2012 International Conference on Lightning Protection (ICLP), Vienna, Austria

Field Measurement of the Grounding Impedance of a Wind Farm in Venezuela

Miguel Martnez Lozano
Dpt. Conversion and Power Delivery Universidad Simn Bolvar Caracas - Venezuela mmlozano@usb.ve

Luis G. Daz Pulgar

Dpt. Conversion and Power Delivery Universidad Simn Bolvar Caracas - Venezuela diazlg@gmail.com

AbstractOne of the main parameters involved in lightning studies in wind mill parks, is the grounding system. For this reason, it is necessary to know not only the grounding resistance at low frequency (measured with traditional equipments), but also the transient behavior especially in the frequency domain. In Venezuela, recently was installed a wind mills park with 100 MW of capacity, in a region with high lightning activity. In this context, a variety of measurements of the grounding systems were carried out during this year, including: soil resistivity, traditional resistance measurement and impedance measurement using a portable lightning generator at 3 kV. The main results are showed and analyzed in the context of knowing more detailed the behavior of grounding systems in this special kind of applications. Keywords: Grounding, Transient Response, Lightning, Wind Mills

and its influence on the behavior of the transients in the wind turbine [2].

Fig. 1. The windmills are the highest objects around.

I.

INTRODUCTION

In the past ten years the world has taken special interest in the welfare of the environment, especially in the electric power generation area. That is why the installation of alternative energy system generators, powered by noncombustible fuel has increased. Latin-America has not escaped from this reality and recently has started to project and install wind farms, such as the one in Paraguan, Venezuela. This facility has 76 units of 1.2MW aprox. For a total of 100MW installed power. Nevertheless, tropical countries as Venezuela, has an important lightning activity (Paraguan has approximately 60TD/year). This is the reason for paying special attention to the behavior of the generation units with heights above 60m located in unoccupied zones, where they are by far the most elevated points from the ground (figure 1). The park location is in the west coast of Venezuela. This is why it is a real necessity to develop transients and outage rate studies [1]. So the protection and design of certain elements of the park can be selected, tuned and adapted according to the most reliable amount of parameters. One of the most relevant subjects concerning the modeling of the lightning protection system is the grounding system [1],

The grounding system must be studied in a wide range of frequencies from a few Hz to MHz [2, 3, 4]. To make these measurements in the field, one portable impulse generator was developed [5]. With the impulse injection, the transient voltage and current waveforms are obtained for a variety of temporal windows and then processed in the frequency domain using FFT. The information in time and frequency domains is analyzed looking the best design of the grounding system. In this article these results and analysis are showed in two stages of construction: in first term considering only the foundation as the grounding electrode, and finally when the additional grounding arrangement was installed. The information includes the soil resistivity and low frequency resistance values. II. GROUNDING SYSTEM OF A WIND FARM

The grounding system of a wind turbine has three fundamental parts: A. The Foundation (Figure 2). The foundation is a very important part of the grounding system, because of its size and quantity of metal in contact with soil through the concrete [6]. The foundation has permanent contact with tower. Then the lightning current flow occurs through this component to the soil. The typical dimension of this component is appreciable and it provides

generally a low resistance value. By other hand, the fact that the metal (reinforcement steel) is in contact to soil through concrete, have two important advantages: the permanent content of humidity (making an stable value of the resistance) and the high permittivity of the cement in comparison with the surrounding soil. All these facts indicate that the foundation contributes to the best transient performance of the grounding system and its effect must be taken into account in any study for this kind of phenomena [6].

array, the grounding mesh because of its geometrical configuration. However, more important that the control of touch and step potentials would be the array design to minimize the transient impedance. The final design depends of the soil resistivity and other parameters imposed by the factory of the windmill or the final client (electric facility). In the figure 4 the array implemented in the wind farm is shown. The conductor used was the 4/0 AWG Cu. C. The possibility of additional electrodes for connecting with the rest of the units of the park and main substation. (With different strategies). The interconnection between the wind generators to form a giant equipotential mesh in the park is a common practice in this kind of application, but the cost associated with it, is very high. The strategy to the interconnection is a very important aspect because between the units, exist many services shared (by example: power cables, control cables, fiber optic, etc). The typical implementation of this aspect is shown in figure 5.

Figure 2. Typical foundation of a windmill.

The size of the foundation is shown in Figure 3.

5 1,5

13 m

Concrete with reinforcement steel

2

1,6

Figure 5. Scheme for interconnection between Windmills.

Tower

III.

MEASUREMENTS

Figure 3. Foundation size.

The field measurements that were carried out in this work, are: The soil resistivity using the Wenner method (IEEE Std 81.1) [7] The static resistance using fall of potential (IEEE Std 81.1) [7] The surge transient response using a portable 3kV impulse generator [5]. For comparison purposes, each measurement was developed in the following situation: a) For a Windmill with only the foundation (without the grounding mesh constructed). b) For a Windmill with foundation and ground mesh, but without interconection with others generators. The measurement campaign was developed in March and April, 2012. And the strategy (distances and topology of the instruments in the field) is shown in figure 6. The climatologic conditions in the place are the typical in a tropical region (figure 7) and with the generators located at no more than 2

2.6 m

Figure 4. Grounding system mesh.

B. The grounding electrodes The additional conductors disposed in the soil forms the grounding electrodes. Generally, the designers call to this

13 m

km of the sea (at 10 m height over sea level). Ta=35C and relative humidity around 70%. The days were cloudy with sporadic rains at night. For the impulse test, the equipment array for the measurement is shown in figure 8.
Passageway Generator i Generator j

Generator i GR1 # 12 AWG Cu 180 m

GR under test # 12 AWG Cu 180 m

Generator j GR2

(c) Figure 8. Impulse test arrangement. (a) General description of impulse generator. (b) Measurement technique. (c) Disposition of grounds for reference (GR1 y GR2).

180 m
RP2 Resistivity profiles (RP) RP1 RP3

The equipment used for the measurement, was: for resistivity and resistance the equipment was a tellurometer Fluke 1625 (figure 7). For the impulse test, the generator was fabricated at the high voltage laboratory and it has a capacity of 3kV in voltage charge. For the waveforms (current and voltage) capture, the voltage probe was a Nicolet 4kV x100, a Rogowski coil 5kA, 0.1 V/A and one oscilloscope Tektronix TDS 3032 300 MHz (figure 9). The waveforms were digitized by one Ethernet connection with a PC for the post-processing.

80

100 m
Fall of potential profile

Figure 6. Field measurement distances.

Figure 9. Impulse generator connections.

Figure 7. Photograph of the environment.

IV.

RESULTS

The results are presented for each windmill tested. The first (AG1) was the windmill with only the foundation constructed, and the second (AG2) with foundations and grounding mesh interconnected. A. Soil Resistivity: Several measurements were carried out (three profiles) for each AG (1 and 2) and the processed soil models (two layer model) are presented in table I. The Wenner method was used with separations of: 1, 3, 6, 9 and 12 m.
TABLE I. SOIL RESISTIVITY MEASUREMENTS RESULTS. Two Layer Soil Model AG1 AG2 56.48 93.1 1 (-m) 13.11 5.4 2 (-m) 3.62 h(m) 2.63 0.89 Correlation error in data (%) 16.7

(a)

(b)

In Table II, are resumed the values of the low frequency ground resistances (Rg) for AG1 and AG2.
TABLE II Ground Resistances values. AG1 AG2 0.29 0.15

Rg ()

Figure 10. "Caliche" stone extracted in the location.

The soil resistivity measurements show that the second layer has a very low value (in order of 10 -m). This value indicates the presence of water with high content of salts. The soil is rocky with presence of sea fossils (crustaceans) and it is identified as Caliche. It is a very rich carbonated rock and a very good water absorbent (hydrophilic). In figure 10 is shown a piece of the rock extracted during the construction of foundation. B. Ground Resistance: The measurement of the ground resistance for each case was carried out using the fall of potential method [7] with a current probe separation of 100 m. Twenty measurements of potential were taken to obtain the graphs shown in figures 11 and 12. For these graphs the values of the low frequency resistances are obtained for AG1 and AG2.

Ground Impedance: All the previous measurements were made to obtain the data for analysis and comparison, but the importance of the study is precisely try to obtain the impedance of the grounding system (GS) through the injection of an impulse current from a portable generator. With the response of the GS, two types of analyzes can be performed. The first is in the time domain, trying to characterize the relationship between instant values of the voltage and current waveforms. The second is to transform the waveforms from the time domain to the frequency domain using FFT. Then, the relation between voltage and current is the impedance in the frequency domain. The procedure followed for the obtaining and processing of the signals is resumed in the figure 13.

C.

Figure 13. Procedure followed.

For the time domain analysis, the expressions used are: Zo = Vmax / I max (1)

Zo2 = Vmax / I (Vmax )

Figure 11. Fall of potential for AG1.

(2) (3)

Zo3 = V ( I max ) / I max

Figure 12. Fall of potential for AG2.

These relationships let us to know the coherence of the data, the impulse impedance (1) and the behavior between low and high frequencies, knowing the difference obtained by comparison between (2) and (3) with (1). For example, in a grounding system where the resistive behavior domains, the three expressions tend to the same value because the waveforms of voltage and current have a time coincidence at its maximum. In other hand, the discordance between the values indicates a soft or stronger inductive or capacitive behavior, depending if (2) is higher than (3) or vice versa. For the frequency domain, the analysis is located in the

modulus of the impedance, Z(w), as is indicated in (4).

Z ( w) = V ( w) / I ( w)

(4)

To know the behavior in a wide range of frequencies is important to obtain the time response in a variety of time windows. This implies, to repeat the impulse injection in at least four time windows (100 ns/div, 1s/div, 10s/div and 100s/div). The performance of Z(w) as the transfer function of a complex grounding circuit, let us to obtain an important information about its transient behavior. In the figure 14, this information is explained graphically.
Z(w) Inductive

Figure 17. Voltage and current in AG1 in time domain.

Resistive Capacitive w
Figure 14. Different types of frequency behavior.

F
Figure 18. Voltage and current in AG2 in time domain.

In figures 15 and 16, some photos of the experiments carried out in AG1 and AG2, are showed.

TABLE III. THE EXPRESSIONS OF Z, FOR TIME DOMAIN IN AG1. Relationship Zo Zo1 Zo2 Rg ( ) 0.28 0.30 0.26 0.29

TABLE IV. EXPRESSIONS OF Z, FOR TIME DOMAIN IN AG2. Relationship ( ) Zo 0.167 Zo1 Figure 15. Measurement of ground impedance in AG1. Windmill without ground mesh (only foundation). Zo2 Rg 0.33 0.12 0.15

Figure 16. Measurement of ground impedance in AG2. Windmill with grounding mesh connected to foundation.

Clearly, the time responses of AG1 and AG2 are totally different. In both cases, the coherence between the value of Rg and Zo is good, it means that Zo tends to Rg. In the case of AG1, the values Zo1 and Zo2, are very similar to Zo, indicating the predominance of the resistance in the complex circuit. However, in the case of AG2, Zo1 is higher than Zo and Zo2 is lower than Zo; typically, this relations indicate an inductive performance, but not strong, because the differences are not important. In the figures 19 and 20, the waveforms of voltage and current, are shown in the frequency domain for AG1 and AG2, respectively. And the Z(w) as the relation between these function, are in figures 21 and 22.

In the figures 17 and 18, the time waveforms of voltage and current are shown for AG1 and AG2, respectively. And the time analysis, using expressions (1) to (3) can be observed in tables III and IV.

In the comparison of figures 21 and 22, can be seen some similarities with the observations made in the tables 3 and 4. In this sense, the performance of AG1 is more resistive: the impedance dont show significant variations from low frequency to 10 kHz and then an small inductive component appear, but it isnt strong (the variation is less than one order of magnitude). However, in the case of AG2 the inductive behavior begins from kHz. In both cases the impedances are very low, in order of 1 in AG1 at 1 MHz and less than 5 in AG2.
Figure 19. Representation of voltage and current in frequency domain for AG1.

V.

CONCLUSIONS

Figure 20. Representation of voltage and current in frequency domain for AG2.

The grounding model is an essential part for the correct simulation of the transient events in a wind park. The influence of the foundations indicates that its consideration in the simulation, measurement, etc, is very important. This fact is special because the correct representation of the grounding system is the interaction of all the components involved. And the foundation in most of applications is always present. The evaluation performed in this work, allows the designer to have better information and more complete and real models of the components like the grounding system. Both, the information in time domain and frequency domain, are important and complementary. The three different relationships shown in this work let us to obtain a quick view of the transient response only by a simple comparison of the instant values of voltage and current. REFERENCES
[1] UNE-EN 61400-24. 2011. Wind Turbines. Part 24: Protection against Lightning. [2] S. Yanagawa, D. Natsuno, K. Yamamoto. A measurement of transient grounding characteristics of a wind turbine generator system and its considerations. 7th Asia-Pacific International Conference on Lightning, November 1-4, 2011, Chengdu, China. [3] K. Yamamoto, S. Yanagawa, K. Yamabuki, S. Sekioka, S. Yokoyama. Analytical surveys of transient and frequency-dependent grounding characteristics of a wind turbine generator system on the basis of field tests. IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 25, No 4, October 2010. [4] E. Badran, M. Rizk, M. Abdel-Rahman. Analysis and suppression of backflow lightning surges in onshore wind farms. Journal of lightning research, 2011, 3, 1-9. [5] Ramrez J., Martinez M., RODRIGUEZ J., O. Zurga, E. Jaspe. Comportamiento Transitorio de electrodos sencillos de puesta a tierra. VI Encuentro Regional Latinoamericano del CIGRE, Paraguay. Junio1999. Volumen I. Pginas 124-129. [6] Yamamoto K, et al. Verifications of transient grounding impedance measurements of a wind turbine generator system using the FDTD method. 2011 International Symposium on lightning protection (XI SIPDA), Fortaleza, Brazil, October. Pp.255-260. [7] IEEE Std 81-1983, IEEE Guide for Measuring Earth Resistivity, Ground Impedance, and Earth Surface Potentials of a Ground System (Part I).

Figure 21. Modulus of Z(w) for AG1.

Figure 22. Modulus of Z(w) for AG2.