Design of Earthing Grid using ETAP

During ground-fault situations, the fault current will flow through the system, in addition to that voltage gradients will be created inside and in the surroundings of substation. It is created among the structures and adjacent earth points and also in the ground layer. The necessity forground grid study is to provide safety and well-being of anyone exposed to the potential differences that can exist in a station during a severe fault. In this paper, the ground grid is designed in ETAP using IEEE 80 & 2000/2013 methods. Three grids based on IEEE method are designed, and the results are discussed in this paper. In each method, the grids are designed in an optimized way. The number of conductors and rods used in this design is optimized for grids and cost wise also. Here the ground fault current can modify by the user or from the bus through short circuit analysis also updated. Some of the factors that are considered in a ground-grid study are Fault-current magnitude and duration, Geometry of the grounding system, Soil resistivity, Probability of contact, Body resistance, Standard assumptions on physical conditions of the individual.