30th International Conference on Lightning Protection - ICLP 2010 (Cagliari, Italy - September 13th -17th, 2010)

FIELD TESTS OF GROUNDING AT AN ACTUAL WIND TURBINE GENERATOR SYSTEM

Kazuo Yamamoto1, Shunichi Yanagawa2, Toshiaki Ueda3
1

Kobe City College of Technology, Hyogo, Japan 2 Shoden Co., Tokyo, Japan 3 Chubu Electric Power Co., Aichi, Japan 1 kyamamoto@mem.iee.or.jp 2 GROUNDING SYSTEM

ABSTRACT
Accidents caused by natural phenomena such as lightning are serious problems for the diffusions of wind power generations. Those problems affect the safety and reliability of wind turbine generator systems. Most of the breakdowns and malfunctions of the electrical and control systems inside wind turbines are caused by a rise in ground potential due to lightning. To solve those problems, the field tests are carried out, and the transient characteristics of an actual wind turbine grounding system have been obvious.

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, accidents associated with the use of a large number of wind turbine generator systems have increased in number, including those caused by natural phenomena such as lightning and typhoons. Lightning especially causes extensive and serious damages. In order to exploit high wind conditions, wind turbine generator systems are often constructed on hilly terrains or along the seashore, where few tall structures exist in their vicinity; therefore, these structures are often struck by lightning. In order to promote wind power generation, lightning protection methodologies for wind turbine generator systems should be established [1-4]. Damage caused to wind turbine generator systems due to lightning affects the safety and reliability of these systems. Most of the breakdowns and malfunctions of the electrical and control systems inside wind turbines are caused by a rise in ground potential due to lightning [5, 6]. To solve the mechanism of generation of the potential rise in the multifarious ground system, impulse tests at many kinds of wind turbine sites should continue [7, 8]. In this paper, we have presented the results of experimental studies undertaken to estimate the grounding characteristics of wind turbine generator systems. When the wind turbine generator system is constructed at the low resistivity site such as seashore, the potential rise at the wavefront typically becomes larger than that of the steady state because of the inductivity of the grounding system. Therefore, it is very important that the transient characteristics of the grounding system become obvious.

Fig. 1 shows in detail the grounding system of the actual wind turbine generator system; it consists of the foundation, grounding meshes, foundation feet and the grounding system of a neighbor substation. A quadrangle and octagon usually exist as shapes of the top surface of the foundation; it used in this measurement is an octagonal-type foundation. For some wind turbines in Japan, the lightning current is actively led to the grounding mesh covering the foundation from the tower, not to the foundation itself. However, the foundation is not explicitly isolated from
Top view substation facility

1m

3m

5m

7m

9m

12 m

16.5 m
2m 0m 4m 6m 8m 10 m

4m 7m Side view substation facility 3.2 m 2.8 m grounding mesh foundation foot10 m Bottom view

grounding mesh

Figure 1. Grounding system.

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1 = 25 [m]

d1 = 2[m]

IV cable 500 V I

2 = 38 [m]

d2 = 7[m]
V I I.G. current lead wire 90 m 18 m substation facility Voltage measuring wire 300 anchor

50 m

3 = 6 [m]

Figure 2. Stratiform ground resistivity at the site of field tests.

the tower; these are connected through the anchor. When the grounding characteristics of a wind turbine generator system are researched, a grounding system including the foundation, the grounding meshes, the foundation feet and the substation grounding system should be considered. Incidentally, the grounding system was not connected to any surrounding wind turbines. As shown in Fig. 1, the foundation is octagonal type, with the width of 16.5 m. The foundation was constructed with reinforced concrete; the intervals between reinforcing were about 30 cm. The tower was connected to the foundation at ground level. The depth of the foundation was 3.2 m, and the length, diameter and number of the foundation feet were 10 m, 1 m and 17 respectively to enhance the bearing capacity of soil. The foundation feet were made of steel. The cross section of the wires for the grounding meshes was 60 mm2; it is connected to the foundation feet. The details of the grounding mesh covering the foundation are shown in Fig. 1. The stratiform ground resistivity at the site of the wind turbine generator system is shown in Fig. 2. The Wenner method was utilized to measure the resistivity. The steady-state grounding resistance of the grounding system of the wind turbine generator system was 0.21 . 3 EXPERIMENTAL CONDITIONS

Figure 3. Experimental setup.

Fig. 3 shows the experimental setup. The current was led to the foundation from the impulse generator with insulated copper wire (length: 90 m; cross section: 5.5 mm2) as the current lead wire. The height of the current lead wire was about 1 m. The fast front current generated by the impulse generator was injected into the foundation through a resistance of 500 from a current lead wire, as shown in Fig. 3. The peak value of the current was 60 A, and the wavefront was about 0.2 s. Such current is expressive of the lightning current with the conceivable steep wavefront. When the frequency characteristics of the grounding impedance are calculated, such potential

responses of the current including wide-frequency components become important [7]. The comparatively large resistance of 500 was connected in series with the impulse generator; the power source could therefore be considered as a current source. The resistance worked as a matching impedance to reduce the current reflections on the current lead wire. The impulse generator was grounded by several grounding rods (length: 1.5 m; diameter: 20 mm); the steady-state grounding resistance was 8.5 . The injected current was measured at the end of the current lead wire near the foundation with a current probe, as shown in Fig. 3. The potential rise of the foundation was measured as the voltage difference between the top of the foundation and the voltage measurement wire (length: 68 m; cross-section: 2 mm2). The ground terminal of the passive probe was connected to the top of the foundation so that the case of the oscilloscope can be same potential at the measuring point. The height of the voltage measurement wire was 1 m, and it was grounded at the remote end through a matching impedance of 300 . The surge impedance of the voltage measuring wire was about 400 ; therefore, the 300 resistance was connected between the remote end of the voltage measuring wire and a grounding rod (length: 0.5 m, diameter: 20 mm, grounding resistance: 81 ). This was how the noise induced on the voltage measuring wire was discharged to the ground readily. The potential rises around the wind turbine generator system were measured as the voltage between the voltage measurement wire and the conductive rods at intervals of 1 m (0 to 10 m from the edge of the foundation, as shown in Fig. 1) around the foundation, and 24 m (over 10 m from the edge of the foundation, as shown in Fig. 1) for further distance. The potential rises were measured at 21 locations. The bottom of the conductive rod (length: 0.3 m; diameter: 10 mm) was buried about a 0.1 m depth at each measured point to

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voltage [V]

measure the potential rises, the ground terminal of the passive probe was connected to conductive rod so that the case of the oscilloscope can be same potential at the measuring point. As shown in Fig. 3, the current lead wire and voltage measurement wire were not orthogonalized around the wind turbine. Mutual electromagnetic induction between the current lead and voltage measuring wires may have existed. 4 MEASURING INSTRUMENTS

and (b), respectively, show the injected current I and potential rise V at the top of the foundation. The injected current showed a ramp wave which includes wide frequency component, and its peak value and rise time
100 80 60 40 20 0 -20

5 5.1

MEASURED RESULTS

voltage [V]

The impulse generator had a capacitance of 1.5 F, and it was discharged using a gap switch. The charging voltage was about 30 kV for these measurements. A TDS3054B oscilloscope (Tektronix) was used to measure the voltage and current waveforms; its bandwidth was DC500 MHz. A P5100 passive probe (Tektronix) was used for voltage measurements; its bandwidth was DC250 MHz, and its input capacitance was up to 2.75 pF. A PEARSON 150 was used as the current probe; its bandwidth and usable rise time were 40 kHz20 MHz and over 20 ns, respectively. The measurements performed using these instruments were accurate, with a rise time of several hundred nanoseconds.

time [s]

(a) Result at the edge of the foundation (The distance from the foundation is 0 m)

100 80 60 40 20 0 -20 0 1

Characteristics of the grounding system

time [s]

The measured results are shown in Fig. 4. Figs. 4(a)

80

(b) Result at 2 m from the foundation

100

current [A]

60 40 20 0 0 1 2 3 4 5

voltage [V]

80 60 40 20 0 -20

time [s]
(a) Injected current

time [s]

(c) Result at 4 m from the foundation

100 80 60 40 20 0 -20

100

voltage [V]

voltage [V]

80 60 40 20 0 -20 0 1

time [s]

time [s]

(b) Potential rise Figure 4. Measured results.

(d) Result at 6 m from the foundation Figure 5. Potential rises around the foundation

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80

100

voltage [V]

20 0 -20

voltage [V]

80 60 40

60

40

time [s]

(e) Result at 8 m from the foundation

20

voltage [V]

100 80 60 40 20 0 -20 0 1

0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

distance [m]
(a) Relation between the peak values of transient potential rises and the distance from the foundation

time [s]

10

(f) Result at 10 m from the foundation

voltage [V]
0 1

voltage [V]

100 80 60 40 20 0 -20

time [s]

(g) Result at 20 m from the foundation

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

100 80 60 40 20 0 -20

distance [m]
(b) Relation between the steady-state values of potential rises and the distance from the foundation Figure 6. Potential rises around the foundation.

voltage [V]

time [s]

(h) Result at 32 m from the foundation Figure 5. Potential rises around the foundation

were approximately 60 A and 0.2 s, respectively. The voltage was inductive at the wavefront. The transient grounding resistance is greater than that of steady-state. The voltage waveform oscillated after the wavefront. The

medium value of the voltage gradually decreased to the steady-state grounding resistance of 0.21 . We believe that the oscillations were caused by the inductance and capacitance of the grounding system. It should be noted that all measured results do not include nonlinearity caused by ionization because the current is not high as shown in Fig. 4 (a). The grounding characteristics of the system showed strong inductiveness at the wavefront; the steady-state grounding resistance was as low as 0.21 . The steadystate grounding resistance is usual lower than 10 [2]. In such grounding system of low steady-state grounding

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resistance, similar inductive characteristics should be observed [8, 9]. Transient phenomena obviously become more important than steady-state phenomena for lightning protection design. 5.2 Ground potential rises around the foundation

The potential around a wind turbine generator system increases when it is struck by lightning. To investigate the potential rises, the fast-front current was injected into the grounding system, as shown in Fig. 3. The injected current was much the same as the results shown in Fig. 4(a), where the peak value was 60 A and the wavefront was about 0.2 s. Fig. 5 shows the measured potential rises at several points around the wind turbine generator system. Fig. 6(a) shows the relationships between the peak values of potential rises and the distance, and Fig. 6(b) shows the relationships between the steady-state values of potential rises and the distance. The wave shape shown in Fig. 5 was almost analogous to the potential rise shown in Fig. 4(b). If the skin effect of the ground is not considered and the shape of the grounding system is assumed to be a semi-sphere, the grounding impedance is assumed to be a pure resistance, the maximum potential rises are found to be inversely proportional to the distance from the foundations. A few differences existed in comparison with the inversely proportional waveform because the measurement results in Fig. 6(a) showed surge behavior. On another front, the value of the steady-state grounding potential rises around the foundation is almost inversely proportional to the distance from the foundation. The abovementioned measured results included the influence of the induced voltage on the voltage measuring wire, an input capacitance of the voltage probe, the position of the current lead wire, and so on. If we want to obtain the independent grounding characteristics of the foundation, a model of the wind turbine with a grounding system should be established in numerical electromagnetic field analysis such as through the FDTD method [9-11], and the independent model of the grounding system should be calculated [7]. 6 CONCLUSIONS

of low steady-state grounding resistance, it is satisfactory result that such inductive characteristics are observed. Transient phenomena are obviously more important than steady-state phenomena for lightning protection design. The wave shape of the potential rises around the foundation is almost analogous to the potential rises at the grounding system of the wind turbine. The transient potential rises around the foundation was not inversely proportional to the distance from the foundation because the measurement results showed surge behavior. On another front, the value of the steady-state grounding potential rises around the foundation were almost inversely proportional to the distance from the foundation. To solve the mechanism of generation of the potential rise in the multifarious ground system, impulse tests at many kinds of wind turbine sites should continue in cooperation with owners of wind turbines. REFERENCES
[1] I. Cotton, B. Mcniff, T. Soerenson, W. Zischank, P. Christiansen, M. Hoppe-Kilpper, S. Ramakers, P. Pettersson and E. Muljadi, Lightning Protection for Wind Turbines, in Proc. 25th International Conference on Lightning Protection, pp. 848853, Rhodes, Greece (2000) [2] IEC TR 61400-24, Wind Turbine Generator Systems-Part 24: Lightning protection (2002) [3] NEDO, Wind Turbine Failures and Troubles Investigating Committee Annual Report, (2006) (in Japanese). [4] NEDO, Wind Turbine Failures and Troubles Investigating Committee Annual Report, (2007) (in Japanese). [5] K. Yamamoto, T. Noda, S. Yokoyama and A. Ametani, An experimental study of lightning overvoltages in wind turbine generation systems using a reduced-size model, Electrical Engineering in Japan, Volume 158, Issue 4, pp. 22-30 (20073) [6] K. Yamamoto, T. Noda, S. Yokoyama and A. Ametani, Experimental and Analytical Studies of Lightning Overvoltages in Wind Turbine Generation Systems, International Conference on Power System Transients (IPST), Lyon, France (2007) [7] 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 (to be published) [8] K. Yamamoto, S. Yanagawa, K. Yamabuki, S. Sekioka and S. Yokoyama, A Study of Transient Characteristics of an Actual Wind Turbine Grounding System, IX International Symposium on Lightning Protection (SIPDA), No. II-4, pp.285-290 (2009-11) [9] K. S. Yee, J. S. Chen, and A. H. Chang, Conformal finitedifference time-domain (FDTD) with overlapping grids, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 40, pp. 1068-1075 (1992) [10] M. Tsumura, Y. Baba, N. Nagaoka and A. Ametani,

This paper has presented the results of experimental studies investigating the grounding characteristics of an actual wind turbine generator system and the potential rises around it. The characteristics of the grounding system showed strong inductivity at the wavefront. The steady-state grounding resistance is usual lower than 10 at a general wind turbine generator system. In such grounding system

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FDTD simulation of a horizontal grounding electrode and modeling of its equivalent circuit, IEEE Trans. Electromagnetic Compatibility, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 817825 (2006-11) [11] T. Noda and S. Yokoyama, Thin wire representation in finite difference time domain surge simulation, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, vol. 17, pp. 840847 (2002-7)

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