STANDARD TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS FOR ELECTRIC WORKS

SITE ACCEPTANCE TESTS (SAT) AFTER INSTALLATION

EARTHING SYSTEMS
GENERAL

TRANSCO STANDARD : SAT-TR-EARTH-GEN-(REV.0-2009)

SAT-TR-EARTH-GEN (REV. 0-2009) Page 1 of 3

 SITE ACCEPTANCE TESTS AFTER INSTALLATION
EARTHING SYSTEMS
General

1. Introduction

This document will cover the requirements to ensure a correct and acceptable procedure to carry out the earth
resistance test.
The primary functions of earthing system are essentially protection and safety of operating personnel against
dangerous step and touch voltage.
Planning and design of earthing system was performed according to IEEE regulations, standard 80. Those
regulations give limits for the tolerable step and touch voltage in dependence of fault duration.
The earthing system comprises a grid of buried conductors providing a current path to earth, with
connections to earthing points on all indoor and outdoor primary and secondary equipment.
The internal earthing systems include buildings, each providing earthing points for all indoor primary and
secondary equipment.
The external system provides a current path to earth, earthing points for outdoor structures and connections
to the internal systems. The external system is interconnected more than once to all the internal systems to
ensure a secure current path to earth.
Purpose of proposed measurement is to verify the capability of the new substation earthing system, to limit
the voltage gradients to values lower than the calculated tolerable step and touch voltage limits. In case of a
fault, the high voltage substation earthing system is raised to a higher potential with respect to the reference
earth value. It is possible, for a person working inside the installation, to ‘pick-up’ portions of this earthing
voltage in the form of step and touch voltage.
In such an event the current flowing through a person’s body may cause electric shock, burns, fibrillation and
even death, depending on its value.

2. Measurement Procedure

Measuring of earthing impedance, touch and step voltage will check the effectiveness of the installed
earthing system. Measurements will be carried out with the current injection using ‘Current and voltage
measurement’ method.
In order to simulate the potential distribution that occurs during short circuit conditions in Substation it is
necessary to inject a current to the earthing system. The test current shall be selected as high as possible, to
generate voltage high enough to be measured. This will generally be the case with test currents upwards of
100A.
For the purpose of this test we will use a 300 mm2 earthing cable, laid from the building to 250 meters
located earth rod, previously buried 4 meters under the earth.

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 SITE ACCEPTANCE TESTS AFTER INSTALLATION
EARTHING SYSTEMS
General

Auxiliary earthed point of the current electrode must be located at a distance such that:
- The test current can affect the earthing system under examination as uniformly as possible
- Any gradients distortion caused by mutual coupling between electrodes too close each other is avoided.

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