 A2 ·s, respectively. Therefore, the current
I F ,effective  (5)
0.75  0.5 0.5 ground grid design is safe and conservative for future fault
current growth.
As a result, the effective fault current magnitude of the
In order to show the benefit of the new fault current
first part is 39.94 kA. The equivalent decrement factor for the
analysis method and grounding study process, a comparison
first part is 39.94/33.1=1.21, which is utilized to compensate
with the traditional method is shown in Fig. 11. Previously,
the asymmetrical effect with the ASPEN steady state results.
the 60 cycles as the fault clearing time has to be used with the
Note that the DC component should also exist in the
total grounding fault current magnitude as shown in Fig. 12.
second segment, which the decrement factor (for second
After applying the MI method [2], the calculated maximum
segment) can be calculated through the same method as that of
touch potential is the same as what is shown in Fig. 9.
the first one. However, we have computationally verified that
However, the maximum allowable touch potential is
the second-segment decrement factors of this case study and
traditionally calculated based on the IEEE-80 [1] as 474.5 V,
others are all below 1.01. For simplicity, we recommend to
which is smaller than the maximum calculated value. As a
only focus on the decrement factor of the first segment.
result, some “hot spots” will appear as marked in Fig. 11.
 7

Scalar Potentials/Touch Voltages/Worst Spherical [ID:North Proctorville @ f=60.0000 Hz ]

LEGEND
7,986 Amps. In addition, the X/R ratio is 4.85 and the
Maximum Value : 506.764 resistivity of surface material (crushed stones) is 3,000 Ω·m
Minimum Threshold : 474.500
with a depth of 4 inches. Then the decrement factors, touch
1100 506.76
and step potential allowable thresholds are listed in Table III
503.54
based on different fault clearing times.
500.31

600 497.09 TABLE III. SAEFTY PARAMETERS OF DIFFERENT FAULT

Y AXIS (FEET)

493.86 CLEARING TIMES

490.63
Fault Clearing Touch Potential Step Potential
100
487.41 Decrement Factor
484.18
Time (s) Threshold (V) Threshold (V)
480.95 0.33 1.019 846.1 2789.9
477.73
-400 1 1.006 492.2 1623.2
-800 -300 200 700
X AXIS (FEET)
Touch Voltage Magn. (Volts) [Wors] APPENDIX B
Figure 11. Touch potential safety assessment plot DECREMENT FACTOR CALCULATION
In other words, some mitigation is needed for these touch Decrement factor is used to compensate the effect of DC
potential risks especially inside the red circle of Fig. 11. offset due to the assymetrical fault current, which can be
Hence, additional ground conductors are needed without calculated by dividing the effective rms fault current value by
utilizing the new strategy. the steady-state rms value of fault current. The latter can be
easily obtained from a short circuit program like ASPEN,
V. CONCLUSION while the former one needs to be computed depending on
This paper focuses on categorizing the substation 1LG different transient performances. If the fault clearing time is
fault clearing scenarios by bus/line faults, contingencies and relatively long, the DC offset will gradually decay to zero and
relay/communication settings. Furthermore, each fault finally approach to the steady-state condition. Fig. 12 shows a
clearing scenario points to a specific fault current plot fault current plot from a case study without implementing the
potentially with more than one fault current magnitude. After fault clearing time analysis described in section II. In the
determining different fault current shapes, the decrement PSCAD simulation, the fault is applied at the 15th ~ and lasts
factor calculation and safety assessment method are discussed 60~ before clearing with the total fault current magnitude of
in detail. With a combined approach, a novel safe and optimal 33.1 kA obtained from ASPEN.
grounding study process can be achieved with accuracy. A
detailed analysis and optimization process for an AEP EHV
substation grounding study is shown as a demonstration of the
new techniques discussed in this paper which analyzes more
accurately with the specific data and proves cost saving as
compared to the IEEE standard method. It might take longer
time for the industry to fully adopt all the ideas mentioned in
this paper, but for higher accuracy and cost savings in costly
EHV projects, the process in this paper is proven to be useful
and beneficial.
Figure 12. Eample of a fault current plot
APPENDIX A
INPUT DATA OF THE EXAMPLE CASE RELATED TO FIG. 1 The IEEE-80 [1] recommends to use a table based on the
fault clearing time and the system X/R ratio. In the above case,
The multi-layer soil model parameters of the example case the clearing time is 60~ and the X/R ratio is 25.8 obtained
(Fig. 1) are shown as below: from ASPEN. As a result, the decrement factor due to the
TABLE II. SOIL MODEL PARAMETERS IEEE-80 table is close to 1.039. There are two concerns using
fault current 33.1 kA and decrement factor 1.039: (1) The DC
Layer Number Resistivity (Ω·m) Thickness (Feet) offset is assumed to be decayed to zero through the fault
1 Infinite Infinite clearing time, in reality it may not be so. (2) The fault current
of 33.1 kA is calculated by phasor-based short circuit
2 81.28 1.70
program—ASPEN, which does not consider transients during
3 33.60 20.96 the fault. To address these two concerns, the PSCAD is
4 90.88 Infinite utilized to simulate the same case to calculate the decrement
factor accurately without relying on the approximate value
from the IEEE-80 table. Below is the PSCAD model built for
The magnitude of total grounding fault current is 16,701 the case study. The 1LG fault is put at the 138 kV side as
Amps and the magnitude of total earth current (current shown with red color.
returning to the remote sources through grounding system) is

Figure 13. Illustration of PSCAD model
The graphs in Fig. 14 and Fig. 15 show the ground fault
current instantaneous value and the calculated rms value,
respectively, by using PSCAD model to simulate the system in
Fig. 13.
Figure 14. Graph for phase A-to-ground instantaneous fault current
Figure 15. Graph for phase A-to-ground rms fault current
From observation, the current magnitude in Fig. 12 and
Fig. 15 are very similar except the Fig. 15 includes the
overshooting at the beginning of the fault. The required
effective current value for the asymmetrical curve is
calculated by curve fitting in Excel. The polynomial function
is shown in (6) and its corresponding effective value is
calculated with (7).
6 5 4 design and analysis of power system grounding," in Proceedings of the
𝐼𝐹,𝑟𝑚𝑠 (𝑡) = 2004.1𝑡 − 12686𝑡 + 32861𝑡
− 44550𝑡 3 + 33318𝑡 2 − 13034𝑡
+ 2120.3
1.5
1 2
𝐼𝐹,𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 =√ ∫ [𝐼𝐹,𝑟𝑚𝑠 (𝑡)] 𝑑𝑡
1.5 − 0.5
0.5
8
By solving (6) and (7), the effective rms fault current
magnitude is 34.8 kA. In addition, the steady-state value from
the PSCAD simulation is 33.6 kA, which is a little larger than
33.1 kA from the ASPEN simulation. As a result, the
decrement factor calculated by PSCAD is 34.8/33.6=1.037,
which is very close to 1.039 obtained from the IEEE-80 table.
It is a proof that both methods of calculating decrement factor
are consistent. However, if the ASPEN calculated steady-state
value (33.1 kA) is used in the grounding study, the decrement
factor shall be re-calculated as 34.8/33.1=1.052 instead of
directly utilizing IEEE-80 value (1.039). Considering the MI
method described in [2] utilizes the ASPEN to do the fault
analysis, the decrement factor of dividing the PSCAD
effective asymmetrical value by the ASPEN steady-state value
is recommended for consistency. To be emphasized, the
PSCAD simulation is always needed as discussed above
especially for short fault durations which cause the DC offset
to last longer than previously assumed from IEEE-80 that the
DC offset will disappear before the fault ends.
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(7)

Xuan Wu received the BS degree in EE from Nanjing
University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing,
China in 2011 and the MS degree in EE from Arizona
State University, Tempe, in 2013. Right now he is
working as a Station Design Standards Engineer at
American Electric Power and a part-time Ph.D student
at The Ohio State University. His research interests
include electromagnetic & electrostatic coupling
effects, substation fault analysis and grounding design
and transmission/operation planning. He has contributed to several utility
guidelines and technical papers in power system transmission areas.
Vinod Simha received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in
Electrical Engineering from B.M.S. College of
Engineering Bangalore, India and University of Texas
at Arlington, USA in 2001 and 2005, respectively. He
has designed low voltage switchgear and
switchboards for OEMs, simulated load flow studies
for Transmission Planning. He is a Principal Engineer
in Station Engineering Design Standards at AEP, and
enjoys computer simulation in grounding, induced voltage, and fuse co-
ordination and other substation engineering topics. He is Registered
Professional Engineer in State of Ohio, and a senior member of the IEEE and
IEEE-SA.
Yiyan Xue received his B.Eng. from Zhejiang
University in 1993 and M.Sc. from the University of
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Guelph in 2007. He is currently a Principle Engineer in P&C Standards
Group of AEP, working on protection standards, relay settings, fault analysis
and system simulation studies. Before joining AEP, he was an Application
Engineer with GE Multilin to provide consulting services on relay settings
and RTDS studies. Before GE, he had 10 years with ABB Inc. working on
substation automation system design and commissioning. He is a senior
member of IEEE and a Professional Engineer registered in Ohio.
Ron Wellman received his B.S. in Electrical
Engineering from the W.V. Institute of Technology in
1988. He joined AEP in 1988 and has designed sub-
transmission/distribution lines and substations. He
now holds the Supervisor of Station Design Standards
position overseeing the development of new standards
as well as maintaining the current standards. He is a
Professional Engineer in Ohio, Pennsylvania and
Texas.