EE537 Advanced Power

System Protection Dr C
Booth
March 2010
3) How can earth faults on
solidly earthed three phase
systems be detected? You
may wish
to use a diagram to
support your answer.
Earth faults on such
systems may be detected
using simple overcurrent
protection
and/or dedicated earth
fault protection, which may
look for significant
unbalance

across all three individual

phase currents and/or for
current flow in the earth
connection itself. Diagrams
of various forms of earth
fault protection shown
below:
I
1A

I
1B

I
1C
50
51

G
50
51
50
51
50N
51N

Dedicated phase and earth

fault protection

Dedicated earth-fault
protection
Economic phase and earth
fault protection (note only
three relays in total).
4) If there is an earth fault
and current is flowing
through an earth
connection in a substation,
what are the potential risks
to personnel or livestock in
the vicinity of the earth
connection
through which current is
flowing? How can these
risks be reduced?
When current flows into or
out of the earth at a

particular location, there

will be a
potential rise at the point
of entry as shown in the
diagram below. This
manifests as a

EE537 Advanced Power

System Protection Dr C
Booth
March 2010
step and touch voltage on
the ground around the
earth connection (step
potential)
and possibly on earthed
equipment (touch
potential). The risks of this
are obvious to
personnel and livestock
these risks can be reduced
by reducing the resistance
to
true earth by making a
better connection

reducing the resistance

decreases the
touch and step potentials.
0V (true earth)
Resistance
Voltage Rise
Current
Voltage Gradient
Equipment
(e.g. earthed
transformer
tank)

5) Draw a circuit diagram

for a single phase non-PME
TN-C-S system. What
would be the
potential consequences of
a broken supply neutral in
such a system?

Circuit diagram below:

Non PME
system
Supply
Transformer
240V
Consumer
load
connected earths
Consumers
to supply neutral (TN-C-S)

L
N
E
Combined E/N

The broken neutral could

lead to dangerous voltage
rises on all earthed
equipment as

the overall circuit would be

open at the point of the
neutral break no current
flow so
no voltage drop across live
and the neutral on the
consumer-side of the break
in the
neutral. Therefore all
exposed metalwork on all
consumers devices
connected to that
circuit (presuming at least
one device was switched
on, which is extremely
likely)
could be energised to as
much as the full supply

voltage an undesirable
situation
presenting a severe risk of
electric shock to anyone
(that is connected to earth
through their feet, for
example) touching the
exposed metalwork.. Earth
faults would
not be detected as there
would be no current
flowing in the circuit
neither
overcurrent/fuse nor RCDs
would be capable of
detecting this situation.