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SES Software users have held an annual meeting to provide input for the enhancements of the software, review changes to the programs, and to provide a forum for users and SES researchers to make presentations on electrical safety, transmission line and substation grounding design, and improved methods for protecting equipment and pipelines against AC interference. Users had the opportunity to showcase their technical papers and company, attend workshops, obtain certification and acquire 25 Professional Development Hours. The conference is a unique opportunity for all CDEGS users to interact with others from many different backgrounds from all over the world, as well as the specialists from SES.
The 31st Annual CDEGS Users' Group Meeting was held in Montreal, Canada, from June 14 to 17, 2022.
The 2022 Users' Group Meeting conference officers were:
Giancarlo Leone - Chair (SR3 Engineering)
Christopher Crance - Vice Chair (Burns & McDonnell)
Eric Diamond - Secretary/Treasurer (Bass Engineering)
Josh Brown - Vice Secretary/Treasurer (Power Engineers)
MODELING OF CABLED COLLECTION SYSTEMS IN MULTIGROUNDZ
The modeling of the induction between the core and sheath components of cables using the computation modules
available in the MultiGroundZ package, namely FCDIST and MALZ, is demonstrated. This opens up the possibility
of studying more realistically a number of complex and interconnected grounding installations, such as wind and
solar farms.
The complete articles are available in the 2022 User Group Meeting Conference Proceedings.
CONSIDERATIONS FOR SOLAR PV SITE FENCE SAFETY GROUNDING
Solar Power Plants of 50MW and more are distributed across a very large area and designing an
effective grounding system introduces many challenges. One challenge in designing solar plant
grounding system involves optimizing the cost-significant grounding conductors with personnel
safety during any ground fault. This paper discusses the problems associated with fence
grounding for PV Solar Power Plant through two case studies. Case studies are modelled and
analyzed using SES CDEGS MALZ software. This paper recommends various cost-efficient
mitigation techniques such as isolation panels or bonding of fence to PV grid to create a safe
grounding system.
_________________________________________________________ EFFECTS OF HELICAL PILES ON SUBSTATION GROUNDING PERFORMANCE
This study explores the effects of utilizing helical piles as grounding electrodes in electrical substations. The author
evaluates the impact of adding helical piles to grounding models and goes further to explore the reduction of copper
grid conductors that could be possible while maintaining touch and step potentials at or below the safety thresholds
as specified in IEEE Std.-80. Exploring this relationship is advantageous to grounding engineers and asset owners
alike to begin to understand in what scenarios the use of helical piles could provide grounding performance
improvements.
The study shows that the installation of helical piles in electric substations can improve the performance of the
grounding system. The extent of improvement varies widely with soil conditions; some cases saw marginal
improvements while others saw significant performance gains. Further, if helical piles improve the performance
of a given grid, then traditional copper grounding conductor could be removed to optimize the design leading to
cost savings without compromising safety.
The complete articles are available in the 2022 User Group Meeting Conference Proceedings.
