An Online Method for Monitoring Substation Grounding Grid Impedances - Part I: Methodology

This paper presents an online method to monitor the conditions of substation grounding grid. The proposed method utilizes phase-to-ground faults occurring in downstream feeders as test current sources and the neutral of a specially selected feeder as the electrode for GPR (ground potential rise) measurement. The measured fault currents and GPRs are then used to estimate substation grounding grid impedance. The method, once established, can monitor the grounding grid impedance continuously and automatically, and the trend of the impedance change can be observed. As a result, the proposed method can yield much more reliable information on the substation grounding conditions. The method also overcomes many disadvantages of the offline methods. The proposed idea, algorithm, and hardware setup are described in the paper. Factors contributing to measurement errors are investigated in detail.