Grounding System Adequacy of HV/MV Substations in Areas With Reduced Accessibility

The adequacy of grounding systems has to be periodically verified in operational time. With urban development and building growth adjacent to power systems as high-voltage/medium-voltage substations, it is very rare to have an area around with sufficient accessibility for installing potential and current electrodes. This paper discusses a safety criterion to verify the effectiveness of a grounding system. This criterion suggests conservative tests for both ground potential rise and touch and step voltages that allow to verify the grounding systems' effectiveness in areas with reduced accessibility and to monitor its evolution in time.