Electrician's Guide To Earthing Systems

Lets Start at the Very Beginning

A very good place to start, since earthing is one of the first
things to consider when designing an electrical installation.
Here we provide an electricians guide to earthing systems
and the BS 7671 regulations relating to them.

What type of earthing systems are there?

There are five types listed in BS 7671 Wiring Regulations:
1. TNS
2. TNCS
3.
4.
5.

TT
TNC
IT

What do these codes relate to?

The first letter relates to the connection between earth and the source of power supply, i.e. generator or
transformer; and the second relates to the connection between earth and the electrical device the power is
supplying; with each letter meaning as follows:

T = Earth. Direction connection with Earth (From the French word for ground: Terre).

N = Neutral. Connection to earth via the supply network.

S = Separate.

C = Combined.

I = Isolated. No connection with earth, unless through a high impedance.

The three systems used in the UK are: TNS, TNCS (PME) or TT. However, because TT systems are not
directly earthed they are prohibited for low voltage public supply in the UK.
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Which type of earthing system should be used?

It is imperative that the right type of electrical earthing system is chosen since it will affect both safety and the
electromagnetic compatibility of the power supply.
Providing a Protective Earth (PE) connection will ensure that all exposed conductive surfaces have the same
electrical potential as the earths surface, thereby preventing anyone touching the device in the case of a short
circuit from suffering an electric shock. A short circuit will also cause a PE connection to give rise to a greatly
increased current flow, triggering fuses and circuit breakers and disconnecting the power supply.

A Function Earth (FE) connection is used for devices such as antennas, and may carry a current during
normal operation.

The three common types of earthing systems operate as

follows:
TNS
This type of electrical earthing system connects the neutral source of energy with the earth at one point
only (or as near as practically possible), and with the consumers earthing terminal commonly connected
to the metallic sheath or armour of the distributors service cable into the premises. With a TNS the PE
connection and N are separate conductors that are connected together only near the power source.
TNCS (PME)
A TNCS earthing system, typically known as Protective Multiple Earthing (PME), connects the supply
neutral conductor of a distribution main with earth at course and at intervals along its stretch. The
neutral conductor is also used to return earth faults currents safely to source by the provision of a
consumers earthing terminal linked to the incoming neutral conductor.
TT
The neutral of the energy source is connected as with the TNS system, however there is no provision
for the consumers earthing, therefore they must provide their own connection to earth.
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Points to consider in BS 7671 regulations

Earth electrodes
BS 7671 lists a wide range of earth electrodes recognised by wiring regulations, including earth rods,
earth plates and underground structural metalwork. The single most importance deciding factor in which
type of electrode to use is resistance capacity of the soil in the ground. Ideally it should virgin,
undisturbed ground, and the effects of soil drying, freezing, and the potential for corrosion, should also
be considered, with tests carried out in the worst weather conditions.

Sizing of Circuit Protective Conductors

Several factors must be considered when working out the required size of circuit protective conductor. A
minimum crosssectional area of 2.5mm2 copper is necessary for any separate circuit protective
conductor, meaning one which is not part of a cable or created by/contained inside a wiring enclosure.

Earthing Conductors
Earthing conductors defined by BS 7671 as a protective conductor connecting the main earthing
terminal of an installation to an earth electrode must be sized appropriately, especially if partially buried.
They must be made from suitable material and protected against corrosion and mechanical damage.
The appropriate size is determined in the same way as for a circuit protective conductor, except for with
buried earthing conductors, in which case check BS 7671 for further guidelines. In addition, earthing
conductors for a TNCS supply should not be smaller than the main bonding conductors.

Special Locations
These are locations where extra precautions need to be taken. For example PMEs cannot be used for
caravans or boats as the combined neutral and protective conductor is not allowed to be connected
electrically to any metalwork in them, whilst a TT system is recommended for hazardous areas such as
petrol stations, and should be accompanied by the supply of a separate electrode and circuit breaker
such as an RCD, in order to ensure that the earthing in the petrol filling area and the PMP earth of the
distribution network are separated.

Earthing is not a subject to be taken lightly and all factors should be carefully considered, making reference and
adhering strictly to all relevant electrical and safety guidelines. Failure to do so could result in potentially fatal
accidents, with the electrician responsible facing prosecution.

Ground and neutral

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For uses of the term "ground" or "earth" in electricity but not in the context of mains wiring,
see ground (electricity).
As the neutral point of an electrical supply system is often connected to earth ground, ground
and neutral are closely related. Under certain conditions, a conductor used to connect to a
system neutral is also used for grounding (earthing) of equipment and structures. Current carried
on a grounding conductor can result in objectionable or dangerous voltagesappearing on
equipment enclosures, so the installation of grounding conductors and neutral conductors is
carefully defined in electrical regulations. Where a neutral conductor is used also to connect
equipment enclosures to earth, care must be taken that the neutral conductor never rises to a
high voltage with respect to local ground.
Contents
[hide]

1Definitions

2Circuitry

3Earthing systems

4Combining neutral with earth

o

4.1Fixed appliances on three-wire circuits

4.2Portable appliances

4.3Technical equipment

5Shared neutral
o

5.1Three-phase circuits

5.2Split phase

6See also

7References

8Further reading

Definitions[edit]
Ground or earth in a mains (AC power) electrical wiring system is a conductor that provides a
low-impedance path back to the source to prevent hazardous voltages from appearing on
equipment. (The terms "ground" and "earth" are used synonymously here. "Ground" is more
common in North American English, and "earth" is more common in British English.) Under
normal conditions, a grounding conductor does not carry current.
Neutral is a circuit conductor that normally carries current, and is connected to ground (earth) at
the main electrical panel.
In the electrical trade, the conductor of a 2-wire circuit connected to the supply neutral point and
earth ground is referred to as the "neutral. [1]
In a polyphase (usually three-phase) AC system, the neutral conductor is intended to have
similar voltages to each of the other circuit conductors, but may carry very little current if the
phases are balanced.
The United States' National Electrical Code and Canadian electrical code only define neutral as
the grounded, not the polyphase common connection. In North American use, the polyphase
definition is used in less formal language but not in official specifications. In the United
Kingdom the Institution of Engineering and Technology defines a neutral conductor as one
connected to the supply system neutral point, which includes both these uses.
All neutral wires of the same earthed electrical system should have the same electrical potential,
because they are all connected through the system ground. Neutral conductors are usually
insulated for the same voltage as the line conductors, with interesting exceptions. [2]

Circuitry[edit]
Neutral wires are usually connected at a neutral bus within panelboards or switchboards, and are
"bonded" to earth ground at either the electrical service entrance, or at transformers within the
system. For electrical installations with split-phase(three-wire single-phase service), the neutral
point of the system is at the center-tap on the secondary side of the service transformer. For
larger electrical installations, such as those with polyphase service, the neutral point is usually at
the common connection on the secondary side of delta/wye connected transformers. Other
arrangements of polyphase transformers may result in no neutral point, and no neutral
conductors.

Earthing systems[edit]
Main article: Earthing system

The IEC standard (IEC 60364) codifies methods of installing neutral and ground conductors in a
building, where theseearthing systems are designated with letter symbols. The letter symbols are
common in countries using IEC standards, but North American practices rarely refer to the IEC
symbols. The differences are that the conductors may be separate over their entire run from
equipment to earth ground, or may be combined over all or part of their length. Different systems
are used to minimize the voltage difference between neutral and local earth ground. Current
flowing in a grounding conductor will produce a voltage drop along the conductor, and grounding
systems seek to ensure this voltage does not reach unsafe levels.
In the TN-S system, separate neutral and protective earth conductors are installed between the
equipment and the source of supply (generator or electric utility transformer). Normal circuit
currents flow only in the neutral, and the protective earth conductor bonds all equipment cases to
earth to intercept any leakage current due to insulation failure. The neutral conductor is
connected to earth at the building point of supply, but no common path to ground exists for circuit
current and the protective conductor.
In the TN-C system, a common conductor provides both the neutral and protective grounding.
The neutral conductor is connected to earth ground at the point of supply, and equipment cases
are connected to the neutral. The danger exists that a broken neutral connection will allow all the
equipment cases to rise to a dangerous voltage if any leakage or insulation fault exists in any
equipment. This can be mitigated with special cables but the cost is then higher.
In the TN-C-S system, each piece of electrical equipment has both a protective ground
connection to its case, and a neutral connection. These are all brought back to some common
point in the building system, and a common connection is then made from that point back to the
source of supply and to the earth.
In a TT system, no lengthy common protective ground conductor is used, instead each article of
electrical equipment (or building distribution system) has its own connection to earth ground.

Combining neutral with earth[edit]

Stray voltages created in grounding (earthing) conductors by currents flowing in the supply utility
neutral conductors can be troublesome. For example, special measures may be required in
barns used for milking dairy cattle. Very small voltages, not usually perceptible to humans, may
cause low milk yield, or even mastitis (inflammation of the udder).[3] So-called "tingle voltage
filters" may be required in the electrical distribution system for a milking parlour.
Connecting the neutral to the equipment case provides some protection against faults, but may
produce a dangerous voltage on the case if the neutral connection is broken.
Combined neutral and ground conductors are commonly used in electricity supply companies'
wiring and occasionally for fixed wiring in buildings and for some specialist applications where
there is little alternative, such as railways and trams. Since normal circuit currents in the neutral
conductor can lead to objectionable or dangerous differences between local earth potential and
the neutral, and to protect against neutral breakages, special precautions such as frequent
rodding down to earth (multiple ground rod connections), use of cables where the combined
neutral and earth completely surrounds the phase conductor(s), and thicker than
normal equipotential bonding must be considered to ensure the system is safe.

Fixed appliances on three-wire circuits[edit]

In North America, the cases of some kitchen stoves (ranges, ovens), cook tops, clothes
dryers and other specifically listedappliances were grounded through their neutral wires as a
measure to conserve copper from copper cables during World War II. This practice was removed
from the NEC in the 1996 edition, but existing installations (called "old work") may still allow the
cases of such listed appliances to be connected to the neutral conductor for grounding.
This practice arose from the three-wire system used to supply both 120 volt and 240 volt loads.
Because these listedappliances often have components that use either 120, or both 120 and 240
volts, there is often some current on the neutral wire. This differs from the protective grounding

wire, which only carries current under fault conditions. Using the neutral conductor for grounding
the equipment enclosure was considered safe since the devices were permanently wired to the
supply and so the neutral was unlikely to be broken without also breaking both supply
conductors. Also, the unbalanced current due to lamps and small motors in the appliances was
small compared to the rating of the conductors and therefore unlikely to cause a large voltage
drop in the neutral conductor.

Portable appliances[edit]
In North American and European practice, small portable equipment connected by a cord set is
permitted under certain conditions to have merely two conductors in the attachment plug.
A polarized plug can be used to maintain the identity of the neutral conductor into the appliance
but neutral is never used as a chassis/case ground. The small cords to lamps, etc., often have
one or more molded ridges or embedded strings to identify the neutral conductor, or may be
identified by colour. Portable appliances never use the neutral conductor for case grounding, and
often feature "double-insulated" construction.
In places where the design of the plug and socket cannot ensure that a system neutral conductor
is connected to particular terminals of the device ("unpolarized" plugs), portable appliances must
be designed on the assumption that either pole of each circuit may reach full voltage with respect
to ground.

Technical equipment[edit]
In North American practice, equipment connected by a cord set must have three wires, if
supplied exclusively by 240 volts, or must have four wires (including neutral and ground), if
supplied by 120/240 volts.
There are special provisions in the NEC for so-called technical equipment, mainly professional
grade audio and video equipment supplied by so-called "balanced" 120 volt circuits. The center
tap of a transformer is connected to ground, and the equipment is supplied by two line wires
each 60 volts to ground (and 120 volts between line conductors). The center tap is not distributed
to the equipment and no neutral conductor is used. These cases generally use a grounding
conductor which is separated from the safety grounding conductor specifically for the purposes of
noise and "hum" reduction.
Another specialized distribution system was formerly specified in patient care areas of hospitals.
An isolated power system was furnished, from a special isolation transformer, with the intention
of minimizing any leakage current that could pass through equipment directly connected to a
patient (for example, an electrocardiograph for monitoring the heart). The neutral of the circuit
was not connected to ground. The leakage current was due to the distributed capacitance of the
wiring and capacitance of the supply transformer. [4] Such distribution systems were monitored by
permanently installed instruments to give an alarm when high leakage current was detected.

Shared neutral[edit]
A shared neutral is a connection in which a plurality of circuits use the same neutral connection.
This is also known as acommon neutral, and the circuits and neutral together are sometimes
referred to as an Edison circuit.

Three-phase circuits[edit]
In a three-phase circuit, a neutral is shared between all three phases. Commonly the system
neutral is connected to the star point on the feeding transformer. This is the reason that the
secondary side of most three-phase distribution transformers is wye or star wound. Three-phase
transformers and their associated neutrals are usually found in industrial distribution
environments.
A system could be made entirely ungrounded. In this case a fault between one phase and
ground would not cause any significant current. In fact, this is not a good scheme. Commonly the
neutral is grounded (earthed) through a bond between the neutral bar and the earth bar. It is

common on larger systems to monitor any current flowing through the neutral-to-earth link and
use this as the basis for neutral fault protection.
The connection between neutral and earth allows any phase-to-earth fault to develop enough
current flow to "trip" the circuit overcurrent protection device. In some jurisdictions, calculations
are required to ensure the fault loop impedance is low enough so that fault current will trip the
protection (In Australia, this is referred to in AS3000:2007 Fault loop impedance calculation). This
may limit the length of a branch circuit.
In the case of two phases sharing one neutral, the worst-case current draw is one side has zero
load and the other has full load, or when both sides have full load. The latter case results in 1 +
1@120deg = 1@60deg, i.e. the magnitude of the current in the neutral equals that of the other
two wires.
In a three-phase linear circuit with three identical resistive or reactive loads, the neutral carries no
current. The neutral carries current if the loads on each phase are not identical. In some
jurisdictions, the neutral is allowed to be reduced in size if no unbalanced current flow is
expected. If the neutral is smaller than the phase conductors, it can be overloaded if a large
unbalanced load occurs.
The current drawn by non-linear loads, such as fluorescent & HID lighting and electronic
equipment containing switching power supplies, often contains harmonics. Triplen harmonic
currents (odd multiples of the third harmonic) are additive, resulting in more current in the shared
neutral conductor than in any of the phase conductors. In the absolute worst case, the current in
the shared neutral conductor can be triple that in each phase conductor. Some jurisdictions
prohibit the use of shared neutral conductors when feeding single-phase loads from a threephase source; others require that the neutral conductor be substantially larger than the phase
conductors. It is good practice to use four-pole circuit breakers (as opposed to the standard
three-pole) where the fourth pole is the neutral phase, and is hence protected against
overcurrent on the neutral conductor.

Split phase[edit]
Main article: Split-phase electric power
In split-phase wiring, for example, a duplex receptacle in a North American kitchen, devices may
be connected with a cable that has three conductors, in addition to ground. The three conductors
are usually coloured red, black, and white. The white serves as a common neutral, while the red
and black each feed, separately, the top and bottom hot sides of the receptacle. Typically such
receptacles are supplied from two circuit breakers in which the handles of two poles are tied
together for a common trip. If two large appliances are used at once, current passes through both
and the neutral only carries the difference in current. The advantage is that only three wires are
required to serve these loads, instead of four. If one kitchen appliance overloads the circuit, the
other side of the duplex receptacle will be shut off as well. This is called a multiwire branch
circuit. Common trip is required when the connected load uses more than one phase
simultaneously. The common trip prevents overloading of the shared neutral if one device draws
more than rated current.