Electrical Earthing

11/04/2019 By Hugh Leave a Comment

How do I know my 1950’s earthing arrangements are still keeping my workforce safe?

I thought I’d continue from my last blog piece talking about heavy current injection earth testing by talking about a key application where it can potentially deliver much better results than the modern CDEGS approach on your earthing arrangements.

Many industrial sites were built in the 1950s and 60s as industrialisation grew. This, in line with the expansion of the electrical grid, led to a huge program of electrical substation construction around the world. What this means is that some of us own the responsibility of managing sites with ageing transformers, assets and equipment which were designed to obsolete standards and knowing what hazard this presents today, is simply not known.

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28/02/2019 By Hugh Leave a Comment

Test large electrode systems using heavy current – for more accurate earth electrode resistance measurements

I recently attended a training session with Omicron in Germany, looking at their primary injection test set for earth electrode and line impedance testing. We looked at how to set up a current injection, potentially up to 100 A, down an Overhead line or Feeder cable to achieve good separation between the electrode under test and the auxiliary electrode.

Previously, test methods have relied on dedicated cables for the measurement, which has limited the available area to deploy the auxiliary electrode, owing to land usage constraints and roads. So, being able to use something in a built-up environment on electrically large HV systems avoiding road closures, etc. comes as a breath of fresh air to a lot of engineers facing this problem.

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21/12/2018 By Ian Leave a Comment

Seasonal Greeting and a Round Up of 2018

Firstly I’d like to take this opportunity to wish our Clients, friends, students and Blog subscribers SEASONAL GREETINGS and a very prosperous New Year.

I’m actually in Gibraltar writing this post completing a personal goal of mine. That’s topping up my sailing qualifications in preparation for my exciting challenge later next year to the Southern Ocean competing in the Clipper Round the World Race (more on that next year).

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30/11/2018 By Ian Leave a Comment

November 2018 – Earthing Standards update (Rail)

For the past few years. GreyMatters has been fortunate enough to support the rail electrification and upgrade programmes across the UK for Earthing Design. And maintaining a consistent approach across a building programme of this scale can be a massive engineering headache for all design teams concerned.

Especially, when Earthing Standards touches on so many disciplines along the way – from civils, OLE (Overhead line equipment), signals, EMC, 3rd parties, ecologies, geophysical as well as the more obvious general E&B (earthing and bonding).

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15/10/2018 By Ian Leave a Comment

How to Size High Voltage Earthing Conductors Correctly

What size conductors should I use? And, is there a simple table I can use for this high voltage earthing design? These are great questions that I’m often asked. This post answers these questions together with the choice of conductor materials and jointing method within a high voltage earthing design project.

Assessing conductor size is entirely dependent on the electrical configuration and the load that the conductor must take. For example, an above-ground bonding conductor serves to transfer current with minimal voltage drop, from A to B. A directly buried conductor has an additional purpose, that of leaking the fault current/voltage into the local geology (as part of an electrode).

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Electrical Earthing

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