2006 International Conference on Power System Technology

A Novel Method to Determine Earth Fault

Split Factor For Grounding Grid Design of
HV Substations
S.Mohammad Shahrtash, Nabiollah Ramezani

Abstract-- To design a safe substation grounding grid, it is Different methods have been introduced to achieve the
necessary to compute the split factor for earth fault current, and
above mentioned results [1-8].
also current distribution in other possible paths. In this paper, a Some of these methods have been made different
novel, simple and accurate method is developed for the approximations and simplifications [1-5], while the others
determination of split factor. In the proposed algorithm have been recorded as analytical methods [6-8]. In general,
grounding grid impedance of adjacent substations, nonsimilar
tower footing resistances and parallel circuits, more than one the ability of methods to consider the contribution of the
earth wires and different spans in transmission lines can be following parameters, in a simple way, may be proposed as
considered. Finally, the results are compared with the others appropriate criteria for evaluating their performances:
which show good agreement and accuracy. -Mutual inductances between phase conductors and earth
wires
Index Terms-- Split factor, Earth fault current, Touch and -Different spans in incoming/outgoing overhead lines
Step voltages, Grounding grid design, HV Substations. -Different tower footing resistances
-More than one earth wire
I. INTRODUCTION -Grounding grid of adjacent substations
THIE earth fault currents in power system may be circulated -Large and complicated power system
through transmission line earth wires, tower footing It may be stated that none of the methods presented yet,
resistance, substations grounding grid and phase conductors can include all of the above mentioned parameters. In this
connected to faulted point as is shown in Fig. 1. paper, a novel, simple and accurate method is developed for
To design a safe substation grounding grid and preventing determination of split factor, where all the above-mentioned
any overdesign, it is of prime importance to compute correctly parameters are considered. The results for a case study from
the split factor of earth fault and also current distribution in Iran Grid Power are given and compared with some previous
other possible paths by modeling overhead lines and adjacent methods and the accuracy ofthis method is shown.
substation grounding grids.
II. MAIN PARAMETERS IN THE MODEL
Faulted A network containing two substations and a transmission
line in between are shown in Fig.2. To determine split factor
for an earth fault, different components of the mentioned
Adjacentl
substationllR Adjacent network should be modeled as in the following:
jJ substation a. Faulted phase conductor is modeled by self impedance
of phase conductor and current source (Ir) which the latter is
~~~~~~~~~~........... calculated from short circuit program in power system.
|Rg
b. The earth wire(s) and tower footing resistance can be
Substation under: represented by a ladder network of impedance and
consideration resistances, as in Fig.3, where the impedance Zsk is the self
........................................
impedance of kth span of earth wire, and RTk is the footing
resistance of kth tower. Zsk is computed by the following
Fig. 1. The power network configuration equation:
z Zg (1)
S
S .Mohammad Shahrtash is assistant professor with Department of Electrical
Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) and Director of where Isk is the length of line spans in (m), and Zg is the self
Relay Laboratory, (e-mail: shahrtashgiust.ac.ir). impedance of the earth wire (Q/m) which is calculated by:
Nabiollah Ramezani is phD student with the Department of Electrical
Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) and researcher
of Relay Laboratory (e-mail: n ramezanigiust.ac.ir).

1-4244-0111-9/06/$20.00c02006 IEEE.
Z= r +4.935x 10-5 + j14.47x1051og10 e (2)
De is equivalent depth of earth return (m) that is determined
by:
Ze-* V, RT1 RT2 R T1 RTnV Adjacent
De = 93.1117p (3)
and rg is the resistance of the earth wire (Q/m), GMR, the Fig. 3. Equivalent circuit of earth wire(s) and towers
geometric mean radius of earth wire (m) and p the earth The overall transfer function can be constructed according
resistivity (Q.m). to the transmission matrix for one two-port module of the
Also, the mutual impedance (Q/m) between each span of ladder network as in Fig.4.
the earth wire(s) and the faulted phase conductor must be
included in the model by the following relation: I.
____I_Zsi * IJ+1
Zgm = 4.935 x 10-5 + j14.47 x 10-5 log10 ( e
) (4)
where, GMDSep is geometric mean distance between earth V+ RTj Vj+I
wire and phase conductor in (m).
c. Grounding grid of the substation under consideration is
modeled with a resistance, Rg. Fig.4. Equivalent circuit of one span and tower
d. Adjacent substations grounding grid are modeled with
resistances, Rgk In Fig.4, the transmission matrix can be introduced as:

[IJ [tl t12 ][l ] [1+l (5)

I where:
k where:

Z.I (6)
t =1+ t Z I tj3 =
,tj4 =
$1j -PIT
Consequently, the following relation can be used to find
the input impedance of the ladder network.
consideration
Fig.2. Accurate model for the network conmected to faulted point
TIFT T12 FV V1
(7)
It is not necessary to mention that the fault current ( IG)
while Ze = M/11
is calculated through short circuit study of power system.
B. Including adjacent substations grounding grid
III. THE PROPOSED METHOD In this stage, the adjacent substation grounding grid is
In the proposed method, the mutual coupling between the considered as in Fig.5, where Jr is the current through the
earth wires and phase conductors are waived in the first step faulted phase conductor, and 12 is the part of fault current
and the equivalent circuit of earth wires, tower footing through earth wire.
resistances and adjacent substations grounding grid are
determined. Then with compensating the effect of those I1 *
Equivalent
circuit of earth
12
10
mutual impedances, the fault current distribution among the a wire and towers
grounding grid of the substation under consideration and
other components of power system are obtained.
Step by step implementation of this method is as the Adjacent
following: equivalent c tRg Ir
substation

A Constructing initial equivalent circuit j Rg, I2

Typical initial equivalent circuit of earth wire(s), tower
footing resistances and adjacent substation grounding grids is
shown in Fig.3 (without considering mutual impedance Rg
between earth wire and phase conductors). In this circuit, Substation
length of spans and ultimately their self impedances(ZS,) and under consideration

also towers footing resistance (RT) may be different. Fig.5.Combining adjacent substation grounding grid effiect with the
equivalent circuit
 D. Computing split factor
The Thevenin's equivalent circuit, seen between "a" and According to Fig.8, the mesh equations can be realized
"b" in Fig.5, may be introduced by the following equations and introduced in matrix form as following:
and is shown in Fig.6.
FL) L) kl)hi lRg(IG-
Ze I (Zs + RgI) + T2 (8) FR t-4 rel
z a'R ... R
ag lr T -1
lII
I"
i=1
)

T21 (Zs,+, + Rg ) + T22 Rg Rg + Ze *2* * Rg 12 (Znm2 -

2) r2 _
n

](JG_I i=l-EIr) (11)

k= T12-I R2i[Ti,(Z +Rgi)+T2] (9)
-Rg Rg Rg +Zen
ZRs, [l1(Zsl +-Rg)+T22(2s>1 +R1) ... InJ
~

1throu-g (jG Y,Iri) w

(Z. -,k)
n

i=l _
ke Ir
where Ij is the part of fault current through jth earth wire.
Consequently, split factor (Sf) in substation under
consideration, is obtained by:
n

I (Iri Ij.)
IC=9 I1
j.=1 (12)
G

Fig.6. Thevenin's equivalent

C. The final equivalent circuit

By substituting the equivalent circuit of Fig.6 and
inclusion of mutual impedance between earth wire(s) and
faulted phase conductor, the final equivalent circuit for the
network of Fig. 1 is obtained as shown in Fig.7.
The total mutual impedance is obtained as:
n+I
Substation uncd'ei
Zm =EZgmi (10) consideration
i=l Fig. 8. General equivalent circuit
where Zgm is calculated through (4).
IV. SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE PROPOSED METHOD
Ze According to this procedure, the proposed method can be
applied to large and even complicated networks due to
considering the mutual impedances between earth wires and
phase conductors through compensation step and performing
the calculations, with different spans in outgoing overhead
lines and also different tower footing resistances (Eq. 11). In
addition the contribution of grounding grids of adjacent
substations can be considered (Eq. 11).

V. THE PROPOSED METHOD RESULTS

While none of the previous recorded procedures have such
capability to consider all of the parameters mentioned in
section I, in order to compare the results of the proposed
Fig.7. The final equivalent circuit with one adjacent substation method with the others, two of them are chosen. Ref. [2]
because of its simple procedure for large number of spans and
Following the same procedure, the equivalent circuit for a Ref. [7] to be compared as an analytical method. Two
substation with a number of outgoing transmission lines and different case studies are performed on, standard network [9]
adjacent substations can be found for each outgoing line and (Appendix A) and KARKHiEH power plant (Appendix B) that
then combined as shown in Fig.8. It is assumed that the the results are presented as the following.
ground fault is occurred at "F", and it must be reminded that
the fault currents incoming through each line (Irj, for the jth
transmission line) are computed through short circuit study.
 A The number ofspans and Sf spans and tower footing resistances and large transmission
Fig.9 shows the effect of number of spans on split factor networks with multi earth wires for computing split factor of
according to the data reported in [9] by comparing the earth fault current.
presented method and [2] and [7].
As shown, the results of the new model is similar to [7]
0.45 >
for any number of the spans, and are similar to [2] for more
than 13 spans of outgoing transmission line. While because of 0.4-
high computation error, the model in [2] may not be used for 0.35 A
short transmission lines, and also due to complexity of the
analytical method, [7], it is impossible to be used for long and 0.3
[7]
complicated short transmission lines, the new method is able 0
t 0.25 New method
to compute split factor for all of the cases in a simple
X 0.2
procedure and gives accurate results. Cl,,

0.15

0.1
0.92 ! New method
0.05

0
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Rgl(Ohm)
Fig. 10. Comparison between the proposed method and [7] for case study
LS New method]\
The results of this method are compared with the others
and showed good agreement for comparable cases.

VII. APPENDIX

A The transmission line data [9]

Table A. 1 The related transmission line data

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 f(Hz) 50
Number of Span Zg (Q/km) (7+j 1.3)
Fig.9. Comparison between the presented method and [2], [7] Zgm (Q/km) 0.0494+0.386
Span length(m) 300
B. Adjacent grounding grids and Sf RT(Q) 10
The fault current split factor is computed (with the data in Rg(Q) 0.5
Appendix B) for substation of Karkheh power plant. In order Rgi (Q) 0.5
to compare the results of the proposed method with [7], the B. The Karkheh network diagram
existing double circuit transmission line (Fig. B. 1) is assumed
to be similar (Ref. [7] can not be used for nonsimilar outgoing 86m
transmission lines).
The results of the new method and [7] are compared in
Fig. 10, which shows good agreement and the maximum 125.9m 111.2m 97.Sm A
difference between them (which is less than ten percent in all :~
cases) makes the grounding grid slightly more safe (where it X1
0.
may be desired, indeed). 6

It is worth mentioning that [7] and other previous X~

recorded procedures can not analyze the nonsimilar double a
circuit outgoing lines, while the proposed approach can carry
out it easily.
D
G21,G22 F4 F3 F2
G24,G25
VI. CONCLUSION G23 G26

To compute the accurate fault current for designing a safe

substation grounding grid, it is necessary to properly model
the transmission network connected to substation and G27,G28
grounding grid of adjacent substations. In this paper, an Fig. B 1 Network, power plant and substation of Karkheh Power Plant (P/P)
accurate and simple model is developed which is able to
analyze nonsimilar double circuit outgoing lines, different
 IX. BIOGRAPHIES
Table B. 1. The transmission line data between P/P and substation
First end of Second Span Number Z4(ohm) S.Mohammad Shahrtash was born in Tehran, Iran,
span (i) end of length of earth 1960. He received the B.S. degree in Electrical
span (m) wire Engineering from the AIT, Abadan, Iran in 1980, and the
(i+1) M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from UMIST,
PP
G21 England in 1985, and ph.D. from Sharif University of
(Substatioen) G22 55 4 0.063+jO.049 Technology, Iran in 1995. Since 1985, he is academic
(Subtaton) G23 staff in Electrical Engineering Department of Iran
University of Science & Technology (IUST).His main research areas are
G21 G24 Protection, Electromagnetic Transient Analysis and Power System Studies.
G22,G23
G22 7G23
G25
i
G26
61 4 0.07+jO.054
G24 F5 64.7 1 0.074+jO.057 Nabiollah Ramezani was born in Babol, Iran, 1972. He
G25 F5 54 1 0.062+jO.048 received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from
G25 G28 42.5 1 0.049+jO.038 K.N.Toosi, Iran, and the M.S. degree in Electrical
G27 F4 44 1 0.05+jO.039 Engineering from Iran University of Science & Technology
G28 F4 62.6 1 0.072+jO.055 (IUST). Currently, he is ph.D. student in Electrical
F5 F4 86 1 0.099+jO.076 Engineering at IUST.
F4 F3 125.9 2 0.145+jO.111
F4 F3 121.2 2 0.14+j0 107
F3 F2 111.2 2 0.13+JO.098
F3 F2 105.8 2 0.122+JO.094
F2 G13 111.2 1 0.13+jO.098
F2 G14 102.4 1 0.12+jO.091
F2 G15 97.8 1 0.112+jO.086
G13/G14 D/C 59.3 2 0.068+jO.052
G14/G15 B/A 57.3 2 0.066+jO.051

VIII. REFERENCES
[l].L.MPopovic, "Efficient Reduction of Fault Current
Through the Grounding Grid ofSubstation Supplied by Cable
Line" IEEE Trans. On Power Delivery, Vol.15, No.2, April
2000.
[2]. Hans R.Seedher and etal, " A Practical Approach for
Computation of Grid Current", IEEE Trans. on Power
Delivery, Vol.14, No.3, July 1999.
[3]. L.MPopovic, " Practical Method for Evaluating Ground
Fault Current Distribution in Station, Towers and Ground
Wire" IEEE Trans. On Power Delivery, Vol.13, No.1,
January 1998.
[4]. L.MPopovic, " Practical Method for Evaluating Ground
Fault Current Distribution in Station Supplied by An
Unhomogeneous Line " IEEE Trans. On Power Delivery,
Vol. 12, No.2, April 1997.
[5]. J.MNahman, " Proximity Effects on the Ground Fault
Current Distribution within the Earthing System Formed by a
Substation and the Associated Transmission Lines " IEE
Proceedings, Vol. 135, No.6, November 1988.
[6]. A.P.Meliopoulos, and etal, " Computation of Maximum
Earth Current in Substation Switchyards" IEEE Trans. On
Power Apparatus and Systems, Vol. PAS-102, No.9,
September. 1983.
[7]. F.Dawalibi," Ground Fault Current Distribution
Between Apparatus and System", Vol. PAS-99, No.2,
March/April 1980.
[8]. R.Verma, D.Mukhedkar," Ground Fault Current
Distribution Substation, Towers and Systems" Vol. PAS-98,
No.3, May/June 1979.
[9]. ANSI/ IEEE Std 80-1986, "IEEE Grounding for Safety in
AC Substation Grounding".