Advanced System Grounding and Preventive Grounding Course

Course Overview:

This course on grounding system design is extremely detailed in nature and helps participants understand its use and implementation in a power system.

Participants brace themselves with crucial concepts such as soil resistivity values, groundings for substations, protective measures against lightning, and the means to mitigate surges. The course takes a step further to detail the grounding system types, fault analysis, protection and studies suitable for overhead, underground, and transition stations. 

It also tackles the issues on lightning, noise and harmonics in power systems with suitable practical methods to ensure safety and reliability.

This course has been designed for engineers, technicians or other professionals involved in planning, designing or maintaining systems and assists the participants in design more effective grounding systems and improve the reliability of the power system.

Course Objectives:

At the end of this training course, you will learn:

• Main concepts of grounding system design and associated calculations
• Risk assessment and mitigation techniques as related to power system disturbances
• How to analyze and calculate appropriate grounding systems for substations
• Soil layers specifications, testing, and selection of earthing rods
• Principles of lightning and surge protection

Who Should Attend?

We encourage the staff involved in the operation, planning, design, and maintenance of power systems to attend this course. This Electrical Engineering training course is suitable for a wide range of professionals but will greatly benefit: 

• Project Engineers / Managers
• Electrical Engineers / Technicians
• System Operators
• Design Engineers
• Asset Engineers / Managers
• Planning Engineers / Managers
• Protection, Instrumentation, and Commissioning Engineers / Technicians

Course Outlines:

Need for Grounding Systems 

• Electric Fault
• Consequences of Fault
• Arc Flash Boundary
• Types of Fault
• Protective Personal Equipment (PPE)
• Grounding Fundamentals
• Bonding
• Ground Electrodes
• Grounding of Electrical Substations
• Elimination of Static Charges by appropriate Grounding
• Impact of Lightning on Power Systems
• Surge Protection
• Noise Mitigation
• Lightning Strike
• Effect of Lightning on Power Lines
• Lightning Protection Methods
• Formation of Static Charges
• Hazards associated with Static Charge Build-up
• Spark Energy and Ignition Capability
• Assessment & Control of Static Charge

Types of Grounding Systems

• Ungrounded Systems
• Solidly Grounded Systems
• Resistance Grounding using NER
• Impedance Grounding using Neutral Reactor
• Shock Hazard
• Grounding of Equipment
• Protective Devices
• Thermal Capability
• Touch Potential
• Step Potential
• Induced Voltage Mitigation
• EMI Suppression
• Metal Enclosure for Grounding Conductors
• Surge Protection via Grounding Connections
• Earth Fault Protection Sensitivity
• TN Systems
• TN-C System
• TN-S System
• TN-C-S System
• TT System

Ground Faults and Related Protection Techniques

• Circuit Breaker Protection
• Fuse Protection
• Relay Protection
• Protection Criteria
• Sequence Networks
• Per Unit System
• Measuring Transformers (CT and VT)
• Overcurrent Protection
• Earth Fault Protection
• IDMT O/C & E/F Protection
• Transformer O/C and E/F Protection

Grounding Systems Studies

• Soil Resistance
• Soil Resistivity Measurement Techniques & Interpretations
• The resistance of Dingle Rod Electrode
• Use of Multiple Ground Electrodes (earthing rods) in Parallel
• Current carrying capacity of Ground Electrodes
• Measurement of Ground Electrode Resistance
• Chemical Electrodes and Corrosion Problems
• Approach to Grounding System Design
• Ground Fault Current
• Grounding of HV Substations
• Grounding of MV & LV Installations
• Grounding Grid for HV Outdoor Substation
• Soil Resistivity Calculations using Multi-layer Models
• Transferred Voltage
• Design considerations for Effective Substation Grounding
• Lightning Strike Probability & Incidence
• Lightning Risk Assessment

Lightning Protection & Noise Mitigation

• Impacts of Lightning impacts on Power Lines
• Principles of Lightning Protection
• Power Systems Surges and their Impacts
• Equipotential Bonding
• Principles of Surge Protection
• Selection of Lightning / Surge Arrestor
• Electrical Noise and its Impacts
• Noise Categories
• Noise Disturbance on Distribution Systems and Data Cables
• Ground Loop as a Source of Noise
• Electrostatic / Capacitive Coupling
• Shielded Isolation Transformer
• Ground Loop Mitigation
• Power System Harmonics and their Impacts
• UPS Configurations