International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2012)

383

Optimal Design of Grounding System for HV/ EHV
Substations in Two Layered Soil
Kaustubh A. Vyas
1
, J. G. Jamnani
2

1
Department of Electrical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
2
Department of Electrical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
1
kaustubhavyas@gmail.com
2
jg.jamnani@nirmauni.ac.in
Abstract Successful operation of entire power system
depends to a considerable extent on efficient and satisfactory
performance of substations. Hence substations in general can
be considered as heart of overall power system. In any
substation, a well designed grounding plays an important role.
Since absence of safe and effective grounding system can
result in mal-operation or non-operation of control and
protective devices, grounding system design deserves
considerable attention for all the substations. Grounding
system has to be safe as it is directly concerned with safety of
persons working within the substation. Main purpose of this
work is designing safe and cost effective grounding systems
for HV / EHV substations situated at such locations where soil
of the substation site is not uniform. Here soil is considered to
be horizontally stratified into two layers. Initially significance
of two layered soil model is introduced and design
methodology for design of substation grounding system is
discussed. Next, two design problems have been solved by
using newly developed software and results obtained here are
verified with the help of Ground Grid Systems module of
ETAP professional software. Comparison of the results
obtained by both the software shows nice agreement of the
results given by ESGSD with those obtained from ETAP.
Hence this software is found to be quite satisfactory tool in the
field of design of grounding system for HV / EHV substations.

Keywords Earthing, Earth electrodes, Ground grid,
HV/EHV substations, Power systems, Programming, Safety
I. INTRODUCTION
Beginning from generating station to the final distribution
station, electrical power passes through number of different
kind of substations. Role of substations as a whole is
crucial in overall functionality of complete power system.
Grounding system plays vital role in satisfactory operation
of a substation. It provides place for connecting system
neutral points, equipment body and support structures to
the earth. Earthing system ensures safety of persons
working within the substations. It also facilitates earth fault
detection and assists control and protection systems.
Grounding system discharges hazardous fault current and
lightning strokes to the earth. It also keeps step and touch
voltages within permissible limits [1]. Consequently
properly designed and installed grounding system
guarantees reliable performance of substations thereby
improving integrity of overall power system. A well
designed grounding system ensures following [2].
1. It provides means of dissipating electrical current into
earth without exceeding operating limits of equipment.
2. It provides safe environment to protect personnel in the
vicinity of the grounded facilities from the dangers of
electric shock under fault conditions.
Grounding system comprises of all of the interconnected
grounding facilities in the substation area including ground
grid, overhead ground wires, neutral conductors
underground cables etc. ground grid being the main
component. Ground grid consists of horizontal
interconnected conductors often supplemented by vertical
ground rods. Being chief component of overall grounding
system, design of grounding grid should be such that total
grounding system is safe and all together it is cost
effective [2].
This paper describes significance of appropriate earth
model to be considered while designing any grounding
system in order to take into account the variation in
characteristics of soil. Uniform resistivity soil is hardly
encountered in actual practice. Usually soils have two or
more horizontally and / or vertically stratified layers of
different resistivity, former being more common. While the
most accurate representation of a grounding system should
certainly be based on the actual variations of soil resistivity
present at the substation site, it will rarely be economically
justifiable or technically feasible to model all these
variations. However, in most cases, representation of a
ground electrode based on an equivalent two - layered earth
model is sufficient for design of safe grounding system [2].

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Two layered soil can be represented by an upper layer soil
having finite depth above lower layer earth of different
resistivity and infinite depth. The abrupt change in
resistivity at the boundaries of each soil layer can be
described by means of a reflection factor K defined by
2 1
2 1
K

=
+
.. (1)
Where
1
= Resistivity of top layer

2
= Resistivity of bottom layer
Here software named Economical Substation Grounding
System Designer (ESGSD) has been developed using
MATLAB as computing as well as programming tool. This
software follows the safety criteria given in [2]. ESGSD is
capable of simply analyzing the grounding system in given
conditions of soil and system parameters. Additionally it
can suggest most appropriate, safe and cost-effective i.e.
optimal design of grounding system.
II. SIGNIFICANCE OF TWO LAYER MODELING OF SOIL
IEEE Guide 80 2000 gives equations related to
uniform soils only. However as stated in [2], uniform soils
are rarely encountered in actual practice. Hence grounding
system design according to IEEE guide only is not
sufficient and one has to go for two layered modeling of
soil [3]. In some cases where soils have multiple layers of
different resistivities, even two layered model is not quite
satisfactory and modeling of soil as multilayered structure
is necessary. In such conditions equivalent two layer soil
model can be derived which serves better than the uniform
soil model. Uniform soil model should be used only when
there is moderate variation in apparent resistivity [4]. If
variation in measured apparent resistivity is large, uniform
soil model is likely to give erroneous results. This will be
clear from following example. Data for soil modeling is
taken from [5].
TABLE I
SOIL RESISTIVITY MEASUREMENT DATA
r (m)
a

( m O )
2.5 320
5.0 245
7.5 183
10 162
12.5 168
15 152

Where
r = probe spacing in meters

a

= apparent resistivity measured form Earth

Resistivity Testing (ERT) in
m O


If uniform soil model is used, in this case equivalent
apparent resistivity comes out to be

= 205
m O

Whereas if two layered soil model is used, values of
resistivities of two layers and depth of upper layer (h
1
) are
as follows.

1

= 383.54
m O

h
1
= 2.56 m

2

= 147.68
m O

Consider that a ground grid along with ground rods is
installed at a substation having soil structure described in
table - I. Data related to grid geometry and general system
parameters are as shown in table - II. While analyzing
performance of this grid two approaches can be adopted. In
first approach, soil can be assumed as uniform one and in
the other approach soil can be modeled as two layered one.
TABLE II
INPUT DATA FOR GROUNDING SYSTEM DESIGN
Ground grid parameters and system data
Grid shape Rectangular
Length in X direction (L
x
) 100 m
Length in Y direction (L
y
) 80 m
Length of each ground rod (L
r
) 3 m
No. of conductors in X direction (N
x
) 26
No. of conductors in Y direction (N
y
) 21
No. of vertical ground rods(N
r
) 80
Cost of grounding grid conductors
2000 `/m
Cost of grounding rods
2000 `/m
Maximum symmetrical rms Fault current (I) 15 kA
Depth of burial (h) 0.5 m
Fault duration (t
f
) 1 sec
Shock duration (t
s
) 0.5sec
Ambient temperature (T
a
) 50
o
C
Surface layer resistivity (
s

) 3000
m O

Thickness of surface layer (h
s
) 0.1 m

Performance parameters for grounding grid and
supplementing ground rods having specifications given in
table II are calculated considering if they are installed in
both of the abovementioned soils. These results are shown
in table III.

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TABLE III
PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF GROUNDING SYSTEM
Parameter Uniform soil Two layered soil
Ground resistance (
g
R )
1.06 O 1.65 O
GPR (Volts) 9680 15048
E
Step
(Volts) 2263.1 2317.7
E
Touch
(Volts) 688.88 702.53
E
S actual
(Volts) 1076.2 2013.3
E
m actual
(Volts) 585.1 1094.5
Safety Safe Not safe

Here
E
Step
and E
Touch
are tolerable step and touch
voltages
E
S actual
and E
m actual
are actual step and mesh
(touch) voltages
GPR stands for Ground Potential Rise
As seen from above example, analysis results drastically
change while using uniform soil model as compared to the
results obtained by two layered soil model. As said before
if soil conditions are not uniform actually and it is modeled
as uniform for the purpose of calculations in grounding
system, erroneous results are likely to be obtained. The
same problem when solved by different software shows
that the two layer soil model gives more realistic results as
compared to uniform soil assumption. Hence it is essential
to use equivalent two layered soil model rather than
uniform soil model.
Merely using uniform soil model for design of grounding
system is not sufficient for majority of cases. Therefore
equations given in IEEE 80 2000 need to be modified
in order to be used with two layered soil model. Software
ESGSD takes this fact into account and allows selection of
soil model as uniform soil or two layered soil.
III. SAFETY CRITERIA FOR GROUNDING SYSTEM DESIGN
A reliable grounding system should be able to maintain
the actual mesh and step voltages within a substation well
below the tolerable level. Before 1960s the design criterion
for substation earthing system was low earthing resistance
alone. However during 1960s the new criterion for design
and evaluation of substation earthing system was evolved
which included following three conditions
Low step voltage, Low touch voltage and, Low earth
resistance [6]
These tolerable safety criteria have been established
based on fibrillation discharge limit of body current. In
order to make grounding system safe, equivalent grounding
system impedance should be low enough to assure that
fault current dissipates mainly through grounding grid into
earth. While designing grounding system, main
consideration is to be given to the fact that under any
circumstances actual mesh and step voltages must not
exceed the tolerable values given by following equations.
( )
s
s s step
t
C E
116 . 0
6 1000
50 _
+ =
.... (2)
( )
s
s s step
t
C E
157 . 0
6 1000
70 _
+ =
.... (3)

( )
s
s s touch
t
C E
116 . 0
5 . 1 1000
50 _
+ =
.. (4)
( )
s
s s touch
t
C E
157 . 0
5 . 1 1000
70 _
+ =
.. (5)

Where
E
step_50
and E
step_70
are tolerable step voltages for
person weighing 50 Kg and 70 Kg respectively
E
touch_50
and E
touch_70
are tolerable touch voltages
for person weighing 50 Kg and 70 Kg respectively
IV. DOMINANT FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO GROUNDING
SYSTEM PERFORMANCE
Out of many parameters affecting grounding system
performance, the main factors having substantial effect on
grounding system design and performance are as follows
Spacing between adjacent conductors (D),
Depth of burial of grid (h),
Number of vertical ground rods (N
r
)
Area of grounding system (A),
Following is brief description of the effects of these
parameters along with graphs

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A. Spacing between adjacent conductors (D)
Spacing between the adjacent conductors and No. of
conductors are certainly dependent on each other for fixed
area of grid. The more conductors are installed, the smaller
the distance between the conductors. With reduced
separation and increased No. of conductors, Mesh voltage
(E
m
) decreases but at the same time Step voltage (E
S
)
increases. However effect of reduction in E
m
is more than
that of increase in E
S
as seen from fig. 1. So designer has to
carefully decide no. of conductors and separation between
them to keep both voltages below tolerable limits. Also
physically, there is a limit on how close conductors can be
installed and should be design consideration [7].
Additionally, as specified in [2] there are certain
geometrical constraints that must be satisfied in order to
use equation given in IEEE guide for designing of the
grounding system for any substation.

Fig. 1 Variation of actual mesh and step voltages with change in No. of
conductors and conductor spacing
B. Depth of burial of grid (h)
Depth of burial of grid does not have great effect on mesh
voltage but has drastic effect on step voltage as seen from
fig. 2. With increased depth of grid step voltage decreases
significantly because as current flows up toward surface,
most of the voltage is dropped in the soil itself and at the
surface of earth less step voltage is experienced. Also GPR
reduces with increased depth of burial until and unless
lower layer earth has higher resistivity than upper layer.
This is because with higher resistivity layers in the lower
portion more current tends to flow toward lower resistivity
earth surface thereby increasing potential at the earth
surface [8].

Fig. 2 Variation of actual mesh and step voltages with change in depth of
burial of grounding grid
C. Number of vertical ground rods (N
r
)
Vertical ground rods discharge the grid current in the soil at
sufficient depth. Thus they effectively reduce grounding
system resistance and GPR. Also with more number of
ground rods, total length of conductors buried in the earth
increases thereby decreasing step and mesh voltages. This
is also shown in fig. 4. In actual practice ground rods are
considered to be an effective means of reducing resistance
of combined grounding system and also actual mesh and
step voltages whenever design modifications are necessary.
For same total length of conductor to be installed vertical
rods are more cost effective than horizontal grid
conductors because they penetrate into lower layers of soil
in the deep earth which generally have lower resistivity [9].
Multiple driven electrodes are, everything being equal,
more effective than equivalent ground grids made of
horizontal conductors. This is true even when soil is
uniform. However, when lower layer resistivity is high, the
horizontal conductors are more effective because they
reduce significantly the touch voltages [10]
D. Area of grounding system (A)
Area occupied by the grounding grid has major effect on
GPR, step voltage as well as on mesh voltage. With
increased area all the three types of potentials reduce

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387

significantly as observed form fig. 4. Area contributes to
reduction in grid resistance [11] and thus GPR directly as is
apparent from the relevant equations given in [2], also with
increased area the length of buried conductors increases
and thus actual step and touch voltages reduce.


Fig. 3 Variation in Actual mesh and step voltages with change in No. of
vertical ground rods

Fig. 4 Variation in actual mesh and step voltages and GPR with change in
area occupied by the grounding system
V. ECONOMICAL SUBSTATION GROUNDING SYSTEM
DESIGNER (ESGSD)
As mentioned previously the software ESGSD has been
developed using MATLAB as mathematical computing
tool and programming environment as well [12, 13].
ESGSD follows guidelines given in IEEE guide and also
uses modified equations for two layered modeling of soil
which are not given in [2].

Fig. 5 Main page of the software ESGSD

Fig. 5 shows main page of the software ESGSD. It takes
various basic data from the user and also allows access to
all other input and processing modules of the software.
Results can be obtained and reports can be generated from
this page itself.
This software is designed using MATLAB GUI
Development Environment as the platform for
programming as well as mathematical computing tool.
Additionally it has been deployed as windows standalone
application using MATLAB compiler addon. Hence it can
be used on any system where MATLAB is not installed.
Here performance of grounding system can be analyzed
in two ways
- Simple performance analysis of grounding system
by taking data related to grid geometry, system
parameters and soil parameters.
- Optimal design of grounding system for all the five
grid shapes in uniform as well as two layered soil by
taking the same data as for first option.

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A. Salient features of ESGSD [14]
GUI developed with the help of MATLAB makes the
software quite user friendly and any novice user can
also work with it without going for detailed literature
study. Only thing the user should be aware of is basic
design methodology as per IEEE guidelines and
related terminology.
A list of commonly used conductor materials is
provided and program automatically takes the
standard values of material constants for the selected
conductor material.
This software calculates required conductor size and
automatically chooses the most appropriate standard
conductor size available in the market. It is capable
of handling various grid geometries like square,
rectangular, triangular, L shaped and T shaped
grounding grids supplemented by vertical ground
rods.
It can analyze technical performance of any proposed
grounding system in terms of grounding system
resistance, tolerable and actual values of touch and
step voltages and safety as per standard guidelines.
In addition to analyzing grounding system as per
IEEE guide lines, ESGSD can apply optimization to
the proposed grounding system design in various
ways and suggest the most appropriate safe and
economical preliminary design of grounding system
by keeping necessary safety margin.
Results obtained here are found to be quite matching
with those given by Ground Grid Systems module
of ETAP professional software used for solving
problems related to power system by many utilities.
In certain cases its performance is found to be quite
better than that of ETAP GGS. Where the latter gives
unrealistic results, ESGSD successfully tackles all
possible cases and gives realistic results.
Option for derivation of soil model from earth
resistivity testing (ERT) data is available when
mathematical model of soil is not known in advance.
This is an additive feature compared to ETAP. By
implementing the standard procedure given in
appendix of IEEE standard 81 and using steepest
descent algorithm soil model has been derived for
uniform or two layered soil.
It gives well formatted output in the form of
Microsoft Word file.
B. Algorithm for working of ESGSD [1]
Flow chart in fig. 6 shows algorithm for working of the
software ESGSD. It is as per IEEE guide lines and
additionally two layered soil modeling and optimization are
implemented in it.

Fig. 6 Flow chart depicting algorithm of development of the software

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As seen from the flow chart the software initially takes
required input data from user and derives the mathematical
model of soil if not known. Next, a safety criterion as per
equations (2) - (5) is established as per recommendations
given by IEEE and maximum fault current is calculated
considering various factors. Then the software iteratively
calculates safety parameters for grounding system for
various combinations of ground grid conductors and
ground rods. After checking all the safety and geometrical
constraints the optimization algorithm finds the most
economical and safe design among all the designs that are
found feasible to be used for grounding system design.
Thus the software gives the design that is safe and cost
effective i.e. optimal design. Following are details about
optimization problem and its attributes.
In order to get optimal design, following cost
objective function has to be minimal subjected to safety
criteria listed below it [5].
Optimization problem:
Minimize the cost of grounding system given by
) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) , , , (
y x y x c ci r r ri r r r r y x
N L L N C C C N C L N L N N N f + + + =
.. (6)
Subjected to safety constraints given as follows

Where
N
r
= No. of vertical ground rods
L
r
= Length of each vertical ground rod (m)
C
ri
= Installation cost of vertical ground rods (` / m)
C
r
= Material cost for ground rods (` / rod)
L
C
= Total length of conductors in ground grid (m)
C
i
= Installation cost for grid conductors (` / m)
C
C
= Material cost of conductors (` / m)
E
m_act
= Actual mesh voltage (Volts)
E
m_tol
= Tolerable mesh voltage (Volts)
E
S_act
= Actual step voltage (Volts)
E
S_tol
= Tolerable step voltage (Volts)
D
1
= Spacing between conductors in X direction (m)
D
2
= Spacing between conductors in Y direction (m)
D = Average separation between any two consecutive
conductors in the ground grid (m)
X = Specified percentage of the tolerable value.
These safety criteria state that actual mesh and step
voltages must be less than X percent of the corresponding
tolerable values, X is dependent on user requirement,
spacing between the conductors in horizontal grid should
be uniform and almost equal in both directions and spacing
between two adjacent conductors should be between 2.5 m
to 12.5 m. By satisfying geometrical constraints the design
assures that equations given in [2] are applicable to the
present grounding system with a fair degree of accuracy
and by satisfying safety constraints electrical safety of
persons working in the substation site is ensured.
Minimization of cost objective function gives economical
and yet safe i.e. cost effective design of grounding system.
Thus design given by solving above optimization problem
is optimal because it reveals minimal cost among all the
designs giving similar performance. Optimization works in
both ways i.e. if the system is already safe it suggest the
most cost effective design for economic savings without
compromising the technical aspects and if the original
system is not safe then optimization gives safe design at
lowest possible prize. This fact becomes clear from
following design problems.
VI. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF ESGSD AS
COMPARED WITH ETAP GGS
Here sample systems have been taken to analyze grounding
system performance and evaluate working of ESGSD by
comparing with GGS module of ETAP. Input data required
for design of grounding system having rectangular shaped
ground grid, supplemented by ground rods and located in
two layered soils is shown in table IV.
Performance analysis of the abovementioned
grounding system shows that it is already safe. Application
of optimization by using ESGSD gives optimal design of
the grounding system which contributes in terms of cost
benefits. Next, the same system is considered by taking
different value of the fault current and as the result the
system becomes unsafe as observed form simple
performance analysis. Now application of optimization
makes the system safe and at the same time it is economical
as well. Results given by the software are compared with
those given by GGS module of ETAP [15, 16] for both
cases as shown in following subsections.
_ _
..........(8)
s act s tol
E X E s
1 2 1
0.95 1.05 ..........(9) D D D s s
2.5 12.5..........(10) D s s
_ _
..........(7)
m act m tol
E X E s

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TABLE IV
INPUT DATA FOR GROUNDING SYSTEM DESIGN IN TWO LAYERED SOIL
Particular Value
Grid shape Rectangular
Length in X direction (L
x
) 80 m
Length in Y direction (L
y
) 41 m
Length of each ground rod (L
r
) 2.4 m
No. of conductors in X direction (N
x
) 19
No. of conductors in Y direction (N
y
) 15
No. of vertical ground rods (N
r
) 50
Cost of grounding grid conductors
2000 `/m
Cost of grounding rods
2000 `/m
Depth of burial (h) 0.6 m
Depth of first layer (h
1
) 1.5 m
Maximum symmetrical rms Fault current (I) 15 kA
Fault duration (t
f
) 1 sec
Shock duration (t
s
) 0.5sec
Ambient temperature (T
a
) 50
o
C
Surface layer resistivity (
s
)
1500 m O
Thickness of surface layer (h
s
) 0.2 m
Resistivity of first layer (
1
)
34.15 m O
Resistivity of second layer (
2)

6.64 m O
Fault current split factor (S
f
) 0.6
A. Cost savings obtained with application of
Optimization
Grounding system having specifications shown in table-
IV is analyzed with the help of both aforementioned
software and the results are shown in following table- V.
TABLE V
PRE OPTIMIZATION RESULTS FOR GROUNDING SYSTEM ANALYSIS
Particular Results by ESGSD Results by ETAP
Grounding system
resistance ()
0.105 0.12
GPR (Volts) 950.1 1045.6
E
Step
(Volts) 1375.48 1375.5
E
Touch
(Volts) 466.9 466.9
E
S actual
(Volts) 258.8 258.5
E
m actual
(Volts) 181.9 181.7
Safety Safe Safe
As seen from above table, results obtained from ESGSD
are quite comparable to those given by ETAP GGS. This
is simple performance analysis of grounding system in two
layered soil which shows that this design is safe. However
actual mesh voltage, 182 volts, is much lower (about 39%)
than the tolerable value i.e. 467 volts. Hence this grounding
system seems to be over designed and may not be the
optimal design. Now, application of optimization by using
ESGSD and ETAP GGS gives design of the grounding
system which is the optimal one for given conditions.
Results for optimization for rectangular grid described in
above case in two layered soil structure are shown in table
VI.
TABLE VI
POST OPTIMIZATION RESULTS FOR GROUNDING SYSTEM DESIGN
Particular Results by
ESGSD
Results by ETAP
GGS
Ground resistance () 0.103 0.12
GPR

(Volts) 929 1061.6
E
Step
(Volts) 1375.5 1375.5
E
Touch
(Volts) 466.9 466.9
E
S actual
(Volts) 237.6 267.7
E
m actual
(Volts) 440.8 409.4
(N
X Optimal
) 8 10
(N
Y Optimal
) 5 5
Pre optimization safety Safe Safe
Post optimization safety Safe Safe
Pre optimization cost (`)
2,15,900 2,15,900
Post optimization cost (`)
90,800 99,000
Saving (`)
1,25,100 1,16,900
Observation of the results given in above table shows that,
optimization gives safe design which is also cost effective,
thereby giving considerable financial benefit which in this
case is 58% of original installation cost. When there are
numerous substations being installed every year this factor
may be of greater interest to utility. This comparison of
results before and after optimization reveals excellent
performance of ESGSD as verified from GGS module of
ETAP. This proves technical soundness of the software
developed herein. It is quite useful for getting preliminary
optimized design of grounding system for any substation.
B. Application of Optimization for making system safe
Same data as the previous case is used with little
modification in fault current only. In this case fault current
of 45 kA is assumed instead of 15 kA as taken in previous
subsection. Simple performance analysis of this grounding
system shows that it becomes unsafe with current values of

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soil and system parameters. Result for performance
analysis of the above grounding system as obtained from
both the software are shown in table VII
TABLE VII
PRE OPTIMIZATION RESULTS FOR GROUND GRID IN TWO LAYERED SOIL
Particular Results by
ESGSD
Results by ETAP
GGS
Grounding system
resistance ()
0.1 0.11
GPR (Volts) 3277 3687
E
Step
(Volts) 1375.5 1375.5
E
Touch
(Volts) 466.9 466.9
E
S actual
(Volts) 949.1 947.7
E
m actual
(Volts) 531.1 530.2
Safety Not safe Not safe
As seen for the above results here actual mesh voltage that
is 531.1 volts is 14% more than the corresponding tolerable
value. Hence now application of optimization to this
specified problem will result in safe and economical
design. Here some additional expense may be necessary to
make design safe but that too will be the least possible cost
i.e. optimized solution. Following table VIII shows post
optimization results of this grounding system.
TABLE VII
POST OPTIMIZATION RESULTS FOR GROUNDING SYSTEM DESIGN
Particular Results by
ESGSD
Results by ETAP
GGS
Ground resistance () 0.1 0.11
GPR

(Volts) 3215.8 3682.4
E
Step
(Volts) 1375.5 1375.5
E
Touch
(Volts) 466.9 466.9
E
S actual
(Volts) 985.7 992.3
E
m actual
(Volts) 442.9 433.5
(N
X Optimal
) 23 27
(N
Y Optimal
) 16 14
Pre optimization safety Not safe Not safe
Post optimization safety Safe Safe
Pre optimization cost (`)
2,15,900 2,15,900
Post optimization cost (`)
2,40,300 2,40,700
Additional expenses (`)
24400 24800
As observed form these results, application of optimization
has made the design safe which was previously unsafe and
that too at extra cost of about 10 % of initial cost. Thus
optimization has served its purpose of making the design
safe. Also observed here is that the results given by ESGSD
are quite comparable to those obtained from GGS module
of ETAP. Thus technical performance of the novel software
is again validated for this purpose as well. Hence now
ESGSD can be considered as an effective solution in the
field of grounding system design at least at preliminary
stage. Based on site specific requirements detailed design
can be prepared and analyzed by this software.
C. Discussion
Above all theoretical concepts, implementation and results
can be briefly summarized as follows
1) Significant findings
- Merely using uniform soil model for design of
substation grounding systems may not prove
satisfactory in all the cases. Hence better choice is use
of two layered soil model unless the soil characteristics
are sufficiently uniform or soil is chemically treated.
- Grounding system of the substations if not designed
judiciously may become over designed. Hence
application of optimization in many cases is
appreciable to get safe and economical design of
grounding systems especially for HV/EHV substations.
- Software developed here is found to be effective tool
in the field of grounding system design as it gives safe
and cost effective design of grounding system for
uniform as well as two layered soils and is compliant
with IEEE standard 80 2000.
- This work has explored novel feature of MATLAB
called GUIDE that helps in development of graphical
software using MATLAB. It has proven quite
appreciable for people who are not expert in
professional programming languages but can manage
with MATLAB coding for their usual purpose in terms
of software development.
- Additionally, MATLAB runtime compiler gives
standalone application that can be used in absence of
MATLAB.
- Performance of ESGSD is validated by means of
software testing i.e. results are verified by comparing
with those given by professional software ETAP.

International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2012)
392

2) Applications
- ESGSD developed here can be used satisfactorily for
educational purpose for students of electrical
engineering and also for training purpose for
professionals concerned with substation designing
- It can be used for obtaining optimized preliminary
design of grounding system for any actual substation.
Based on site specific requirements it can be used to
develop detailed design of actual substation
grounding system.
VII. CONCLUSION
Here effects of various parameters on the performance of
grounding system are analyzed and significance of two
layered model of soil is discussed with example. Next by
using newly developed software Economical Substation
Grounding System Designer, Design problems of
grounding system in two layered soil have been solved.
The same problems are also solved by using ETAP GGS
module which is professional software widely used by
power system engineers around the world. Comparison of
results given by ESGSD with those of GGS module of
ETAP proves technical soundness of the novel software
developed here. Hence it is obvious that the software
ESGSD is quite satisfactory for design of grounding system
design in uniform as well as two layered soils and it also
meets IEEE safety criteria. Hence this can prove to be an
effective tool, for at least preliminary design of grounding
system in an optimal way, rather than using thumb rules
based on experience. Here only results for grid in two
layered soil and having rectangular shape have been shown.
However ESGSD allows design of grounding system for
five grid shapes in two types of soil models described
earlier that can be obtained from [17, 18, 19, 20].
REFERENCES
[1] Kaustubh A. Vyas, Optimal Design of Grounding Systems, M.
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[12] Online help for MATLAB available at:
http://www.mathworks.in/help/techdoc/creating_guis/bqz6p81.html
[13] Dr. Attia A. El-Fergany, July 2011, Design and Optimize
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[14] Help file of the software ESGSD available at:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVs
dGRvbWFpbnxncm91bmRpbmdzeXN0ZW1kZXNpZ258Z3g6Mjg5
ODkzYTE0ZGVhNmE0OQ
[15] ETAP 4.7.0 Documentation: Help on Ground Grid Systems module.
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Development Environment simplifies deployment of standalone
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International Conference on Computer Science nad Information
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[19] Project report available at:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVs
dGRvbWFpbnxncm91bmRpbmdzeXN0ZW1kZXNpZ258Z3g6OTQ
5MWEyNmE4NzA0NmYz
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https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVs
dGRvbWFpbnxncm91bmRpbmdzeXN0ZW1kZXNpZ258Z3g6OTQ
5MWEyNmE4NzA0NmYz