On Outdoor Lighting Installations Grounding Systems

Outdoor lighting installations are publicly accessible electrical pieces of equipment. Upon faults-to-ground, the appearance of dangerous potentials on the metal parts of such equipment exposes persons to shock hazards. This unsafe situation poses serious problems to utilities, or municipalities, or whoever operates the lighting installations. Owners must carefully design and maintain the electrical distribution system available for their street/parking lights and, accordingly, protect persons from direct and indirect contact. This paper, through the analysis of the fault loops, seeks to clarify the reasons of the manifestation of stray voltages on public-exposed non-current carrying metal parts, in light of different distribution systems as defined in IEC standards