IEEE POWER & ENERGY SOCIETY
WIND POWER COORDINATING COMMITTEE
WIND AND SOLAR PLANT GROUNDING FOR PERSONAL SAFETY TF
CHAIR
VICE CHAIR
SECRETARY
Gopal Padmanabhan
Manager-EE Design
RES-Americas
11101 W 120 th Ave
Broomfield CO 80021
Phone: 303.439.4200 X 4248
gopal.padmanabhan@res-americas.com
Wayne Dilliing
Electrical Executive
Abdou Sana
Electrical Design Engineer
Renewable Energy Systems Americas Inc.
11101 West 120th Avenue, Suite 400
Broomfield, CO 80021 USA
Phone 303.439.4288abdou.sana@RES-Americas.com
Mortenson Construction
Tel: (763) 287-5280
Wayne.Dilling@mortenson.com
Minutes of TF meeting #4 of the
IEEE Wind and Solar Plant Grounding for Personal Safety Task force
IEEE PES General Meeting 2012
July 25th, 2012, 8:00 – 10:00 a.m.
San Diego, CA
NEXT MEETING—Joint Technical Committee meetings, January XX,
2013, Memphis, TN
MEETING #4
Introduction:
Gopal introduced the task force and provided the audience with the objectives and goals of the Task
Force. Attendees were introduced (list is attached at the end of this document). Minutes of the last
meeting were reviewed and discussed and some minor corrections were made (editing, and clarify
definition of ground grid resistance of 10 ohm criteria). Minutes motion for approval with the included
corrections by Gopal Padmanabhan and seconded by Michael Starke.
Discussion and summary of Tutorial given by Abdou Sana at the IEEE T&D Conference last
May, 2012 in Orlando, FL:
Abdou Sana presented a power point summary of the tutorial given at the IEEE T&D conference held in
Orlando May 2012, following were comments made during the presentation:
Nestor Castillo suggested purpose of grounding design was twofold, first to provide for personal safety
and second to satisfy turbine criteria to protect warranty.
A comment was made whether to address arc flash concerns/issues as part of this task force or to include
in any published papers/presentations. Gopal Padmanabhan and Wayne Dilling stated that arc flash is
more related with protection devices and would not be a focus of the task force but that it should be
referenced and acknowledgement made clarifying that it is outside the scope of this task force. Chris
THE INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS, Inc
Wind Plant Collector System Design Working Group Meeting #12 Minutes
Brooks mentioned that a white paper had been developed and presented on arc flash as part of the Wind
and Solar Collector Deisgn Working Group.
Gopal Padmanabhan asked the group if anyone had experience with studies or research of corrosion of
ground conductors directly buried in earth. Gopal suggested that upsizing of the ground conductors
may be one way to increase longevity of the underground conductor in potentially corrosive
environments.
There was some discussion on the quantity and methods of testing soil resistance. Two methods
commonly employed are the four point Wenner and Schlumberger, Four point Wenner method is the
most common test performed. In order to ensure that the design of the step&Touch parameters are being
met, it was suggested by Abou Sana that all turbine locations have their ground resistance tested rather
than a representative sample. The reason for this is that the safety criteria (safe Step and safe Touch
voltage limits) are determined at each location based on the measured local soil resistivity.
Other information
Gopal Padmanabhan said that Gary Engmann provided him with a PAR(Project Authorization Request)
application to be filled out. The next JTCM held January, 2013 in Memphis was targeted for the
submission of the PAR. It was suggested that the PAR be an application guide rather than a standard.
A tutorial and a panel session will also be targeted for next years IEEE PES General Meeting(GM 2013) to
be held in Vancouver, BC, CA July 21-July 25, 2013. The panel session and tutorial request should be
provided no later than October 2012. The panel session request should consist of an abstract for the panel
session and list of presentations and presenters. Full Papers are no longer required for a panel session.
Next Meeting: IEEE PES 2013 Joint Technical Committee Meeting (JTCM 2013), January 13-17, 2013
Memphis, TN
Adjourn
The meeting was adjourned at 10:00 a.m.
Attendees:
#
At Meeting
Name
Organization
Email
Michael Starke
Oak Ridge National
Laboratory
starkemr@ornl.gov
Wayne Dilling
Mortenson
wayne.dilling@mortenson.com
Ernst Camm
S&C Electric Co.
ECamm@sandc.com
Gopal Padmanabhan
RES Americas, Inc.
gopal.padmanabhan@res-americas.com
Larry Conrad
Conrad Technical Services
LLC
l.conrad@ieee.org
Abdou Sana
RES Americas, Inc.
Abdou.Sana@res-americas.com
Rich Kline
P&E Engineering, Inc.
rdkline@peengr.com
Jens Schoene
Enernex
Jens@enernex.com
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Wind Plant Collector System Design Working Group Meeting #12 Minutes
Nestor Castillo
GL Garrad Hassan
Nestor.Castillo@gl-garradhassan.com
Pedro Valverde
University of Washington
pedrov@uw.edu
Rob Schaerer
Power Engineers Inc
Robert.schaerer@powereng.com
Keene Matsuda
Black & Veatch
Ke.matsuda@ieee.org
Chris Brooks
ESC Engineering Inc
cbrooks@thinkESC.com
Ali Tatari
S&C Electric
Ali.tatari@Sandc.com
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