1

Arc-Flash Hazard in Wind Power Plants

IEEE PES Wind Plant Collector System Design Working Group
Contributing Members: M. Bradt, M. R. Behnke, T.A. Bellei, W. G. Bloethe, C. Brooks, E.H. Camm,
W. Dilling, B. Goltz, J. Li, J. Niemira, K. Nuckles, J. Patio, M. Reza, B. Richardson, N. Samaan, J. Schoene,
T. Smith, I. Snyder, M. Starke, K. Tay, R. Walling, G. Zahalka

Abstract The topic of this paper is the arc-flash hazard in

Wind Power Plants (WPP). A brief introduction of the concept
of arc flash is followed by the presentation of a methodology to
perform an arc-flash hazard analysis on a WPP collector system.
Issues such as faults being fed by multiple sources, as well as the
modeling of the fault current of the wind turbine generator are
addressed. The paper concludes with two examples using the
presented methodology.
Index Terms Arc-flash hazard, shock hazard, wind power
plants.

I. INTRODUCTION
This paper investigates and discusses the arc-flash hazard
in a Wind Power Plant (WPP) collector system. It will define
an arc-flash calculation methodology for multiple sources and
provide two examples of the methodology.
The approach this paper will be as follows: Section II discusses the arc-flash hazard in general the causes of arcs, the
available models to calculate incident energy levels and certain concerns, which are specific to wind power plants. Section III describes the possible mitigation strategies defining
an arc-flash protection boundary, the types of personal protective equipment (PPE) available, and possible means of reducing incident energy levels through various technologies. Section IV presents a detailed, structured method to calculate arcflash incident energy levels in a WPP. Section V concludes
the paper with two examples.
II. ARC-FLASH HAZARD
A. General Description of Arc-flash Hazard
An electric arc is the result of the electrical breakdown of
an insulator (typically air) resulting in current flowing through
the insulator. An arc-flash fault is often caused by:
Human mistake (e.g., dropping a tool, accidental contact with live parts)
Environment (e.g., contamination, water vapor)
Equipment failure (e.g., insufficient insulation, deteriorated insulation, corrosion)

978-1-4244-6547-7/10/$26.00 2010 IEEE

Overvoltage conditions
A combination of the above.
In power systems the path of the arc can be between two
phases, multiple phases, single phase and ground, and multiple
phases and ground. The arc flash is surrounded by a conductive plasma cloud and often vaporized conductive material,
which increases the likelihood of a single-phase fault making
contact with nearby phases and escalating into a three-phase
fault. This is more likely to happen on systems with low insulation level and at locations with small clearance between
conductors, such as low-voltage systems and switchgear
equipment. For these cases a single-phase fault often escalates
into a three-phase fault within a few milliseconds (Schau and
Stade, 1995).
A large amount of energy is released during an arc flash,
primarily in the form of heat. The burn hazard during an arc
flash is the main concern for worker safety (e.g. Lee, 1982).
Additionally, the energy released in the form of pressure is of
concern for worker safety since the pressure wave can directly
injure the worker or can destroy objects resulting in shrapnel
that can injure the worker (Lee, 1987). The part of the arc
flash that is associated with the release of a pressure wave is
commonly referred to as the arc blast (Dugan, 2007).
The arc-flash fault current is generally smaller than the
bolted fault current of the system due to the impedance of the
arc. The incident energy is the energy impressed on a surface
at a certain distance from the arc and is used as a measure to
quantify the burn hazard from an arc-flash.
Arc-flash energy is transferred to the surroundings by conduction, convection, and radiation energies (Wilkins et al.,
2004). For enclosed equipment, a substantial part of the
arc-flash energy is also converted to pressure. Figure 1 illustrates the energy dissipation for open-space and enclosedspace configuration. For arcs in open spaces, the geometry of
the energy emission is spherical and consequently the fraction
of the total arc energy that is emitted as radiant energy is proportional to 1/D2. On the other hand, there is a focusing effect
for the enclosed-space configuration, which increases the
energy emitted in the direction of the opening. Consequently,
the radiation emitted from the box is less divergent than for
the spherical geometry resulting in a distance relationship of
1/Dx with the distance exponential x being smaller than 2.

Figure 1: Distance dependence of incident energy for open-space and

enclosed-space configurations.

B. Arc-Flash Models
Arc-flash models estimate the incident heat energies a person near an arc fault is exposed to. The incident energy levels
calculated in an arc-flash hazard analysis determines arc-flash
hazard categories, which in turn guide the decision regarding
the appropriate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for a
person that works near energized equipment. The calculated
incident energies are vastly model dependent (e.g., Ammerman et al., 2008) and there is currently no consensus on which
model to employ in an arc-flash hazard analysis.
Models that are based on empirical data include the IEEE
1584 model for system voltages below 15 kV, the Doughty
model, sometimes referred to the NFPA 70E model, (Doughty
et al., 2000), and the Wilkins model (Wilkins et al., 2005).
The IEEE 1584 and Doughty models are purely empirical
while the Wilkins model is based both on empirical data and
circuit theory making it a semi-empirical or behavioral model.
In general, empirical and semi-empirical models are fitted to
test data and consequently are only applicable for the tested
range of the relevant parameters and for conditions that resemble the test conditions.
Models that are based on theory include the Duke Power
model, which is available in the public domain, the commercially available ARCPRO model, and models that are based on
theory published by Lee (1982). The Duke Power model and
the ARCPRO models are the models integrated into the Heat
Flux calculator software and the ARCPRO software, respectively. The models were developed for single-phase arc faults
in open air. The single-phase, open-air incident energies can
be converted to incident energies during three-phase faults and

faults in enclosed spaces using adjustment factors. Note that

most arc faults start as single-phase faults and escalate to
three-phase faults within a few milliseconds. A complete description of the theory behind the Duke Power model and the
ARCPRO model is not publicly available and consequently it
is difficult to evaluate the physical soundness of the model.
The ARCPRO model was internally verified for part of the
accepted range of input parameters (Kinectrics, 2004) independent verification for the completed range of input parameters is lacking. IEEE 1584 recommends using a theoretical
model for system voltages of 15 kV and above. This model is
based on the very conservative maximum power transfer assumption (Lee, 1983). Lee does not present equations for the
incident energy calculations in his paper and there is an interpretation of Lees work for calculating incident energies that is
different than the IEEE 1584 interpretation (Martin and Beattie, 2005). These Lee-based models are different from all other models presented in this paper in that the incident energies
calculated with the Lee-based models are proportional to the
system voltage; all other models show no or very little direct
dependence of incident energy and system voltage above 5
kV. The proportionality of incident energy and system voltages in the Lee-based models results in apparently unrealistically large incident energy levels for large system voltages.
Input parameters for all arc-flash models are the available
bolted fault current and the arc duration. The bolted fault current can be determined in a short-circuit analysis and the arc
duration is typically determined by the time it takes for the
protection device (typically fuses and/or protective relays) to
clear the fault. The incident energy is also sensitive to the
working distance and the arc length1. An arc-flash hazard
analysis is often performed with arc lengths and working distances from IEEE 1584 which gives typical values for given
system voltages and equipment types (open air, switchgear,
etc.).
Note that none of the models discussed here seems to properly account for the arc-flash energy balance. Arc-flash energy in the form of convective heating inside the plasma cloud is
ignored in the IEEE 1584 theoretical model used for system
voltages of 15 kV and above, which results in an overestimation of the incident energy for working distances outside the
plasma cloud. The effect of the plasma cloud is also ignored
in the calorimetric measurements from which the IEEE 1584
data were obtained since the sensors were located outside the
plasma cloud, where the arc-flash energy is primarily radiative
(Wilkins et al., 2005). This should not affect the accuracy of
the IEEE 1584 empirical model for working distances outside
the plasma cloud, but will likely result in an underestimation
of the incident energies predicted by the IEEE 1584 empirical
model if the working distance is inside the plasma cloud
boundary. This is a concern if the plasma cloud expands far
enough to reach the worker thereby exposing the worker to
1
The arc is often assumed to be straight and under this assumption the arc
length is equal to the distance between bus bars. However, for long arcs that
can develop in systems with high voltages and large bus-bar spacing, this
assumption is not accurate since the arc is often warped and therefore considerably longer than the bus bar distance.

energy levels that are potentially much higher than predicted

by any of the models discussed here. There is no consensus in
the literature about the dimension of the plasma cloud. Lee
(1982) assumed a spherical dimension for the plasma cloud
and predicted for one configuration an arc plasma diameter of
170 mm. On the other hand, for the same configuration,
Stokes and Sweeting (2005) experimentally determined a
much larger plasma expansion they measured an arc plasma
dimension of 3m x 1.5m from a photograph. Also, for enclosed space configurations the plasma cloud is likely to expand farther in the direction of the worker due to the focusing
effect (see Section IIA)
C. Arc-flash Concerns specific to Wind Plants
Typically, during wind plant commissioning, the equipment inside the wind turbine tower has to be approached in an
energized state. This is a problem if the arc-flash analysis
predicts large incident energies at locations inside the turbine.
Temporary protection settings (e.g., relays set on instantaneous trip) may be applied to reduce the incident energy at locations with excessively high incident energy levels.
In particular, the arc-flash hazard inside the wind turbine
tower may be more severe than predicted by the arc-flash hazard analysis because of the following concerns:
Convective heat transfer that is not properly accounted
for in models used for the arc-flash hazard analysis increases the incident energy if the worker is inside the
plasma cloud (see Section IIB). A worker location inside
the plasma cloud is likely due to (1) the focusing effect of
the arc-flash in the enclosed space configuration, which
directs the plasma towards the worker and (2) the tight
space inside the turbine tower, which may result in a reduced working distance.
The arc-blast hazard (the hazard due to the pressure
from the arc fault) is potentially more severe inside the
turbine tower because of (1) the focusing effect of the
blast in the enclosed-space configuration, which increases
the pressure exerted on the worker, (2) the inability of the
worker to move away from the blast, and (3) the fall hazard inside the turbine tower. Note that the arc-flash hazard analysis does typically not assess the blast hazard.
The two-second rule in IEEE 1584 (i.e., using two
seconds as the maximum time a person is exposed to an
arc-flash because the person will be able to move to safety
within that time) does not necessarily apply due to the restricted ability to move inside the turbine tower.
The duration of the arcing fault current contribution
from the turbine may depend on the turbine protection only (i.e., there may not be any fuses/relay protection between the turbine and the arc fault location that disconnects the turbine from the fault). Consequently, to properly account for the fault current contribution from the
turbines, some insight into the protection mechanism of
the turbine is required, which may not be always available
to the person performing the arc-flash analysis.

III. ARC-FLASH HAZARD PROTECTION

A. Protection Boundary
IEEE 1584 defines the arc-flash protection boundary to be
the area around an energized object in which a person without
PPE is at risk of receiving at least second degree burns from
an arc-flash originating from the energized object. Skin exposure to energy levels that exceed 1.2 cal/cm2 can cause
second-degree burns. Persons within this area are required to
wear PPE. The flash protection boundary is determined in an
arc-flash analysis.
B. Protection Equipment
NFPA 70E (2004) classifies the arc-flash hazard according
to maximum incident energy a person can be exposed to. The
NFPA 70E hazard categories are listed in Table 1. Protection
requirements, such as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE),
are selected based on the hazard category. The PPE should
limit the energy exposure of the chest and face during an arcing fault to curable burn energies (below 1.2 cal/cm2 according to IEEE 1584). In some cases the maximum incident
energy level may exceed 40 cal/cm2. For these cases, risk
consideration will play a major role. There is PPE available
above 40 cal/cm2, however the preferred approach is to always
work such high levels de-energized.
TABLE 1: NFPA 70E HAZARD CATEGORIES

Category

Energy
Level
(cal/cm2)

<1.2

1.2-4

4-8

8-25

25-40

Protective Clothing/PPE
Long-sleeve shirt and long pants
composed of non-melting or untreated natural fiber, safety glasses
FR long-sleeve shirt, FR pants, hard
hat, safety glasses
Category 1 protection + arc-rated
face shield, hearing protection,
leather gloves, leather work shoes
Category 2 protection + FR coverall, FR hard hat liner, flash suit
hood
Category 3 protection + flash suit
jacket, flash suit pants

1) Protection Devices
Protection devices, such as Overcurrent Protection Devices
(OCPDs) are used for fault clearing. OCPDs and other protection devices are:
Fuses: Fuses are reliable OCPDs which do not require periodic maintenance. A Fuse clears a permanent fault by removing the faulted segment from the circuit. The fusible element is heated and melted by the overcurrent. The behavior of
the fuse is characterized by a time-current plot, which shows
two curves (1) the minimum melting curve and (2) the total
clearing curve. The minimum melting curve gives the melting
time of the fusible element for any given current. After the
fusible element melts, the circuit is not immediately interrupted due to arcing between the fuse terminals. The sum of
maximum melting time and the duration the fuse arc is sus-

tained (i.e., the fuse arcing time) represents the total clearing
time. The fuse clearing time increases with decreasing current
magnitude and consequently arc flashes during low-current
faults may have larger energies than arc flashes during highcurrent faults.

Ground Fault Sensors: Ground fault sensors detect the

current imbalance during a phase-to-ground fault (most arcing
faults start as a phase-to-ground fault and may develop into a
multiphase fault). They have the advantage over overcurrent
sensors in that they are more sensitive and can therefore trip
faster. Ground fault sensors should be installed in multiple
places to allow low settings resulting in faster clearing times.
(Dugan, 2007).
IV. ARC-FLASH INCIDENT ENERGY CALCULATIONS

Figure 2: Person wearing an arc-flash hazard suit during the installation of power quality equipment at an energized wind turbine
(photograph by Gene Porter).

Circuit Breakers: Circuit breakers are mechanically- driven interrupting devices which are capable of breaking and
possibly reclosing on a faulted and non-faulted circuit. The
primary task of the circuit breaker is to extinguish the arc that
develops when the breaker contacts separate. Depending on
the type of breaker, the arc is extinguished in air, oil, vacuum,
or SF6 gas. Reclosers are circuit breakers with a mechanism
that automatically closes the breaker after it has opened due to
a fault to avoid unnecessary system outages caused by temporary faults. However, in wind power plants there are no locations where any reclosing operations are to be used. It is dangerous and damaging to equipment to reclose, since synchronization will be lost during the interruption between the source
and the multiple generation sites and synchronization is lost
when any break in connection occurs. Normal restart procedures must then be followed to bring back affected WTGs and
circuits.
Protective Relays: A relay calculates the operating conditions on an electrical circuit and trips the circuit breaker when
a fault is detected. During a fault the primary relay operates
first. If available a backup relay will operate if the primary
relay fails to operate as desired.
Protective relays may be either overcurrent or differential.
Overcurrent relays trip if they sense that the current levels are
too high.
Differential relays work in a group and calculate the difference between the input and output currents. By Kirchoffs
Current Law, both the sum of input currents and the sum of
output currents must be equal. A difference would imply that
a fault has occurred within the differential relay groups zone
of protection, causing all of them to respond instantaneously.
On the substation bus of the WPP, the differentials relays will
provide the fastest clearing of an arc fault and thus the smallest arc-flash duration and incident energy.

A. Introduction
This section will present a structured method for performing an arc-flash hazard study in a WPPs collector system.
IEEE 1584-2002/2004a is referenced in this section and the
reader is encouraged to study the IEEE 1584 standard for
greater understanding of arc-flash incident energy calculations.
Many different equipment setups exist in WTGs. Equipment locations may play a significant role in the overall harm
of the arc-flash incident. Some common layouts of wind turbines are shown in Figure 3. For instance, if an arc occurs
while a worker is at a piece of equipment outside the wind
turbine, he will be able to quickly escape and limit his exposure to an arc and its harmful products. On the other hand, if a
worker is at the same type of equipment inside the tower or
nacelle, which has a confining workspace the harm will likely
be greater. See Section IIC.
For this paper, the WTG equipment setup on the extreme
left in Figure 3 and shown as a block diagram in Figure 4 will
be the one exemplified here. In this setup, the wind turbine
tower base contains the low-voltage power system control
equipment and the step-up transformer is located just outside
the tower. The scope of this paper will range from the
low-voltage circuit breaker (LVCB) to the medium-voltage
circuit breaker (MVCB) at the substation.

Figure 3: Various wind turbine generic layouts with possible fault locations.

Generator

Low-Voltage
Circuit Breaker

Step Up
Transformer

Medium Voltage
Circuit Breaker
(MVCB)

Low Voltage
(LV) equipment located
in or near the
wind turbine
tower

Medium Voltage (MV)

equipment
located on the
feeders and in
the Substation

: Possible fault locations

Figure 4: Scope of paper.

The dynamics of the generators behavior creates asynchronous fault values and how that impacts quantification of
an arc-flash energy and on the response of the LVCB and its
trip logic is beyond the scope of this paper, which is focusing
on the collector system. Instead, a constant conservative fault
current from the WTG is assumed for the examples in Section
V.
B. Short-Circuit Study
1) Collect the system and installation data
It is imperative that the component data used for the
short-circuit study be accurate. The study must consider all
sources (e.g. utilities, generators, and motors) as well as the
impedances of the connecting system, transformers, and
cables. A single-line diagram is essential in finding the available fault currents at each WTG site and the WPP substation
bus.
2) Calculate arcing fault currents
Bolted fault currents can be calculated using any commercially available power engineering software that is capable of performing a short-circuit analysis. The reader must consider all
possible scenarios during operation and then utilize the component data, along with the single-line diagram to obtain the
bolted fault current at each piece of equipment. Also all three
initial short-circuit conditions must be calculated, which are
commonly called: momentary, interrupting, and time-delayed
(or steady-state). For the example below the momentary will
be estimated at five time steady-state and interrupting will be
estimated at three times the steady-state.

Using the IEEE 1584 empirical model for the low-voltage

electrical equipment, only three-phase fault currents are necessary to calculate arcing-fault currents or other standard percentages can be used. For software such as ARCPRO and the
Duke Heat Flux calculator use SLG fault currents instead of
three-phase fault currents in their theoretical models. The
impact of a three-phase event using ARCPRO can then be
accomplished with the suggested multipliers to adjust the output results to the three-phase open-air or cabinet (in-a-box)
conditions.
3) Fault currents fed from multiple sources
In WPP, a fault almost anywhere will result in the fault being fed by two or more sources (e.g. a single generator, a
group of WTGs, and/or the external utility system). In such
scenarios, fault current contributions from various sources
need to be considered separately based on their protecting
device for use in the next subsection.
C. Coordination Study
1) Determine the fault clearing times
Using the time-current characteristic (TCC) curves and the
arcing-fault current, it becomes straightforward to determine
the time taken for a protecting overcurrent protective device to
clear a fault. This can be determined by drawing a vertical
line representing the arcing fault current and then determining
where it intersects with the maximum clearing time TCC
curve for the protecting device. For fuses this would be the
total clearing curve, because it represent the maximum time to
complete the open. For the LVCB, this could be on the manufactures overcurrent clearing curve in either direction or from
a signal from the WTG control module to trip, which will have
a different time delay than the overcurrent. Such LVCB time
delays could include logic responding to the low voltage ridethrough (LVRT) or other generator abnormal conditions. For
the MVCB relays at the collector feeder exits this will be the
selected TCC curve, which must include the maximum breaker opening/clearing times and any intentional coordination
delays.
At most WPP substations, there are differential protective
schemes which will detect faults within the differential zones.
The respective clearing devices within those zones will define
the clearing times for fault and arc-flash events within their
reach with the maximum time decay being associated with the
slowest breaker.
2) Clearing times for faults with multiple sources
For faults being fed from multiple sources, clearing times
for each source will need to be determined. For each fault
current calculated from subsection IV.B, a clearing time can
be found using the method discussed in IV.C.(1). The fault
current and its associated clearing time will be used to compute the incident energy in the next section.
D. Arc-Flash Hazard Study
The method presented here is a simplified approach and
should provide a conservative value for the total incident
energy from an arc-flash event. The steps are:
1) Determine locations where the arc-flash is to be estimated, such as the generic ones indicated in Figure 5.

2) Determine and/or establish the parameters and assumptions at each location, such as open air or cabinet situation,
likely working distance and arc gap distance. Use actual values for the distances or typical values from IEEE 1584.
The next three steps will be iterated at each selected fault
location based on how the multiple sources of fault current
contribute to the total fault current at that location through
time. The only step that may be skipped may be step 3, which
is the need to rerun the fault calculation after each device
clears. Engineering judgment regarding the impact on values
after each loop may be small enough to allow working only
with each of the separate fault flows that would be contributing to the event. The initial fault calculation run may be adequate.
3) Perform a short circuit fault calculation run on a particular location to obtain its fault flows for the momentary, interrupting, and steady-state conditions from all sources and determine how much is flowing through the protecting devices to
the fault location.
4) Determine the total clearing times for all the protecting
devices that are allowing fault flow to the fault location, such
as:
a) At the collector feeder breaker relay use the TCC curve
and find the respective time for the fault flow passing through
it (taking into account a faster trip of the breaker due to a
higher momentary current) from the substation and external
power system, or
b) In the LV secondary cabinet of a wind turbine step-up
transformer use the transformer fuses, the LVCB TCC, or the
control logic to the LVCB to estimate the time depending on
the fault flow direction use either the transformer fuses or
the control logic to trip and clear the LVCB to estimate the
time.
5) Determine the amount of incident energy occurring at
this location by using an arc-flash model (such as the IEEE
1584 model, the ARCPRO model, or another model) with all
the respective contributing fault current sources (step 3) and
the clearing time of the next fastest clearing device (step 4).
For instance:
a) At a 34.5kV substation collector feeder exit - use
ARCPRO with the parameters from step 2, such as the openair three-phase case at 15-inch working distance and a 6-inch
arc gap (NESC Table 410-1), or
b) in a 600V secondary cabinet of a step-up transformer
use IEEE 1584 with the parameters from step 2, such as the
under-1000V and in-a-box options that will provide a 24-inch
working distance and an 1.25-inch arc gap (IEEE 1584 Tables
2 and 3).
6) Loop steps 3 though 5 for each successively slower protecting device as it removes its respective amount of contributing fault flow from this location from the quickest device to
slowest device, until all the fault flow is eliminated.
7) Sum the arc-flash incident energy from each of the successively passes for this location. This sum will be the total
incident energy for this location.
8) Finally, repeat the steps 3 through 7 for all selected locations.

V. EXAMPLES
Example 1 A fault and arc-flash occur at a 34.5kV
MVCB breaker exit on the collector-side of a collector feeder
with two turbines generating at an LV of 600V. Each WTG is
rated 2 MW, uses a 2500 kVA step-up transformer, and has a
rated current of about 33A at 34.5 kV. See Figure 5.
SYSTEM

Wind Turbine 1

Wind Turbine 2

HV

Collector
Sub

Crow Bar

WT Tower
Top

Crow Bar

WT Tower
Top

Sub Transf

WT Tower
Middle

Flow 1

LV CB

MV CB

WT Tower
Middle

WT Tower
Base

LVCB

LV

WT Tower
Base

LV

MV
WT Transf

Flow 2

C.L. Fuse

Outside
Tower
Step-up
Transformer
Tank

WT Transf

C.L. Fuse

Exp. Fuse

Feed Thru w/ Sw.

Outside
Tower
Step-up
Transformer
Tank

Exp. Fuse

MV

<----------- Collector Circuit ------------>

Feed Thru w/ Sw.

: Possible fault location

Figure 5: Example of fault and arc-flash in air at MV feeder.

There are three sources contributing to the fault: the system

and each of the two turbines. Since this is an open-air location, the NESC default values from Table 410-1 offer a good
baseline. Fault flows to this location will determine the loops,
which are two in this case, Flow 1 and 2. The fault flow from
the substation bus (Flow 1) will be seen by the MVCB relay
and it will clear its portion of the fault flow first. For this example (Figure 5), a fault flow for Flow 1 will be 5 kA and the
clearing time, which was obtained from reading the TCC plot
for the collector feeder relay at 5 kA, will be 0.10 seconds.
However, there is a second delayed fault flow (Flow 2)
that continues from the two turbines. At the wind turbines the
clearing devices are the LVCBs at 600 V and the two internal
transformer fuses on the 34.5-kV side. If the contributing current from any one turbine is not large enough to trip the LVCB
on overcurrent, then the control scheme for the LVCB will
respond to a low-voltage condition and wait a predefined
amount of time based on the actual voltage that each turbine
sees against the predetermined low voltage ride-through
(LVRT) envelope. Note that the LVRT time delay is dependent on how low the voltage drops. Typically, if it goes below
15% of nominal it will be at its shortest delay, which will be
0.15 seconds in this example. However, the delay could be
longer if the voltage during the fault is higher than 15%. For
this example, the assumption will be that the control schemes
on all WT LVCBs on the collector feeder will simultaneously
see a sustained zero voltage to initiate a trip to their LVCB at
the minimum time delay. The total time delay for Flow 2 will
be 0.35 seconds. In this example, the 0.35 seconds consists of
0.15 seconds delay from the LVRT envelope and 0.10 seconds

for the control circuit and LVCB clearing time to respond to

an external trip signal, as well as the initial 0.1 seconds for the
feeder circuit breaker to clear. As mentioned, it will be assumed that both turbines will respond identically and at the
same time. However, this methodology is flexible enough to
allow for multiple delayed devices clearing at different times.
It is understood that the fault current from the WTG for the
initial few cycles will be obtained from the momentary condition of the short circuit, or around five times the rated current,
and then drop off very quickly as the turbine responds electrically. However, fault current from the WTG, before it drops
off as seen on the 34.5-kV system at the MVCB will be small
compared to the contribution from the substation and external
system. By the time the MVCB clears, the WTG contributions will either be at the interrupting or steady-state condition. For our example, the interrupting condition will be used,
or about 99 Amps (three times the rated current of 33 A).
Since both turbines are contributing to the fault flow, the delayed contribution is approximately 198 Amps. With these
values the incident energy is calculated with the respective
calculator, which is this case for both loops of the method
produced the values in Figure 6 for a total of 8.4 cal/cm2.

Fault
Current
at the
Site of
the Arcflash
Event

Total 8.4 cal/cm

Since the fault currents are much higher on the 600 V side, the
arc-flash values are certain to be larger as well.
Assuming the MVCB feeder relay, the transformer fuses
and the LVCB are all coordinated, then the sequence of clearing can be determined from the TCC plot that was used in
their coordination. That coordination would have the transformer fuses clearing before the feeder breaker to keep the
feeder energized while the generator is taken off-line. Therefore the clearing sequence for this location will be between the
LVCB and the fuses, with the fuses generally taking the longer
time and the LVCB tripping first to clear the local generator.
The LVCBs clearing time will be defined the same way here
as it was in the first example by the LVRT with a total time of
0.35 seconds. The clearing time will be shorter if the overcurrent mechanism responds before the LVRT trip.

0.10 sec

5kA

7.8 cal/cm

0.25 sec

0.6 cal/cm

0.21kA
0.0

0.10

Figure 7: Example of fault and arc-flash in an LV cabinet.

0.35
Time Duration of Arc-flash (sec)

Figure 6: Arc-flash results for a fault in air at MV feeder ((not-toscale).

Example 2 Using the same WPP setup, the fault and arcflash now occurs in the LV (600 V) cabinet of the first wind
turbine step-up transformer. See Figure 7.
At this location there are also three sources, but two fault
flows. One flow is from the generator associated with this
transformer (Flow 3), and the other is from the collector feeder
(Flow 4), which represents the contributions from the other
turbine, the substation and the external power system. Since
this location is in a cabinet (a.k.a. in-a-box) and is on the lowvoltage side, the assumptions and equations from IEEE 1584
empirically will be the best choice and will provide a good
baseline. Therefore, the working distance, gap size, and default values will come from their respective tables in the IEEE
1584 document. Because this fault is at 600 V, the Ampere
level of the fault flows (Flows 3 and 4) will be much higher
compared to a similar power level on the 34.5-kV system.

The fault flow from the wind turbine generator, Flow 3, in

Figure 7, will be the momentary condition fault current value
which could be nearly five times the rated current, or about
10,000 Amp plus the steady state fault flow from the collector
feeder, Flow 4, of 35 kA. The momentary condition is used
because it represents a conservative value. Thus, a total fault
flow of about 45 kA will result for 0.35 seconds. After the
LVCB clears the fault flow (Flow 3) from the local WTG, the
fault flow from the collector (Flow 4) will still be contributing.
The total clearing time for this portion is found by locating
this fault flow of 35 kA on the TCC of the transformer fuse set
and finding where it crosses the total clear curve of the first
fuse in the transformer to open. For this example 0.55 seconds
will be used. However, this delayed clearing will have its arcflash contribution bounded by the duration of the difference
between the fuse total clearing time and the LVCB clearing
time of 0.35 seconds, which will provide a final interval of 0.2
seconds of fault flow from the collector feeder, before the
transformer fuse opens. Figure 8 shows both intervals and
their respective incident energy contributions with the total
being about 34.2 cal/cm2.

8
[8]
[9]
2

45kA

Total 34.2 cal/cm

0.35 sec

Fault
Current
at the
Site of
the Arcflash
Event

35kA

0.20 sec

[11]

[12]

23.6 cal/cm

[10]

10.6 cal/cm

[13]

[14]
0.0

0.35

0.55

Time Duration of Arc-flash (sec)

Figure 8: Arc-flash results for a fault in an LV cabinet (not-toscale).

VI. CONCLUSION
This paper has investigated and discussed the arc-flash hazard on a WPP collector system. A brief discussion of the arcflash hazard and its causes were presented along with a methodology and two examples for tallying the total incident
energy from multiple sources.
The use of the various conditions of fault current in the methodology, are presented as a conservative measure for estimating the arc-flash incident energy, but it must be understood
that the real behavior of the fault current from the WTG is
very unpredictable and situation dependent. From these two
brief examples it can be seen that one of the highest levels of
the arc-flash hazard in a WPP collector system can be on the
LV cable and inclusive cabinets between the LVCB and the
step-up transformer. However, these results could be very
different if another arc-flash calculator were used, such as the
IEEE 1584 theoretical model, which has a dependence on voltage.
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[2]
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