Risk Based Approach to Substation Earthing for SA

Power Networks
Michael A. Brown
Engineering Design and Technical Services
SA Power Networks
Adelaide, Australia
Michael.Brown@sapowernetworks.com.au

Abstract—SA Power Networks has recently adopted the changes coincidence, and is the probability that a person will come into
to earthing philosophy detailed in EG-0 Power System Earthing contact with the substation or surrounding earthed asset at the
Guide. This method determines the risk of fatality for the most time of a fault.
exposed individual based on substation fault level, protection
clearing times, fault frequency, and human contact to Negligible or acceptable values for the probability of
conductive structures. This is currently done using a fault fatality for an individual are detailed in EG-0 and are as shown
frequency based on standard values given in EG-0. This paper in Table I below.
investigates the methods that SA Power Networks use to record TABLE I. TARGET INDIVIDUAL FATALITY PROBABILITY LIMITS
interruptions, and how this information can be used to [1].
determine an observed earth fault frequency for use in touch
Risk
voltage threshold calculations. The last 10 years of fault data for Probability of
classification for
Resulting implication for risk
a sample of 39 substations was examined and negligible risk Single Fatality treatment
public death
touch voltage thresholds were calculated using clearing times of High or Must prevent occurrence regardless
 10-4
0.2 seconds and 1.0 seconds. These thresholds were then intolerable risk of costs.
compared to those determined using the calculated fault Must minimize occurrence unless
frequency based on line length, and using the IEEE 80 Intermediate or risk reduction is impractical and
10-4 – 10-6
deterministic method previously used by SA Power Networks. ALARA region costs are grossly disproportionate to
safety gained.
Risk generally acceptable, however,
Index Terms—Earthing, Fault Frequency, Risk, Substation,
Low or tolerable risk treatment may be applied if the
Touch Voltage  10-6
risk cost is low and/or a normally
expected practice.
Where ALARA is ‘as low as reasonably achievable’.
I. INTRODUCTION
The new version of AS 2067 – released in 2016, is based The probability of coincidence is calculated based on two
on EG-0 and details a risk-based earthing philosophy. Risk inputs – the number of touches per year to a potentially
based earthing enables asset owners to best identify the hazardous item, and the number of earth faults that occur at
highest risk among substations or other earthed equipment, the source substation per year.
and act upon those which will give the most benefit - this is EG-0 has standard values that are given for both quantities.
seen as both a potentially safer and more economical approach The number of human contacts per year is determined by the
than previous practice. The main principle of this philosophy location of the substation, being classified as one of four areas
is to quantify the probability of fatality (PFat) for substation – MEN, backyard, urban, and remote. Having a four second
touch voltage hazards, and then assess this number to contact count of 2000, 416, 100, and 4 respectively. For 11 kV
determine whether a touch voltage is of acceptable risk or and 33 kV lines, earth fault frequencies are given as 5 – 10
needs to be rectified. The probability of fatality is based on faults/100km/year for shielded conductors, and 10 – 40
two separate quantities, and is given by faults/100km/year for unshielded conductors [1].
PFat = PFib * PCoinc (1) SA Power Networks has adopted these standard values for
PFib is the probability of fibrillation, which is the distribution lines and has chosen a fault frequency of 20
probability that the heart will undergo ventricular fibrillation faults/100km/year for unshielded lines, and 5
when exposed to a specific current. PCoinc is the probability of faults/100km/year for shielded lines. Shielded lines in this
case are lines which are protected from lightning. For the

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purpose of this paper, lines that have either an overhead earth 1. The old Network Operations Centre (NOC) log
wire, or separate set of conductors slung above the line being (now held as a spreadsheet);
examined are considered to be lightning protected.
2. The new NOC log (available on the intranet as a
These standard values have been in use since the release of report); and
the new version of AS 2067, however since SA Power
Networks have systems in place to record interruptions, it 3. Advanced Distribution Management System
would be of significant benefit to use these records to (ADMS).
determine a more accurate fault frequency for each substation. Of these three data collection records, the new NOC log
It is also expected that due to both regional differences was chosen due to:
between South Australia and other states, and the widespread • The old NOC log only having data available
use of the metal Stobie pole, fault frequency may be between the years 1974 and 1988; and
significantly different to those given in the standard. The
reasoning for this is that due to the lower impedance of metal • ADMS not covering the entirety of South
Stobie poles [2] in comparison to wooden poles [3], earth Australia as of yet, introducing a risk of
faults are more likely to occur due to a phase to pole flashover. undercounting earth faults.
This brought with it its own obstacles however. Due to the
nature of the report, shown in Fig. 2, it is required that each
interruption be read manually to interpret it.
Start Date: 01-01-15
Status: NORMAL
Entry Type: SReclose
Feeder: SG14: UPPER STURT 11kV
Cause: Unknown - not patrolled S/R
Cause Text: Weather Fine
OMS Job No.: J611939
Log ID No.: 4.80903E+12
Date/Time Caller Substation Action/Event Device SReclose Operation Detail
12:00:00 AM
2:59:00 AM STIRLING EAST SCADA ALARM R2150 Yes R2150 [Upper Sturt] Open
R2150 [Upper Sturt] Earth OC TRip
Dispatch Advised
Alarms Reset by SCADA
5:49:00 AM NORMAL

Figure 2. NOC log layout example.

The following considerations and limitations were noted

Figure 1. Metal stobie pole [4].
The layout of this paper is as follows. Section II Method
of Fault Frequency Determination details the methodology
used in selecting an appropriate fault source, and how the
number of earth faults was determined for each substation.
This section also explains the assumptions and limitations.
Section III Fault Frequency Results discusses the fault
frequencies found for each substation and how these numbers
compare against the calculated fault frequency. Section IV
Assessing Risk of Previous Methods investigates the risk of
touch voltage thresholds produced using the calculated fault
frequency, and using the IEEE80 method when assessed
using the observed fault frequency to evaluate previous
threshold determination methods.
II. METHOD OF FAULT FREQUENCY DETERMINATION
SA Power Networks has previously held their fault records
in three different ways:
when determining the observed fault frequency:
• Earth faults must be distinguished from all other
interruptions e.g. phase to phase, forced
interruptions etc.;
• The number of earth faults vary between
interruption logs (due primarily to reclosing and
fault finding) and were required to be counted;
• Some faults were unable to be classified as phase
to earth or phase to phase;
• The large number of interruptions in the network
limited the number of faults that could be
examined manually; and
• Manual examination introduced human error into
fault counts.
Because of these limitations, most importantly that
regarding the large number of faults, it was decided that a
sample of substations were to be analyzed to represent the
differing fault frequencies throughout the state.
To do this, South Australia was separated into 15 different
areas based on Country Fire Service (CFS) bushfire risk. High
bushfire risk areas typically have a large amount of vegetation
and as a result more frequent animal activity. These two
factors are major contributors to earth faults, thus it was
expected that substations within similar bushfire risk areas,
will have a similar fault count. The aim of this was to

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investigate the possibility of obtaining a single fault frequency TABLE II. FAULT TYPE ASSUMPTIONS.
for each area. The areas are shown in Fig. 3.
Assumption Fault Type

Single fuse operation EARTH

Multiple fuse operation UNKNOWN

Single phase recloser or circuit breaker operation EARTH

Multiple phase recloser or circuit breaker operation PHASE

Unspecified phase recloser or circuit breaker
UNKNOWN
operation
Any instance of ‘Earth fault’ or equivalent e.g. ‘EF’,
EARTH
‘EOC’, ‘EOCIT’, ‘SEF’
Any instance of ‘Neutral trip’ or equivalent e.g.
EARTH
‘NOC’, ‘NOCIT’, ‘SNO’
Lightning (usually accompanied by one of the other
EARTH
rules)
Figure 3. CFS bushfire risk areas [5]. Car hit pole (unless specified as EARTH) UNKNOWN

Insulator damaged/flashover EARTH

Up to three substations were picked from each bushfire
area, giving a total of 39 substations selected to be analyzed, Cable faults CABLE FAULT
representing roughly 10% of the network. 10 years of fault General switching/protection operations or
OTHER
data (2007 to 2017) was then extracted from the NOC log for misoperations not resulting in an earth fault
each substation. This number was chosen to represent a
snapshot of the network at its most recent configuration and
age. It should be noted that the 39 substations chosen III. FAULT FREQUENCY RESULTS
primarily consisted of 11 kV feeders. The earth fault frequencies for the 39 substations examined
An Excel macro was written for the NOC log extract to were found by counting the fault counts of interruptions
sort the information, providing a method to filter by feeder classified as EARTH and UNKNOWN, and dividing by 10
number. Each interruption log was then read, counted, and years to determine the average yearly fault count.
systematically classified as one of the following: To compare against currently used fault frequencies, line
• EARTH – a phase to earth fault; lengths for all feeder overhead conductors were used to scale
the observed number of faults seen by each substation to
• PHASE – a phase to phase fault; faults/100km/year. After determining the shielded component
to be negligible for all feeders examined, it was ignored for
• UNKNOWN – an ambiguous fault which could this comparison and the default fault frequency was
be phase to phase or phase to earth; considered to be 20 faults/100km/year for all lines. Fig. 4
• CABLE FAULT – a phase to earth fault returning shows the observed fault frequencies scaled to
primarily via cable screen; and faults/100km/year against the default value of 20
faults/100km/year (orange line). The earth faults are shown in
• OTHER – any other interruption not caused by a grey, whilst the unknown faults are shown in orange.
fault.
Out of these interruption types, only EARTH and
UNKNOWN were counted as potential earth faults. The
others were not considered as they were not expected to cause
hazardous EPR events.
The rules shown in Table II were followed in determining
interruption type.
As mentioned above, faults were also required to be
counted for each interruption. This resulted from multiple
recloses, linesman reenergizing a faulted line, and fault
finding.

Figure 4. Percentage of observed faults to calculated faults.

Most fault frequencies observed were lower than the

calculated fault frequency. This means that for most cases,

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calculating a fault frequency based on feeder length gives a
higher fault number, and thus a more conservative voltage
threshold.
The outliers shown in region 1 can be attributed to the
small lengths of overhead lines in these areas. When a fault
number on a short section of line is scaled to
faults/100km/year, the fault frequency is dramatically
increased. Nevertheless, it is important to note that using the
standard procedure, these fault frequencies would be
underestimated.
From Fig. 4 the original idea of determining a standard
fault frequency for each area is clearly not possible. This is
especially apparent in regions 5 and 6, where there are
significant differences in faults/100km/year. Figure 6. Probability of fatality for negligible voltage thresholds determined
using calculated fault frequency (1.0 s clearing time).

Out of the 39 substations for both clearing times of 0.2 s

IV. ASSESSING RISK OF PREVIOUS METHODS
A. EG-0 Method using calculated fault frequency
The program Argon was used to determine negligible risk
touch voltage thresholds for each calculated fault frequency.
The following typical parameters were selected in accordance
with [2]:
• The worst case contact scenario was chosen
based on a Google Maps observation of the
substation in question;
• Footwear type was standard footwear;
• No allowance for surface layer;
• Soil resistivity of 50 m; and
• Fault durations were typical values of 0.2 seconds
and 1.0 seconds.
These touch voltage thresholds were then set as the input
voltage, and the risk was again calculated; this time using the
worst case observed fault frequency (EARTH +
UNKNOWN). Figures 5 and 6 show the probability of fatality
for each touch voltage threshold determined using the
calculated fault frequency for 0.2 seconds and 1.0 seconds
respectively.
and 1.0 s, only 6 touch voltage thresholds have a non-
negligible risk. Even then however, the risk falls in the
ALARA region, indicating that the current practice of using
line length to determine fault frequency is generally a more
conservative practice than using the observed fault frequency.
B. IEEE 80 Method
Allowable touch voltages for 0.2 s and 1.0 s were
calculated using (2) as given by IEEE 80 [6]. The following
parameters were followed:
• Surface layer resistivity of 0 ;
• Surface layer derating factor of 0; and
• Body mass of 50 kg to represent thresholds
outside the substation security fence.
ETouch50 = 1000*0.116/t (2)
This gave a touch voltage threshold of 259.38 V for a
clearing time of 0.2 seconds, and a threshold of 116.0 V for a
clearing time of 1.0 seconds. Figures 7 and 8 show the risk of
these touch voltage thresholds when assessed to EG-0
methods using the observed fault frequency.

Figure 7. Probability of fatality for negligible voltage thresholds determined

using IEEE80 (0.2 s clearing time).

Figure 5. Probability of fatality for negligible voltage thresholds determined For a clearing time of 0.2 s, 13 of the 39 touch voltages
using calculated fault frequency (0.2 s clearing time). were in the ALARA region. This indicated that at this fault
duration, IEEE 80 calculated thresholds were still acceptable.

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Figure 8. Probability of fatality for negligible voltage thresholds determined
using IEEE80 (1.0 s clearing time).
For a clearing time of 1.0 s, 17 of the 39 touch voltage
thresholds fell into the ALARA region, and 6 of the 39
thresholds were in the intolerable region. There was a large
variation between the highest and lowest risk values obtained,
with risks significantly increasing when assessing a clearing
time of 1.0 s. The cause of is possibly due to the following:
• IEEE 80 uses a less conservative method of
calculating PFat when compared to the EG-0
method using a Pcoinc of 1 [7]. As a result, this
method gives less conservative voltage
thresholds for substations with a high probability
of coincidence; and
• (2) does not adequately consider the significant
increase in fibrillation risk when exposing a heart
to electrical current for durations which exceed
one heart cycle [8].
Due to the increase in risk as shown in Figures 7 and 8, the
use of EG-0 when calculating acceptable touch voltage
thresholds for SA Power Networks appears to be a safer
approach, especially when considering high contact scenario
substations.
V. CONCLUSION
A method was established for determining observed fault
frequencies using the NOC log, with information being
gathered for 39 substations. The initial expectation of
determining a standard fault frequency for each defined area in
South Australia was not possible due to the wide variation of
fault rates per substation.
The EG-0 negligible risk touch voltage thresholds for the
39 substations were determined using the previously
calculated fault frequency based on 20 faults/100km/year for
unshielded lines and 5 faults/100km/year for shielded lines.
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These touch voltage thresholds were then assessed using the
observed fault frequency in Argon to determine the risk for
fault durations of both 0.2 seconds and 1.0 seconds. In both
cases, there were 6 touch voltage thresholds that were found to
be in the ALARA region, with the remaining being in the
negligible risk zone.
The previous method used by SA Power Networks in
accordance with IEEE 80 was also assessed by calculating
allowable touch voltages for personnel outside a substation.
The risk of these touch voltages were then calculated using
Argon for fault durations of both 0.2 seconds and 1.0 seconds.
For the 0.2 second fault case, 13 of the 39 touch voltage
thresholds were in the ALARA region, with the remaining
being in the negligible risk zone. For the 1.0 second fault case,
17 of the 39 touch voltages were in the ALARA region, 6
were in the intolerable risk region, and the remaining were in
the negligible risk zone.
These observations indicated that allowable touch voltage
thresholds determined using a calculated fault frequency gave
a typically acceptable value when assessed using EG-0 and the
observed fault frequency. Allowable touch voltages calculated
using SA Power Networks previous method based on IEEE 80
however, presented multiple intolerable risk cases when
assessed using EG-0 and the observed fault frequency.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to give special thanks to Daniel
Snodgrass and Anthony Malcolm for their advisory
contribution to this paper.
REFERENCES
[1] EG-0 Power System Earthing Guide Part 1: Management Principles,
Energy Networks Association, May 2010.
[2] Earthing Design and Test Guide, SA Power Networks Controlled
Document G-25, August 2018.
[3] Sokolowski, Peter & Dwivedi, Ajendra & Pathak, Sachin & Buratto, F
& Yu, Xinghuo, “Investigating the impedance of a wooden power pole
after a pole fire,” in Power Engineering Conference, 2008, pp. 4-5.
[4] "Stobie Pole". 2018. [Online]. Available En.Wikipedia.Org.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stobie_pole.
[5] "Bans And Ratings :: CFS". 2018 [Online]. Available Cfs.Sa.Gov.Au.
https://www.cfs.sa.gov.au/site/bans_and_ratings.jsp.
[6] IEEE Guide for Safety in AC Substation Grounding, IEEE Std. 80-
2013, Dec. 2013.
[7] M. J. Bale and W. J. V. Tocher, "Is deterministic design risk free? how
design options differ between deterministic & risk based
processes," 2016 Down to Earth Conference (DTEC), Hunter Valley,
NSW, 2016, pp. 1-7.
[8] Effects of current on human beings and livestock Part 1: General
Aspects, AS/NZS 60479.1:2010, May 2010.