1508 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO.

3, JULY 2010

Safety Analysis at Overhead Line Towers

in Close Proximity to the Substation
Jovan M. Nahman and Dragutin D. Salamon

AbstractThis paper proposes a mathematical model for the

analysis of safety conditions at a transmission-line tower located
in close proximity to the substation, of which the line is connected
to, arising in the case of a single-phase-to-ground fault at the
tower. The model takes into account the mutual interaction of
the substation and tower ground electrodes affecting the currents
discharging from these electrodes into the surrounding soil and
the potential distribution on the ground surface. A practical, quite
general case of a double-circuit line having two ground wires of
different types is considered. It was shown that the negligence of
the mutual effects of the two ground electrodes might lead to very
erroneous conclusions regarding the maximum touch-and-step
voltages appearing at the tower location in the fault case, implying
unnecessary extra cost and labor to meet the safety standards.

m).
Index TermsClose proximity to substations, grounding system
safety analysis, overhead line towers. Fig. 1. Head of the tower under consideration (all measures are in

I. INTRODUCTION

I N SUBURBAN networks, the proximity of overhead line

towers to roads, residences, and other appliances occupied
by people requires a serious safety analysis in case of ground
faults at towers. This analysis includes the calculation of po-
tential distribution around the tower in order to determine the
touch-and-step voltages that can be overbridged in case of a
tower ground fault. In many cases, it is usually assessed that the
most dangerous situations can arise in the vicinity of the towers
close to the source substations since these are associated with
the highest ground fault current magnitudes. Various models
for determining the currents and voltages in the grounding
system formed by an overhead transmission line and associated
substations have been suggested in the past in the case that
there is no interaction between line towers and substation
ground electrodes [1], [2]. Approximate models for assessing
the proximity effects between substation and overhead trans-
mission-line towers ground electrodes when calculating the
current distribution among line ground wires and footings of
towers were proposed for faults occurring within the substation
[3] and along the line [4]. The risk of electro caution at the line
towers alone for the presumed ground fault currents was also
assessed [5] using probability models of dangerous exposures.
However, the vicinity of the source substation affects the fault
current discharging over the tower ground electrode into the
soil and the potential distribution on the ground surface around
Manuscript received July 28, 2009; revised November 03, 2009. Current ver-
sion published June 23, 2010. Paper no. TPWRD-00568-2009.
The authors are with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Bel-
grade, Belgrade 11120, Serbia (e-mail: j.nahman@beotel.net; salamon@etf.rs).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2010.2045398
0885-8977/$26.00 2010 IEEE
Fig. 2. Currents flowing during the tower ground fault.
the tower as the potentials generated by the current flowing
over the substation ground electrode superimpose upon these
originating from the current leaking from the tower ground
electrode. This makes the safety analysis specific and complex.
This paper provides a mathematical model for performing such
a safety analysis applied to a typical example.
II. MATHEMATICAL MODEL
A. Current Flows
Consider a double-circuit overhead line tower with two
ground conductors of various types, which is shown in Fig. 1.
The first step in the safety analysis is the determination of
the distribution of fault currents flowing from the tower and
adjacent substation ground electrodes into the soil. A schematic
presentation of current flows in case they are under considera-
tion is presented in Fig. 2.
and are the triple zero-sequence currents flowing to
the fault location from the line and substation sides. is the
triple zero-sequence current flowing through the second three-
phase line system. , , and , are currents flowing
NAHMAN AND SALAMON: SAFETY ANALYSIS AT OVERHEAD LINE TOWERS 1509

through the ground wires toward the remote line end and toward
the substation, respectively. Node is the tower under consid-
eration, node is the tower next to the faulted one, while node
is connected to the substation ground electrode.

B. Model of Ground Wires

The electromotive forces (emfs) induced in ground wires 1
and 2 in the span by the currents flowing through the phase
conductors are

(1)

with and , ,2 denoting mutual impedances of phase

conductors of systems and with ground conductors per unit
of the line span length (Appendix I). With , the span length be-
tween towers and is designated. EMFs, currents, and im-
pedances are, generally, complex quantities.
The following relationships hold for the currents flowing
through the ground conductors:

Fig. 3. Equivalent electrical schemes for ground wires.

(2)

where is the potential difference between tower and tower

and , , 2, are self and mutual impedances of ground
wires for the ground return per unit of the line span length (Ap-
pendix). Equivalent electrical schemes modeling expressions
(2) are displayed in Fig. 3. The scheme in Fig. 3(a) can be
substituted by the series connection of equivalent emf and
impedance , as shown in Fig. 3(b) where

(3) Fig. 4. Alternative form of the scheme in Fig. 3(c).

(4)
Based upon the same consideration as before, the equivalent
Scheme Fig. 3(a) can be also substituted by the parallel con- scheme for the ground wires in the last line span connecting
nection of impedance and current source , depicted in tower and the substation ground electrode is that presented in
Fig. 3(c), with Fig. 5, with as the length of this span. In this case, the current
sources have different orientations, which is in accordance with
(5) the orientation of the currents flowing through phase conductors
in the span under consideration.
By referring to (1), (3), and (5), we can write C. Model of Overhead Line
(6) The overhead line part from the tower under consideration to
its remote end can be modeled by the scheme displayed in Fig. 6,
where obtained by series connection of the corresponding schemes for
line spans. It is implied that the line has the same ground wire
(7) and phase conductors disposition all along its length matching
with this at the span between towers and and that the same
type of ground wire is used. As known from [1], impedance
(8)
takes the grounding effects of line towers into account.
This impedance is equal to
Parameters and are screening factors associated with cur-
rents flowing over corresponding line three-phase systems. (9)
By referring to (6), the equivalent scheme plotted in Fig. 3(c)
can be substituted by the scheme with two current sources de- with and designating the average span length and tower
picted in Fig. 4. ground resistance along the considered line part.
1510
Fig. 5. Equivalent scheme for ground wires in the line span connecting tower
T and substation ground electrode.
Fig. 6. Equivalent scheme for the overhead line part between the tower under
consideration and the remote terminal.
Fig. 7. Equivalent scheme for tower and substation ground electrodes.
D. Model of Interaction of Ground Electrodes
Tower and substation ground electrodes interact with one
another through the soil as they are closely located. The relation-
ships among potentials of ground electrodes with respect to the
remote earth and the currents emanating into the surrounding
soil from these electrodes, when accounting for the mutual in-
fluence, are [9]
(10)
In (10), and are resistances to the ground of tower and
substation ground electrodes when acting alone and is the
mutual resistance between these two electrodes. and are
currents emanating from tower and substation ground electrodes
into the soil. The equivalent scheme modeling the relationships
(10) is presented in Fig. 7. is a fictitious node. Appendix B
uses a simple example to demonstrate the effects of the mu-
tual influence between parallel-connected electrodes upon the
ground potential rise (GPR) as well as touch-and-step voltages.
E. Model of the Substation and Associated Lines
In the case of the ground fault that is examined, the fault cur-
rents are flowing to the substation over all lines connected to
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 3, JULY 2010
Fig. 8. Equivalent scheme of the substation and associated lines.
Fig. 9. Complete grounding system scheme.
it. The components of these currents leaking into the ground
are obtainable by multiplying the corresponding triple zero-se-
quence currents by lines screening factors . Thus, the total
leakage current produced is equal to
(11)
where index includes all lines connected to the substation with
the exception of the line under consideration. The equivalent
ground impedance of these lines can be determined as
(12)
with being the impedances to ground of the lines ground
wires or cables sheaths. It is important to stress that all quan-
tities on the right-hand side of (11) and (12) should be inserted
with their natural values referring to their voltage levels. The
equivalent scheme representing the substation in the calculation
of the currents flowing through the grounding system is depicted
in Fig. 8.
F. Complete Grounding System Scheme
By combining the models presented before, the final complete
scheme for the case under consideration is obtained as presented
in Fig. 9.
By summing the currents injected in node according to the
schemes for different parts of the system, we obtain
(13)
The total current injected in node obtainable by summing the
currents stemming from the schemes of the associated system
parts is equal to
(14)
NAHMAN AND SALAMON: SAFETY ANALYSIS AT OVERHEAD LINE TOWERS
Fig. 10. Disposition of transformer station (S ) and line tower (T ) ground elec-
trodes, 110-kV line (L) and the critical route on the ground surface (R).
G. Determination of Currents Discharging From Ground
Electrodes
The potentials of nodes in the scheme displayed in Fig. 9 can
be determined from the currents injected in the nodes using the
following matrix expression:
(15)
Diagonal elements of square 3 by 3 symmetrical matrix are
self admittances of nodes and offdiagonal elements are negative
mutual. The currents leaking into the soil from the tower with
ground fault and substation ground electrodes are
(16)
(17)
H. Distribution of the Potentials on the Ground Surface
To evaluate the risk of dangerous electrocutions, the potential
distribution along critical route on the ground surface crossing
tower axis should be determined. The potential at any location
along the route is obtainable by the superposition of the poten-
tials generated by the tower ground electrode and the ground
electrode of the adjacent substation. If and are the plane
rectangular coordinates of a location, then the potential at this
location is equal to
(18)
with indices and related to the tower and substation ground
electrode, respectively. The potentials generated by the elec-
trodes are calculated by applying the adequate software [6],
based upon the currents discharging into the soil determined
using (16) and (17) and the configuration of ground electrodes.
Potential components on the right-hand side of (18) are calcu-
lated as if the corresponding electrodes are acting alone. These
potentials are generally complex quantities as they are linearly
correlated with the currents injected into soil at nodes and .
Maximum touch voltage is determined as the maximum po-
tential difference that can be overbridged by a person standing
1511
1 m apart from the tower and touching the tower. Maximum
step voltage is determined as the maximum potential difference
that can be overbridged by a step of 1 along the character-
istic routes around the tower. If it is assumed that the exposed
person is touching the tower structure by one leg, which is the
most pessimistic case, the maximum step voltage is equal to the
maximum touch voltage. This critical voltage is obtainable from
the potential distribution calculated by using (18).
The maximum-allowable touch voltage for those with a body
weight of 50 kg is [7]
(19)
where is the resistivity of the surface material and is the
shock duration. The correction factor for finite thickness of the
surface material is approximately equal to [7] and [8]
(20)
with being the resistivity of the earth and designating the
thickness of surface material.
The maximum-allowable step voltage for those with a body
weight of 50 kg is [7]
(21)
with the same meaning of notation as in (19).
III. APPLICATION EXAMPLE
The first tower of a double-circuit 110-kV line, leaving a
220-kV/110-kV transformer station, is located 15 apart from
the edge of the ground grid of the transformer station (Fig. 10).
The head of the line is presented in Fig. 1. The ground wire on
the left-hand side is optical ground wire (OPGW). The safety
conditions occurring in the case of a single-phase-to-ground
fault at the tower should be considered as the presence of people
in this area is possible. Table I presents the data on the max-
imum predicted fault currents in the prospective 10-year period
for the fault of system , and on the relevant impedances. Other
detailed data on the line are given in Appendix A. Impedances
are determined for 50 Hz, as is the frequency in the authors
country.
The data on the substation grounding system are given in
Table II. The transformer station is grounded by a ground grid
of rectangular shape 176 m 111 m formed by transversal and
perpendicular conductors. Mutual resistance between the
station and tower ground electrodes is determined by calculating
the mean potential of the tower ground electrode generated by
a unit current discharging from the station electrode, using the
appropriate software for grounding system analysis [6]. The
impedance is determined from the data for impedances to
ground of ground wires and cable sheaths of overhead lines and
cables connected to the transformer station.
Table III gives the tripple zero-sequence currents flowing
through the overhead lines and cables to the transformer station
in the considered ground fault case as well as the screening
factors and impedances to ground of ground wires of lines and
1512
TABLE I
LINE AND TOWER DATA
TABLE II
SUBSTATION GROUNDING SYSTEM DATA
TABLE III
DATA FOR LINES AND CABLES CONNECTED TO THE SUBSTATION
TABLE IV
CURRENTS FLOWING THROUGH THE GROUNDING SYSTEM
TABLE V
MAXIMUM TOUCH VOLTAGES
sheaths of cables. The data are related to all lines and cables
associated with the transformer station with the exception of
the faulted line.
The results of the calculations performed by the method de-
scribed in this paper are presented in Tables IV and V. Table IV
gives the relevant currents in cases when the complete proposed
model is used and when the mutual resistance between the tower
and transformer station ground electrodes is not accounted for.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 3, JULY 2010
In assessing the safety conditions, the following cases have
been analyzed:
Case C1) complete grounding system model;
Case C2) mutual resistance between tower and substation
ground electrodes is taken into account but the po-
tential distribution on the ground surface generated
by the substation ground electrode is not consid-
ered;
Case C3) the mutual resistance between two ground electrodes
and the potentials on the ground surface stemming
from the substation ground electrode are not consid-
ered.
Table V quotes maximum touch voltages at the tower under
consideration determined for the three cases mentioned before.
Step voltages are the same as the touch voltages, for the worst
case.
In Cases C1) and C2), the same values for the current dis-
charging from the tower ground electrode and for the poten-
tial of the tower are obtained. However, the transformer sta-
tion ground electrode significantly increases the potentials on
the ground surface around the tower when superimposed upon
the potentials generated by the tower ground electrode, reducing
the potential difference between the tower structure and the sur-
rounding soil. This explains the discrepancy between these two
cases. In case C3, as the mutual interaction of the ground elec-
trodes is not accounted for in calculating the current discharging
from the tower ground electrode, a higher magnitude for this
current is obtained than actual, which increases the maximum
touch voltage magnitude when compared with that in case C2.
For a fault duration 0.3 s and , the
maximum-allowable touch- and-step voltages are equal, with
reference to (18)(20)
(22)
that is higher than the maximum touch-and-step voltage mag-
nitude calculated by applying the complete grounding system
model as Case C1 in Table V. That means that no special mea-
sures for reducing the dangerous voltages at the tower under
consideration for safety reasons are required. However, the max-
imum touch-and-step voltage determined by applying simpli-
fied grounding system models as in cases C2 and C3, that are
much higher than the maximum allowed voltages, would lead
to the conclusion that additional safety measures against elec-
trical shocks should be necessary, implying extra cost and labor.
For illustration, Fig. 11 displays the resulting potential distri-
bution on the ground surface along the route crossing over the
tower axis for case C1. The potential distributions generated in-
dividually by substation and tower ground electrodes are also
presented. Fig. 12 displays the potential distributions stemming
from the substation and tower ground electrodes for the case
when the interaction between electrodes is not considered.
Calculations of potential distributions in all three cases under
consideration were performed by applying the appropriate soft-
ware [6] using the data on the currents emanating into the sur-
rounding soil from ground electrodes, obtained from the cor-
responding grounding system models. For case C1), the po-
NAHMAN AND SALAMON: SAFETY ANALYSIS AT OVERHEAD LINE TOWERS
Fig. 11. Potential distribution on the ground surface for the complete grounding
system model. Real potential distribution (R), potentials generated by the sub-
station ground electrode (S ), and potentials generated by the tower ground elec-
trode (T ).
Fig. 12. Potential distribution on the ground surface for case C3. Potentials
generated by the substation ground electrode (S ) and potentials generated by
the tower ground electrode (T ).
tentials stemming from the tower and substation ground elec-
trodes are separately determined. Then, the potentials gener-
ated by the ground current leaking from the substation electrode
are superimposed upon the potentials caused by the current dis-
charging from the tower ground electrode. The phase differ-
ences existing between these two components of potentials are
accounted for at each location along the considered route on the
ground surface to properly determine the associated root mean
square (rms) values of potentials. The maximum touch voltages
given in Table V are determined from the potential distributions
along the critical route calculated in the examined cases.
IV. CONCLUSION
The safety conditions at a tower located in close proximity to
the substation that it is connected to, in the case of the phase-to-
1513
TABLE VI
GROUND DATA FOR GROUND WIRES
ground faults at the tower, should take into account the mu-
tual interaction of the tower and substation ground electrodes.
The mutual interaction existing between these two electrodes
decreases the current leaking into the ground from the tower
ground electrode. Furthermore, the ground surface potentials
generated by the current leaking from the substation ground
electrode, superimposed upon the potentials stemming from the
current discharging from the tower ground electrode, increase
the ground surface potentials. The typical case, analyzed in this
paper, has shown that both of these effects have substantially
reduced the maximum touch-and-step voltages at the tower lo-
cation. If any of the aforementioned effects were neglected,
much higher and dangerous voltages than actual would be cal-
culated, leading to extra cost and labor for implementing addi-
tional safety measures at the tower.
APPENDIX A
Self and Mutual Impedances of Line Conductors for
Ground Return: The self impedance of a line conductor for
current ground return for 50 Hz is equal to
km
with , , and being the conductor resistance per kilometer,
diameter, and relative permeability, respectively. Parameter
is the equivalent depth of current ground return
where and are ground resistivity and current frequency.
The mutual impedance between two parallel conductors
spaced apart at distance , for 50 Hz is equal to
km
In calculating the equivalent mutual impedance between the
line phase conductors and a ground wire, is the mean ge-
ometrical distance of the phase conductors to the ground wire.
These parameters are determinable from the conductors dispo-
sition displayed in Fig. 1.
Table VI gives the supplemental data on the ground wires of
the line considered in this paper.
Indices 1 and 2 refer to the optical ground wire and Aldrey
wire, respectively.
APPENDIX B
Simple Interaction Model: For illustration, consider a ver-
tically driven rod and a horizontal round plate that are parallel
connected. The length of the rod is and the diameter is . The
top of the rod is on the surface level. The diameter of the plate
1514
is . The distance between the rod and the closest edge of the
plate is . The total current emanating from the considered
ground electrodes into the surrounding soil is and the soil re-
sistivity is . The equivalent resistance to ground of two par-
allel-connected electrodes is as follows from the corresponding
scheme analogous to this in Fig. 7
with and being the resistances to ground of the plate and
the rod, respectively
The mutual resistance between the two electrodes can be ap-
proximately determined as [10]
The GPR for the parallel-connected electrodes is equal to
Currents and discharging from the plate and the rod into
the ground are as follows from the corresponding scheme for
electrodes under consideration analogous to this in Fig. 7:
The maximum touch voltage can be overbridged from the stand-
point on the straight line route passing over the center of the
plate and the rod top that is located at a distance 1 m from
the rod on the side opposite the plate.
The potential of this point is
with and as the potentials generated by the rod and plate
The maximum touch potential is equal to
Let us adopt the following data:
m 9, no. 1, pp. 360368, Jan. 1994.
m A m York: Marcel Dekker, 1988, pp. 171178.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 25, NO. 3, JULY 2010
TABLE VII
CHARACTERISTIC PARAMETERS FOR VARIOUS
SPACING BETWEEN GROUND ELECTRODES
Table VII presents the values of the characteristic parameters of
the grounding system under consideration that have been deter-
mined for various spacing between electrodes by applying the
expressions given before.
As we can see, with increasing , the potential at the crit-
ical standpoint considerably decreases whereas the GPR value
remains practically unaffected due to a comparatively low
value dominantly determining the resistance to ground of the
parallel-connected electrodes. This causes the increment of the
touch voltage when is increased.
The case that was analyzed before models, in a broad sense,
the circumstances considered in this paper: the plate models the
substation electrode whereas the rod models the tower ground
electrode. The data for electrodes are chosen to provide practi-
cally the same ratio between their resistances as between the re-
sistances of the corresponding electrodes studied in Section III.
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NAHMAN AND SALAMON: SAFETY ANALYSIS AT OVERHEAD LINE TOWERS 1515

[10] W. Koch, Erdungen in Wechselstrom Anlagen Ueber 1 kV. Berlin, Dragutin D. Salamon was born in Vukovar, Croatia, in 1942. He received the
Germany: Springer, 1961, pp. 5153. Dipl. Eng., M.Sc., and D.Tech. degrees in electric power engineering from the
University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia, in 1973, 1978, and 1992, respectively.
Jovan M. Nahman was born in Belgrade, Serbia. He received the Dipl.Eng. In 1973, he joined the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Bel-
and D.Tech. degrees in electrical power engineering from the Faculty of Elec- grade, where he is Associate Professor in the Power System Department.
trical Engineering, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia, in 1960 and 1969,
respectively.
From 1960 to 2001, he was a Professor with the Faculty of Electrical Engi-
neering at the University of Belgrade in the Power System Department. Cur-
rently, he is a Freelance Consultant for electric power systems.