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Home  Earthing & Grounding  Earthing for Substations – IEEE 80

February 23, 2021

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Earthing for Substations – IEEE 80
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Table of Contents 

1. Importance of Earth Mat in Substation

2. What kind of Earthing should I use?

3. Earthing for a Distribution or Transmission Line

Introduction
In this trending era of technology and development, earthing in substations plays a vital role. An electrical
power system comprises a network of electrical elements that can be used to generate, distribute and
transmit electrical energy through transmission lines. A substation is a part of an electrical power system that
can transform voltage from high to low or from low to high. This helps in the transmission, distribution, and
switching off the power in the system. The main components of an electric substation include an insulator,
circuit breaker, bus bar, lightning arrester, and a power transformer. There are different categories of
substations divided based on the power transfer across the station which include step-up type substation,
step down type substation, distribution type transformer, underground distribution type substation,
switchyard, customer substation, and system station.

 What Is Grounding Or Earthing in Substation?

Earthing of a circuit can be de ned as physically connecting the circuit with the ground, which has zero-volt
potential to the ground (the earth). Grounding of a circuit is holding a circuit to a zero-volt potential but not
physically connecting it to the ground. The substation grounding system connects all the equipment, lightning
mats, overhead ground wires, surge arresters, and all the metallic structures present in the substation like a
network and holds them at the zero-volt potential.

Need For Substation Grounding

The major requirements of earthing for a substation are to ensure the safety of the people working in the
environment, protection of the equipment in the substation and operational security of the substation.
Different requirements that are to be considered for a safe earthing system is:

– Avoiding fatal electric shocks to employees working in the area of earthed facilities during a fault in the
power system.

– The currents occurring during normal and fault conditions must be taking a low impedance path.

– Ground faults must be cleared by improving the operation of the protective relay scheme.

– The reliability of the electric power system must be enhanced.

For calculating the earthing design parameters and the shock potential safety limits, a large variety of national
and international standards across the globe are followed, which include:

– BS7354 -1990 Code of practice for Design of High Voltage Open Terminal Stations.

– EATS 41-24- Guidelines for the design, installation, testing, and maintenance of main earthing stations in
substations.

– IEEE Standard 80-2000- Guidelines for AC substation grounding.

In a substation, all the exposed metal parts, metallic structures, generators, transformers, switchboards,
circuit breakers, switches, instrument transformers, lightning arresters, surge arresters, conductors, and
reactors are to be grounded using any of the above earthing guidelines so that there would be a proper
grounding and there would not be any shock even when there is a fault. For example, a typical substation
earthing grid for a 66KV substation is shown below.

(image source: NTPC)

Parameters to be considered for the Designing and Construction of a

Grounding Network
a) The magnitude and duration of the ground fault current must be computed to select the size of the
conductors, straps and connectors used for the protective relay.

b) Random loops and circuits in the network should be avoided.

c) Ground circuit reactance must be reduced by minimizing the separation between the grounding conductors
and their respective phase conductors.

d) The return paths of the ground fault current are to be analyzed.

e) The grounding network should be extended to all the island network present within the substation.

Methods For Grounding Substation

There are different methods for grounding a substation. The connection to the earth can be made in three
ways. They are ring, radial, grid systems.

RADIAL SYSTEM:
The radial system has connections with each of the devices present in the substation paired with one or more
grounding electrodes. This method is highly economical but least satisfactory due to the presence of huge
surface potential gradients produced during a ground fault.

RING SYSTEM:
The ring system is made up of a conductor that is surrounded by the substation equipment and structures
and is connected via short links to each one. This method of substation earthing is economical and e cient
as the ground fault currents are given a prearranged path to travel, reducing the surface potential gradient.

GRID SYSTEM:
A grid system involves grounding a substation where all the equipment in the substation should be grounded
individually, creating an earth mat. An earth mat is an earthing system where all the conductors are buried
horizontally forming a grid-like structure to dissipate the fault current into the earth. It forms an equipotential
bonding conductor system for maintaining the earth resistance for all the equipment below a speci ed value.
This system is highly effective and expensive compared to the other systems. The grid equalizes the surface
potential gradients and protects the people and the equipment from faults.

Complete List of Material for Substation Earthing

Primary electrode: A ground electrode is speci cally designed or adapted for discharging the ground fault
current into the ground in a speci c discharge pattern, as required by the grounding system design.

Eg. Pipe, Rod, Strip electrodes are used as primary electrodes. They are buried deep into the ground, and they
are connected with the wires to the main equipment. Fault current is passed to the ground and dispersed into
the earth through these rods. They can be made of galvanized iron or copper.

Ground (Auxiliary) Electrode: It is a conductor embedded in the earth and is used for collecting ground current
from the earth or dissipating fault current into it.

Ground mat: It is a solid metallic plate or a system of closely spaced bare conductors. They are connected to
the earth and placed in shallow depths above a ground grid or elsewhere at the earth’s surface. It acts as an
extra protective measure by minimizing the danger of exposure to a high step or touch voltage in a critical
operating area, or places that are frequently used by people. Grounded metal grating placed on or above the
soil surface or wire mesh placed directly under the surface material are common forms of ground mats.

Grounding grid: It is a system of horizontal ground electrodes that consists of several interconnected, bare
conductors buried in the earth, providing a common ground for electrical devices or metallic structures
usually in a speci c location.

Grounding system: This system comprises all the interconnected grounding facilities in a speci c area. It also
includes the ground electrodes, grounding wires, earth termination systems.

Conclusion
The earthing system consists of a low impedance path made up of conductors between the metallic
structures and the earth. A predetermined circuit is made available for the ground-fault current to ow through
it rather than the random paths. These paths lack mechanical strength and thermal capacity of carrying the
fault current and lead to risking the life of individuals, damaging the equipment and in the worst-case scenario
they would causing a re. This network should be made rigid and with no mistake because, in any case of
disturbance in the ground connection, the safety equipment becomes dangerous.

(image source: Photo by ETA+ on Unsplash)

This article is part of our series of articles on Lightning Arresters, Surge Protection & Earthing, you can read
more with the following links:

Introduction to the basics of Lightning Protection and Earthing and the Standards (IEC 62305 and UL 467)

Surge Protection Devices (SPD)

Lightning Protection Zones and their Application to SPD Selection

How does a Lightning Arrester work?

Follow us on LinkedIn for regular updates on our Earthing and Lightning Protection Products!

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