European Wind Energy Conference and Exhibition (EWEC2010), 20-23 April, 2010, Warsaw, Poland

PO.349

EQUIVALENT EQUATION OF EARTH RESISTANCE

FOR RING ELECTRODE OF WIND TURBINE
YASUDA Yoh and FUJII Toshiaki
Kansai University
3-3-35 Yamate-cho, Suita, Osaka 564-0852, JAPAN
+81-6-6368-0978
yasuda@mem.iee.or.jp

ABSTRACT
Earth resistance is a one of the most important issues for wind turbine lightning protection.
Although various equations have been proposed to simulate earth resistance, it is still difficult to
accurately estimate an actual wind turbine earthing because of its complex shape combined with
a concrete foundation, auxiliary vertical and ring electrodes. This report clarified how the shape
and size of the foundation and the auxiliary electrodes affects to the earth resistance using FDTD
(Finite Difference Time Domain) calculation. An equivalent equation to practically simulate wind
turbine earthing can be proposed with some correction parameters and improved conventional
equations.

INTRODUCTION

Lightning protection of wind power generation is becoming an important public issue as

installations of wind turbines have greatly increased worldwide and its commutative capacity
has exceeded at 150 GW [1]. Wind turbines are often struck by lightning because of their
open-air locations, special shape and very-high construction. As well as seriously damaging
blades, accidents where low-voltage and control circuits breakdown frequently occur in many
wind farms. Although some reports, including IEC TR 61400-24: 2002 [2], have indicated a
methodology for protection against such accidents, a standardized solution remains to be
established. This problem has recently surfaced as an important issue. Among several
elements of lightning protection, an earthing (grounding) system is one of the most important
points to be considered. However, few investigations and reports have been published as far
as wind turbine earthing except of a few papers [3]-[6].
Although various equations including the famous Sunde's equation have been proposed to
simulate earth resistance of various shape of electrode, it is still difficult to accurately estimate
the earth resistance of wind turbine. One of the reasons of this is because that an earthing
system of a wind turbine is too complex to simply express by conventional equations. A
general turbine earthing includes a block of concrete foundations with reinforcement bars and
combination of auxiliary vertical rods and ring earth electrodes as recommended in IEC 6140024. For this reason, lack of a universal method to estimate earthing system tends to inhibit
cost-effective foundation design in the practical field.
Therefore, the aim of this report is to establish a universal and practical method with simple
equivalent equations to simulate various shape, size, type of combination of turbine foundation
and electrodes. At the first step of our investigation, a numerical calculation using FDTD (Finite
Difference Time Domain) method is employed to clarify how the shape and size of the
foundation affects to the earth resistance.
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SUNDES FORMULA FOR RING ELECTRODE

To estimate a steady resistance of a ring electrode, there exist a famous and authorized
equivalent equation proposed by Sunde [7];.

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Figure 1. Horizontal arrangement of Sundes ring earth electrode

8r
(1)
ln
2
2 r
2ad
where a is a radius of a cross-section of the ring, d is a burying depth of the ring, and r is an
outer radius of the ring.
Although the Sundes equivalent equation describing a ring electrode is authorized and its

accuracy is already confirmed

experimentally, it is doubtful that the equation would be suitable
to describe a ring earth electrode of actual wind turbine. This is because that an earthing
system of a wind turbine is a combination of a ring earth electrode and a turbine foundation
itself, which is a relatively huge block of reinforcing concrete and its existence is expected to
give a significant effect to a combined resistance. Since it is difficult to algebraically describe
the combined resistance of the turbine foundation and the ring electrode, it is not
recommended to employ the Sundes equation on its own to estimate earth resistance of an
actual wind turbine. Therefore it would be helpful to estimate the combined resistance using a
numerical calculation such as FDTD method.
In this chapter, we describe the equivalent equation by Sunde following the process that the
equation was led.
First of all, suppose the Courtesan space and a ring earth electrode whose center is set to
the original point of the space. The ring is supposed to be arranged in x-y plane as shown in
Fig.1. Then, the distance from a small portion du to the arbitrary point on the x-y plane is given
as Eq.(2) according to the cosine theorem;
R=

Figure 2. 3-D arrangement of Sundes ring earth electrode

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of the well-known Sundes formula.

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CONCLUSIONS

Improving the conventional Sunde's equation with some correction parameters according to
the size and shape of earthing system, it became possible to propose a novel equivalent
equation;

8re
R =
ln
(24)
2 2 re
2ad
in order to estimate practical wind turbine earthing. The present proposed equation is not only
covers to a steady earth resistance, but also to help to estimate a transient potential rise of
earthing system to consider accurate lightning protection of wind turbine.

REFERENCES

[1] Global Wind Energy Council: Global wind power boom continues despite economic woes,
2010.
http://www.gwec.net/fileadmin/documents/PressReleases/PR_2010/Annex%20stats%20PR
%202009.pdf

[2] IEC Technical Report, Wind Turbine Generation System - 24: Lightning Protection,
TR61400-24, 2002.
[3] I. Cotton: Windfarm Earthing, Proc. of 11th International Symposium on High Voltage
Engineering (ISH 99), 1999; 288-291.
[4] M. Lorentzou, N. Hatziargyriou, B. Papadias: Analysis of Wind Turbine Grounding
Systems, Proc. of 10th Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference (MELECON2000),
2000; 936- 939.
[5] Y. Yasuda, T. Ueda: FDTD Transient Analysis of Ring Earth Electrode, Proc. of 41st
International Universities Power Engineering Conference (UPEC2006), 2006; 133-136.
[6] Y. Yasuda, T. Fuji, T. Ueda: Transient Analysis of Ring Earth Electrode for Wind Turbine,
European Wind Energy Conference (EWEC2007), 2007; BL3.212.
[7] E. D. Sunde: EARTH CONDUCTION EFFECTS IN TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS, McGraw-Hill Book
Company, Inc., 1968.
[8] K. S. Yee: Numerical solution of initial boundary value problems involving Maxwells
equations in isotropic media, IEEE Transaction on Antennas and Propagation, 1996;
14(3): pp.302-307.
[9] K. Tanabe, A. Asakawa: Computer Analysis of Transient Performance of Grounding Grid
Element Based on the Finite-Difference Time-Domain Method, IEEE Transaction on
Power Energy, 2003; 120-B(8/9): pp.209-212.
[10] Z. P. Liao, H. L. Wong, B.-P. Yang, Y.-F. Yuan, A transmitting boundary for transient
wave analysis, Science Sinica, 1984; 27(10): 1063-1076.

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