Lecture 7

Concept of Earthing Systems

• All the people living or working in residential, commercial and

industrial installations, particularly the operators and
personnel who are in close operation and contact with
electrical systems and machineries, should essentially be
protected against possible electrification.
• To achieve this protection, earthing system of an installation
is defined, designed and installed according to the standard
requirements..
 Grounding

• To connect the metallic (conductive) Parts of

an Electric appliance or installations to the
earth (ground) is called as Earthing
or Grounding.
 Definition
• The process of transferring the immediate
discharge of the electrical energy directly to the
earth by the help of the low resistance wire is
known as the electrical earthing.
• The electrical earthing is done by connecting the
non-current carrying part of the equipment or
neutral of supply system to the ground.
 Types of Electrical Earthing

• The electrical equipment/system mainly consists of

two non-current carrying parts.
• These parts are neutral of the system or frame of the
electrical equipment.
• From the earthing of these two non-current carrying
parts of the electrical system earthing can be
classified into two types.
• Neutral Earthing
• Equipment Earthing
 Neutral Earthing

• In neutral earthing, the neutral of the system

is directly connected to earth by the help of
the GI (galvanized iron) wire.
• The neutral earthing is also called the system
earthing.
• Such type of earthing is mostly provided to
the system which has star winding.
• For example, the neutral earthing is provided
in the generator, transformer, motor etc
 Equipment Earthing

• Such type of earthing is provided to the electrical

equipment.
• The non-current carrying part of the equipment
like their metallic frame is connected to the earth
by the help of the conducting wire.
• If any fault occurs in the apparatus, the short-
circuit current to pass the earth by the help of
wire.
• Thus, protect the system from damage.
 Difference between Earthing, And
Grounding

• Earthing and Grounding is the same terms

used for earthing. Grounding is the commonly
word used for earthing in the North
American standards like IEEE, NEC,
ANSI and UL etc while, Earthing is used in
European, Common wealth countries
and Britain standards like IS and IEC etc.
 Need of Earthing or Grounding. Why
Earthing is Important?
• The primary purpose of earthing is to avoid or minimize the danger
of electrocution, fire due to earth leakage of current through
undesired path and to ensure that the potential of a current
carrying conductor does not rise with respect to the earth than its
designed insulation.
• When the metallic part of electrical appliances (parts that can
conduct or allow passage of electric current) comes in contact with
a live wire, maybe due to failure of installations or failure in cable
insulation, the metal become charged and static charge
accumulates on it.
• If a person touches such a charged metal, the result is a severe
shock.
• To avoid such instances, the power supply systems and parts of
appliances have to be earthed so as to transfer the charge directly
to the earth.
 Basic needs of Earthing

• To protect human lives as well as provide safety to

electrical devices and appliances from leakage current.
• To keep voltage as constant in the healthy phase (If
fault occurs on any one phase).
• To Protect Electric system and buildings from lighting.
• To avoid the risk of fire in electrical installation
systems.
• provides the easiest path to the flow of short circuit
current even after the failure of the insulation.
 Good Earthing Means

• Good Earthing must have low impedance enough to

ensure that sufficient current can flow through the
safety device so that it disconnects the supply ( <0.4
sec ).
• Fault current is much more than the full load current
of the circuit which melts the fuse.
• Hence, the appliance is disconnected automatically
from the supply mains.
Electrical Equipment Without
Earthing
Electrical Equipment With Earthing
 Example Of Grounded System
• Three Pin Wall Socket
• Hot wire
• Neutral wire
 Breaker panel

• Breaker panel
• Hot wire from the wall socket goes behind the walls to
the breaker panel and through the breaker to the main
lines and then terminates into the transmission pole.

Circuit breaker
 Breaker panel

• Neutral wire
• Neutral wire in the wall socket is attached with the neutral
metal bars in the breaker panel ; which is connected to the
main neutral wire originating from the transmission pole

Neutral wire

Neutral metal bar

 Transmission pole
• Transmission pole
 Circuit diagram
• Connection diagram of neutral and hot wire from
the transformer to the wall socket of a house
through breaker panel.
 Breaker panel
Ground wire
• Ground wire from the wall socket is connected to the ground metal
bar of the breaker panel.
• The ground metal bar is also attached to the case/frame of the
breaker panel for safety purpose during fault condition e.g. Lighting
• The ground wire joins the neutral wire .

Ground metal bar

Complete Circuit diagram
Example of the Connection of an Electrical
Appliance (microwave) to Ground
• Metallic frame/case of the appliance is connected to ground wire.
• Ground wire is connected to the neutral wire through metal bars
Example of the Connection of an Electrical
Appliance (microwave) to Ground
• In case of the contact of hot wire (due to failure of cable insulation) with the casing
of the electrical device, the case will become conductive too.
• As the case is connected to the ground wire , so charges will flow through this wire
,as it is the least resistive path.
• Ground wire terminates into neutral & then to the transformer .
• Hot /live wire carrying large current than the normal current will trip the circuit
breaker.
• As a result power supply will shut down.
 Ground Wire
• Neutral wire connected to the ground

Ground wire
terminating into
ground

Earth rod
Schematic Diagram of Grounded
System
 Components of Earthing System

• A complete electrical earthing system consists

on the following basic components.
• Earth Continuity Conductor
• Earthing Lead
• Earth Electrode
 Components of Earthing System
• Earth Electrode: When a conductor (or conductive plate) buried in the
earth for electrical earthing system. It is known to be Earth Electrode.
• Earth electrodes are in different shapes like, conductive plate, conductive
rod, metal water pipe or any other conductor with low resistance.

• Earthing Lead: The conductor wire or conductive strip connected between

Earth electrode and Electrical installation system and devices in called
Earthing lead.

• Earth Continuity Conductor: The conductor wire, which is connected

among different electrical devices and appliances like, distribution board,
different plugs and appliances etc.
• In other words, the wire between earthing lead and electrical device or
appliance is called earth continuity conductor.
• It may be in the shape of metal pipe (fully or partial), or cable metallic
sheath or flexible wire.
Components of Earthing System
 Earthing can be
• Conventional Earthing
• Maintenance Free Earthing
 Methods of Conventional Earthing
• Plate Earthing
• Pipe Earthing
• Rod Earthing
• Strip Earthing
• Earthing through Water Mains
 Values of earth electrode resistance &
factors on which it is dependent
• The resistance of a ground electrode has 3 basic components:
1. Earth Wire
2. Connector
3. Electrode
• The earth resistance is dependent upon following factors
i. Material of electrode and earth wire.
ii. Size of electrode and earth wire
iii. Temperature of soil
iv. Moisture of soil
v. Depth to which it is embedded
vi. Quantity of coal and charcoal in the earth electrode pit
• Maximum value beyond which the earth electrode resistance should not be increased is 5
ohms.
• However for better performance at power house and substation , its value should should
be 0.5 ohm and 1 ohm respectively.
• Water is poured in earth pit containing electrode to improve the resistance.
Comparison between neutral & earth
wire
Neutral wire
1. It is directly connected to the
neutral point of the supply system
Earth wire
It may be connected to the neutral
point to supply system

2. It serves as a return conductor It may carry current only in case of a

3. Its potential at some point may be
substantially far from zero. It is
therefore insulated from the pole
on which it is supported. In this
case, the insulator is smaller in size
than the one supporting the phase
conductors.
fault
It is supposed to be at zero potential.
It is not mounted on any insulator and
is in direct metallic contact with the
support metal work

4. It may not be connected to earth It may be connected to earth at least

at an intermediate point in the line at 3 places in a km or 4 places in a mile
Class activity
 Three Types of Grounding Systems

• Ungrounded Systems
• Resistance Grounded Systems
• Solidly Grounded Systems
 Ungrounded Systems

• In ungrounded system there is no internal connection

between the conductors and earth.
• However, as system, a capacitive coupling exists between
the system conductors and the adjacent grounded
surfaces.
• Consequently, the “ungrounded system” is, in reality, a
“capacitive grounded system” by virtue of the distributed
capacitance.
 Ground fault
• Ground fault occurs when the "hot" wire comes into
contact with the ground wire or a grounded portion
of a junction box or grounded part of an appliance or
device.
• Similar to a short circuit, large amounts of current
are forced to flow through the fuse or circuit breaker,
causing a fuse to blow or a circuit breaker to trip.
 Advantages
• Since system is never physically connected to the
ground, it will have negligible ground fault
current.
• For example, in a 3-phase system, because all of
the ground fault current is capacitive, when you
have a single line-to-ground fault in an
ungrounded system, the current and voltage you
would lose is negligible, and is instead carried by
the other two lines.
• This allows you to continue operation
unimpeded during a single line-to-ground fault.
 Disadvantages
• The interaction between the faulted system and its
distributed capacitance may cause over-voltages
(several times normal) to appear from line to ground
during normal switching of a circuit having a line-to
ground fault (short).
• These over voltages may cause insulation failures at
points other than the original fault.
• A second fault on another phase may occur before the
first fault can be cleared. This can result in very high
line-to-line fault currents, equipment damage and
disruption of both circuits.
• The cost of equipment damage.
 Solidly Neutral Grounded Systems:
• Solidly grounded systems are usually used in low voltage
applications at 600 volts or less.
• In solidly grounded system, the neutral point is connected to earth
directly.
• Solidly Neutral Grounding slightly reduces the problem of transient
over voltages found on the ungrounded system and provided path
for the ground fault current is in the range of 25 to 100% of the
system three phase fault current.
 Pros and cons
• Solid grounding, like resistance grounding, can greatly reduce over
voltages in your electrical system.
• However, solidly grounded systems have the potential to have huge
amounts of ground-fault current.
• As a result, solidly grounded systems cannot operate with a ground
fault (since all of the current in the system is going from fault to
ground).
• Solid grounding has two main uses:
• In systems with voltages of 600V or less, solid grounding can be
used if it is not necessary to maintain operation of a faulted circuit.
• In systems with voltages of 15kV or greater, solid grounding can be
used if high ground fault currents are desirable of any reason, such
as quick ground fault detection (since the high current will most
definitely trip protective devices).
 Resistance Grounding

• Resistance grounding is the connection

between the neutral line and the ground
through a resistor.
• This resistor is used to limit the fault current
through your neutral line.
Advantages Over Ungrounded System
• Because the current in the neutral is
controlled instead of negligible, system over
voltages are also controlled.
• This reduced current and reduced overvoltage
means reduced heat, which keeps the wear
and tear of electrical system to a minimum.
• The reduced currents also reduce the risk of
shock and arc flash/blast hazards.
 Types Of Resistance Grounding
There are two types of resistance grounding:
• High resistance grounding
• Low resistance grounding
 High resistance grounding
• High resistance grounding is typically used to limit
ground fault current to < 10 amps.
• The low ground-fault current also means that, just
like an ungrounded system, you can continue to
operate the system on a single line-to-ground fault.
• The low current will typically not trip your protective
devices during a single line-to-ground fault.
 Low Resistance Grounding

• Low resistance grounding typically limits ground fault current to

between 100 and 1000 amps.
• This offers a similar advantage to high resistance grounding in that
you can control the ground fault current, which means you can
design your system to withstand the currents without damage.
• Low resistance grounding systems have the benefit of tripping your
protective devices when there is a fault.
• Their purpose is to immediately cut the power to the circuit, and so
unlike the high resistance grounding systems, a low resistance
grounding system will not maintain operation during a single line-
to-ground fault.
• Low resistance grounding also reduces overvoltage, and is used in
medium voltage systems of 15kV or less, typically where big
generators/motors are used.
 Summary
• Ungrounded systems have negligible ground-
fault current.
• Resistance grounding offers the advantages of
ungrounded systems without the risk of large
over voltages.
• Solid grounding reduces over voltages but has
high ground-fault currents.
• The type of grounding you use for your system
will depend on which type of grounding best suits
your needs and budget.
 Next lecture
outline
• Following topics will be covered in next
lecture.
Electric shocks
Effects of shocks on human body
AC and DC current shocks
Comparison
Human resistance