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Cable-Capacitance Discharge Time With and Without the Application of

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Article  in  IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications · March 2011

DOI: 10.1109/TIA.2010.2091380 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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286 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 47, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011
Cable-Capacitance Discharge Time With and
Without the Application of Grounding Device
Dev Paul, Senior Member, IEEE, Peniamin R. Chavdarian, Senior Member, IEEE, and
Vahik Haddadian, Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper provides inherent cable capacitance, its
stored energy, its maximum transient voltage, and time to dis-
charge such a voltage and energy to a safe level with and without
the application of a grounding device. Maintenance procedures
require that appropriate grounding devices be applied to electrical
equipment upon its deenergizing before performing inspection
or maintenance for safety reasons. The authors have not come
across published literature describing how to determine the dis-
charge time of an inherent cable-capacitance charged voltage.
Shore power supply to a berthing ship is called cold ironing; it
helps to minimize air pollution. In the cold-ironing power system
design, medium-voltage heavy plug and receptacle assemblies are
required to make and break shore power connections to the ship
power system as the ship arrives and leaves the port after the
cold-ironing operation. Therefore, there was a need to know the
discharge time of the cable capacitance without the application
of the grounding device for safety reasons. A recommendation
for a future research project to develop a recording/measuring
device for the cable-capacitance voltage discharge time to validate
the calculated discharge time presented in this paper is included.
For safe and efficient operation of the cold-ironing operation,
implementation of a grounding switch key interlocked with an as-
sociated main disconnect switch and power plugs (for discharging
quickly cable-capacitance voltage and charged energy to ground)
shall be included.
Index Terms—Cable capacitance, capacitance voltage profile,
cold ironing, grounding switch, power receptacle.
I. I NTRODUCTION
T HE SHORE-SIDE power system infrastructure requires a
medium-voltage power system to provide large amounts
of power of up to 10–20 MW to bigger ships. The exact voltage
rating of such a power supply system lies with the ship’s
owners, who make provisions inside the ships to receive shore
power. At present, there are two common voltages, namely, 11
and 6.6 kV, at 60 Hz, three-phase, and three-wire, at the ships
for shore power connections. This paper provides a discussion
Manuscript received January 29, 2010; revised May 18, 2010; accepted
June 27, 2010. Date of publication November 11, 2010; date of current version
January 19, 2011. Paper 2010-PSEC-016.R1, presented at the 2010 IEEE/IAS
Industrial and Commercial Power Systems Technical Conference, Tallahassee,
FL, May 9–13, and approved for publication in the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON
I NDUSTRY A PPLICATIONS by the Power System Engineering Committee of
the IEEE Industry Applications Society.
D. Paul is with AECOM, Oakland, CA 94612 USA (e-mail:
dev.paul@aecom.com).
P. R. Chavdarian is with The Port of Long Beach, Long Beach, CA 90802
USA (e-mail: chavdarian@polb.com).
V. Haddadian is with The Port of Los Angeles, San Pedro, CA 907311 USA
(e-mail: vhaddadian@pola.org).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2010.2091380
0093-9994/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE
of inherent cable capacitance, charged transient voltage, and
energy and their discharging time profile with and without the
application of a grounding device. This discussion is based
upon an actual cold-ironing project at a specific port. To comply
with new air-pollution laws, many large ports with large ships
all around the world are facing the challenge of implementing
cold-ironing infrastructure, and the design of such a power
system must implement all components known to a power
system engineer for safety reasons.
The authors performed a medium-voltage power system
analysis of cold-ironing projects [11], [12] and determined that
there is a need of a cable-capacitance charged voltage/energy
discharging device at some location in the power system, be-
cause the time of discharging the charged voltage to a safe level
was close to an hour without the application of a grounding
device. Many ideas have been suggested such as follows: 1) Use
a metal-clad breaker that grounds the load side automatically
(breaker available in Europe); 2) use a second cubicle close to
the main breaker to accommodate the grounding switch; and
3) simply request that plug/receptacle assembly manufacturers
provide grounding means properly interlocked so that, before
separating such an assembly, the cable system is discharged.
All these methods required for cable discharging are great, but
they have their own limitations and drawbacks. An in-depth
discussion of this subject is beyond the scope of this paper.
This paper first provides a brief introduction of a cold-ironing
power system for readers to understand why we needed to know
the discharging time of the medium-voltage cable system. Next,
it discusses the present day design of a cold-ironing power sys-
tem requiring an individual feeder cable system disconnecting
switch and associated feeder cable discharging switch for each
underground power receptacle vault. This cable discharging
switch method is the current thinking and recommendation
of Draft IEEE Std. P1713 [3], since it provides safety to
operators at all other underground receptacle vaults connected
to a dedicated shore power substation (see Fig. 1). Finally, the
electrical equivalent circuit and engineering calculations of a
cable-capacitance voltage discharging time with and without
the application of a grounding disconnect switch are presented,
which is the main subject of this paper.
II. P OWER S YSTEM D ESCRIPTION
The power supply infrastructure consists of a dedicated
step-down power transformer substation, switchgear assem-
blies, underground and above-ground parallel power feeder
cables, a communication cable, power receptacles, and a cable
PAUL et al.: CABLE-CAPACITANCE DISCHARGE TIME
Fig. 1. Cold-ironing project—power supply system.
management system (CMS) with matching power plug as-
semblies for each berth that requires a cold-ironing upgrade.
A relatively longer and parallel set of cables is required between
the shore power source and the ship switchgear to meet the
berthing power requirements of the ship. Ships with different
makes (year of make and country where they were manufac-
tured) at a particular berth will be using shore power recep-
tacle vaults commonly known as alternative maritime power
(AMP) boxes. To accommodate different ships at the berth, it
287
is necessary to optimize the spacing of such vaults to be every
200–250 ft apart along the wharf. Each AMP box may need
as many as four receptacles to meet the power demand. So far,
the available rating of such receptacles is limited to 350 A at
15 kV. Only one AMP box will be used at a time for the shore
power supply to a berthing ship at the port. This means that,
for safety reasons, during the cold-ironing operation, all other
AMP boxes should be under deenergized conditions for safety
reasons. This design is shown in Fig. 1, using two AMP boxes
with shore power supply cables connected to AMP box No. 1,
while the load-interrupter switch of AMP box. 2 will be in an
open position.
It is calculated that, without the application of an appropriate
grounding device, it may take up to 25–30 min for the stored
voltage and energy to go to a safe level; see Section III for
this analysis. To minimize operational time, increase safety
of the operators, and to provide protection to plug/receptacle
assemblies, a main disconnect and associated grounding switch
with proper interlocking are required. The operation of such
switching devices is limited to only when both power circuit
breakers on the shore side and the ship side are in the open
position. Without the application of an appropriate grounding
device, quick separation of the power plug and receptacle
assembly on isolated power cable assemblies may lead to an
arcing and unintentional contact with live elements of the plug,
or the receptacle may prove to be dangerous to the operators.
A one line diagram of the cold-ironing power system is shown
in Fig. 1. A complete power delivery system consists of three
cable sections as follows.
Section 1: AMP substation switchgear assembly (AMP-A) to
load-interrupter electrical switchgear (ES).
Section 2: Load interrupter (ES) to AMP box (1 or 2).
Section 3: AMP box (1 or 2) to ship power receptacle.
A CMS (flexible power cables with a built-in ground con-
ductor mounted either on the ship or on shore) will be used
to connect the shore AMP boxes with the ship. For simplicity,
Fig. 1 does not show elements of the ship power system because
it is not the subject of this paper. It should be stated that only
two AMP boxes with two power receptacles inside each AMP
box are shown in Fig. 1; however, as many as four AMP boxes
with each AMP box having up to four power receptacles can
be used depending upon the ship load requirements and their
berthing location at a particular project.
III. C ABLE C APACITANCE
Each cable section uses its own equipment grounding con-
ductor to comply with NEC Article 250-88 [4] requirements.
For the portable (CMS flexible) cable, this equipment ground-
ing conductor is integrally built as part of the cable. The phase
conductors’ parameters, which contribute to the charged cable
capacitance, are listed in Table I. All equipment grounding
conductors and cable shields are bonded to equipment enclo-
sure ground busses to ground each cabinet locally. With this
installation configuration, all cable capacitances are between
each individual cable conductor and its shield/ground.
Parallel cables are relatively long, resulting in higher inherent
capacitance. Therefore, at the end of the cold-ironing process,
288 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 47, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

TABLE I
F EEDER C ABLE PARAMETERS

Fig. 2. Isolated cable system—π equivalent circuit.

Fig. 3. Isolated cable system—T equivalent circuit.

when cables are isolated from the shore and the ship (upon
automatic tripping of shore-side and ship-side power circuit The calculated values of the total insulation resistance
breakers), the cable system will be fully charged, with certain (RT ) and total insulation capacitance (CT ) for an actual
trapped energy and voltage on each phase conductor. Each cold-ironing project described in Section II with various pa-
phase will be at a different peak voltage and stored energy rameters included in Table I are shown in the following
depending upon the instant of switching. We will not go into expressions:
the detailed accurate analysis of the precise magnitude of the
1
stored energy or transient peak voltage at each phase other RT =  1 1 1
 = 1.282 × 109 Ω (3)
than the analysis of establishing the discharge time of such R1 + R2 + R3
voltage and energy to a safe level without the application of
the cable discharging device, which is the main subject of this CT = C1 + C2 + C3 = 3.441 × 10−7 farads. (4)
paper. The safe voltage (touch potential) level for shore power
The fully isolated shore power cable system electrical equiv-
operators is the subject of another paper [2], [10]; however,
alent circuits for the charged voltage and energy are shown in
currently, 30 V or less is the committee consensus to use in
Figs. 2 and 3. In each equivalent circuit, it should be noted that
IEEE Draft Std. P1713 [3].
no power supply current flows through the cable system linear
In the determination of a charged cable-capacitance volt-
inductance and resistance when the fully charged cable system
age and its discharge time, the first task is to establish the
gets isolated from shore power source voltage and the ship. It
magnitude of the cable system capacitance, which is related
is clear from the equivalent circuit that the cable capacitance
to cable parameters [5]–[9]. For cable-capacitance analysis
is responsible for retaining the charged voltage and associated
purposes, Table I provides basic and derived cable parameters
trapped energy. Since the cable system construction is uniform,
for the three cable sections used in the cold-ironing project
it can be assumed that the distributed cable capacitance and
(see Fig. 1).
insulation resistance are also uniform. The time constant (τ )
The cable insulation resistance (R) and cable insulation
of the equivalent circuit, which is equal to that of the RT CT
capacitance (C) are related to its basic parameters (Table I)
circuit, will not change if we assume a T equivalent or a
represented by the following expressions, respectively [5],
π equivalent circuit from the RT and CT parameters shown in
      Figs. 2 and 3.
D 1 1
R = K · log · · Ω (1)
d L n
  A. Cable-Capacitance Voltage
SIC
C = 7.35 ·   · L · n picofarads. (2) Consider that the cable capacitance is charged to supply the
log D
d system voltage. Various phases, a, b, and c, and line-to-neutral
PAUL et al.: CABLE-CAPACITANCE DISCHARGE TIME 289

Fig. 4. Isolated cable system—discharge voltage profile.

supply voltages can be represented by the following group

expression:
√ Fig. 5. Isolated cable system—energy discharge profile.
Va = 2V (sin ωt + 0)
√ three phase voltages. This transient voltage is represented by
Vb = 2V (sin ωt − 120) (10) and (11), with a calculated time constant of 441 s. Clearly,
√ there is no source voltage in the system except the charged
Vc = 2V (sin ωt − 240) (5) capacitance voltage and associated energy. To actually measure
such a voltage and to record the time constant are a research
where V represents the line-to-neutral rms supply voltage.
work for the future
If the shore power and ship power circuit breakers are tripped
simultaneously at the time when one of the three phase voltages − τt
VC (t) = V · e E (10)
is at its peak amplitude, then the initial peak capacitance
charged voltage (phase-ground) trapped on this disconnected − τt
VR (t) = V · e E . (11)
phase for a 6.6-kV power distribution system will be repre-
sented by This transient voltage shown in Fig. 4 will exponentially
√ 6.6 kV decay to zero after a considerable time if no grounding device is
V = 2· √ = 5.39 kV. (6) applied to discharge the voltage to the ground. The magnitude
3
of insulation resistance is very high, and it is acting like an open
circuit across the capacitance.
This RC circuit will discharge 93% of its voltage in five
B. Cable System—Circuit Time Constant
time constants, which will be 27.56 min, close to one-half
The transient voltage (V ) and associated time constant (τ ) hour. The remaining 7% voltage on the system, which may be
of the equivalent RC circuit for the cable system can be equal to 377 V (7% of 5390 V), can pose danger to the ship
shown by operator.
 t 
−
V = V (t) · e RT CT (7)
C. Cable-Capacitance Energy
τ = RT CT = 441 s. (8) Cable-capacitance (C) stored energy with voltage (V ) is
provided by (12) [8]
We expect some “sneak circuits” in the RC circuit that will
result in damping these transient voltages more quickly than the 1
Energy(EC ) = CV 2 (12)
calculated time constant of 441 s. Sneak circuits may be due 2
to some dust particles on the cable ends, or cable shields left
1  2
− t
connected to the switchgear bus on the shore-side switchgear, EC (t) = CT V e τE . (13)
2
or some other stray effects. To account for this sneak damping
effect, let us assume that the actual circuit time constant (τE ) is Maximum energy of one phase will be at time t = 0 as
equal to 75% of the calculated value, as indicated by (8). Thus, follows (see Fig. 5):
the time in minutes to discharge the cable-capacitance voltage 1
to 37% of its maximum expected voltage will be Energy = (3.441 × 10−7 )(5390)2 = 5.00 joules.
2
1 min
τE = 0.75 · τ · = 5.51 min. (9)
60 s
D. Capacitance Voltage Discharge Time
In other words, after 5.51 min, the voltage will be equal to
Using Grounding Device
1.994 kV (37% of 5.39 kV). This can be seen from a voltage
plot shown in Fig. 4, where the transient voltage profile of When a grounding device is applied to discharge the
capacitance and insulation resistance are equal in magnitude charged cable capacitance, it will appear as a resistive
with decay governed by (7). This voltage decay is of one of the path in parallel with the RC circuit. For simplicity of the
290 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 47, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011
cable-capacitance voltage discharge time analysis using a
grounding device, let us assume that the grounding device
has a 1-Ω resistance which will make the equivalent value
of insulation resistance (RT ), shown in (3), so low that the
time constant indicated in (8) will be practically zero. This
indicates that the grounding switch is very effective in dis-
charging the charged cable voltage to the safe level needed for
an operation of the plug/receptacle assembly in a cold-ironing
project.
The question is how to measure the discharge time of the
charged cable system shown in Fig. 4. It appears that any
recording or measuring device applied to the isolated cable
system to measure or to record the voltage profile will act as
a grounding device. This could be a future research project
where, perhaps, optical devices may be required to record the
voltage and trapped energy in the cable system.
E. Capacitance Voltage Discharge Grounding Device
Appropriate grounding devices should be applied to the
isolated cable system for the safety of personnel handling the
portable cables and associated heavy power plugs/receptacle
assemblies. The safety of the operators is related to the touch
potential at the isolated plug/receptacle assemblies. Much lit-
erature is available on this subject of safe touch potential,
which relates to an excellent technical paper by Dr. Dalziel
[10]. Safety from touch potential can be achieved by de-
signing special grounding-type circuit breakers (one on each
side of the cable system), which will automatically ground
the cable system when they are in the open position. Such a
design would require a full-size cubicle next to each feeder
breaker compartment in the shore-side switchgear plus a similar
grounding device cubicle on each ship that will receive shore
power. Such grounding cubicles might not be cost effective
and will require space both on shore and on ships, particularly
when there are multiple feeder cable circuits to multiple AMP
boxes connected to a single dedicated shore power transformer
substation. An alternative grounding method is to develop a
grounding device that may be an integral component of the
power plug and receptacle assembly to ground the isolated
cable system. Such a device needs to be interlocked with the
shore-side and ship-side power circuit breakers so that the
grounding device will ground the cable system when it is fully
isolated from both circuit breakers. However, the development
of a grounding device that will drain the trapped capacitance
voltage and associated energy to the ground before attempting
to separate the plug and receptacle assembly is a future research
project for the manufacturers of power plug and receptacle
assemblies.
As shown in Fig. 1, the individual feeder circuit system to
each AMP box can use load-interrupter switchgear assembly
using one feeder disconnect switch and an associated grounding
disconnect switch. The feeder disconnect switch and associ-
ated grounding switch and plugs shall be key interlocked to
assure that the grounding switch cannot be operated unless
the feeder disconnect is in open position. This key-interlocking
scheme will not allow operation of the power plugs unless the
grounding switch is in closed position. In addition, the feeder
disconnect switch cannot be operated unless the shore power
circuit breakers on the shore side and ship side are both in
an open position. To enhance equipment protection and safety
of the operators, additional audio/visual communication cable
systems between the shore-side operators and ship on-board
operators should be implemented in a cold-ironing project. This
type of design assures the safe operation of grounding switches
before heavy plug and receptacle assemblies can be operated
under a deenergized cable system [3].
IV. C ONCLUSION
1) A fully isolated cable system with an inherent capacitance
charged voltage discharge profile and charged energy
discharge profile has been presented in this paper with
and without the application of a grounding device. In
the example presented in this paper, it should be noted
that it may require more than one-half hour before the
cable-capacitance charged voltage will decay to a safe
level without the application of a grounding device. As
expected, with the application of a grounding device, the
voltage will disappear instantaneously.
2) A discussion of the design requirements of a ground-
ing device for discharging the cable-capacitance voltage
to safely use the power plug and receptacle assembly
has been included in this paper. As shown in Fig. 1,
each feeder disconnect switch is key interlocked with a
grounding switch and power plugs to assure the safe op-
eration of the power plugs. This design recommendation
shall be included in IEEE Draft Std. P1713 [3].
3) Future research is needed to develop a measuring method
that may record the cable-capacitance transient voltage
and decay time of the cable RC circuit discussed in this
paper. This is needed to validate the cable discharging
time derived using an electrical equivalent circuit in this
paper.
R EFERENCES
[1] National Electrical Safety Code, NESC-C2, 2007.
[2] IEEE Guide for Maintenance, Operation, and Safety of Industrial and
Commercial Power Systems, IEEE Std. 902, 1998.
[3] IEEE Recommended Practice for Electrical Shore-to-Ship Connections,
IEEE Draft Std. P1713, Sep. 2009.
[4] National Electrical Code, NFPA 70, NEC 2008, 2008.
[5] Engineering Data for Copper and Aluminum Conductor Electrical
Cables, Bulletin EHB-98, Okonite Company, Ramsey, NJ, 1998.
[6] D. S. Baker, “Charging current data for guesswork-free design of high-
resistance grounded systems,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. IA-15, no. 2,
pp. 136–140, Mar./Apr. 1979.
[7] Electrical Transmission and Distribution Reference Book, 4th ed.,
Westinghouse Electric Corp., East Pittsburgh, PA, 1964.
[8] A. Greenwood, Electrical Transients in Power Systems. New York:
Wiley, 1971.
[9] IEEE Recommended Practice for Electric Power Distribution for Indus-
trial Plants, IEEE Std. 141-1993, 1994.
[10] C. F. Dalziel and W. R. Lee, “Lethal electric currents,” IEEE Spectr.,
vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 44–50, Feb. 1969.
[11] D. Paul and V. Haddadian, “Cold ironing—Power system grounding and
safety analysis,” in Conf. Rec. IEEE IAS Annu. Meeting, Hong Kong,
Oct. 2–6, 2005, pp. 1503–1511.
[12] D. Paul and P. R. Chavdarian, “System capacitance and its effects on cold
ironing power system grounding,” in Proc. ICPS Conf., Dearborn, MI,
May 2006, pp. 1–11.
PAUL et al.: CABLE-CAPACITANCE DISCHARGE TIME 291

Dev Paul (M’73–SM’90) received the M.S. degree
in electrical engineering from Punjab University,
Chandigarh, India, in 1971.
In 1972, he joined Kaiser Engineers, which after
merging with other design engineering companies is
currently AECOM, Oakland, CA. As a Design Engi-
neer, he has worked in a variety of heavy industries,
Department of Defense and Department of Energy
facilities, and commercial and electrified rapid transit
projects. Currently, in the transportation division in
the Oakland, CA, office, he is the Senior Project
Director responsible for electrical work related to cold-ironing projects, airport
projects, and ac/dc rail transit projects. He is the author of 20 technical papers
which have been published in American Public Transportation Association and
IEEE conference proceedings.
Mr. Paul is an active member of many IEEE committees responsible for up-
grading the Color Book series into mother books. In the past, he has served as a
Treasurer and Vice-Chair for the IEEE/IAS Oakland Eastbay Chapter. He is the
Vice-Chair of the committee developing Draft IEEE/ISO/IEC Standard P1713
on shore power connections to ships. He is the Chairperson of the Draft IEEE
Standard P1627, “Standard for Grounding Practices for DC Electrification OCS
including Application of Lightning Surge Arresters.” He received the Ralph H.
Lee award from the IEEE for his paper on “DC Power Systems Grounding”
in 2002.
Vahik Haddadian (M’97) received the B.S. de-
gree in electrical engineering from the University of
Southern California, Los Angeles.
He is currently the Chief Electrical Engineer with
The Port of Los Angeles, San Pedro, CA, responsi-
ble for implementing cold-ironing infrastructure for
cruise and container ships. He participated in the
design, construction, and testing of the world’s first
container ship cold-ironing project at The Port of
Los Angeles. He has worked on various port facility
projects and has supervised the design, construction,
and testing of such projects.
Mr. Haddadian is a very active working member of the committees re-
sponsible for developing IEEE/ISO/IEC Standard P1713 for the shore power
connection to ships and the Draft IEC Standard “High Voltage Shore to Ship
Plug and Socket.” He is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of
California.

Peniamin “Ben” R. Chavdarian (M’65–SM’03)

received the B.S. degree in electrical engineer-
ing from California Polytechnic State University,
San Luis Obispo.
Currently, he is the Chief Electrical Engineer
with The Port of Long Beach, Long Beach, CA,
responsible for providing guidance on the design and
construction of port facility projects, including major
power system infrastructure upgrades requiring plan-
ning and implementation of cold-ironing projects.
Other projects include crane power supply bus-bar
design, high mast lighting, communication system, telephone system, security
system, public address system, closed-circuit television, fire alarm system, and
wireless communication system.
Mr. Chavdarian is an active member of the committees developing Draft
IEEE/ISO/IEC Standard P1713 on shore power connections to ships and Draft
IEC Standard “High Voltage Shore to Ship Plug and Socket.” He is an expert
member of the U.S. National Committee of the IEC. He has served the local
IEEE/IAS chapter for many years and has been a member of the City of Los
Angeles Technical Advisory Code Committee since 1979 and a member of
the National Council on Qualifications for the Lighting Professions (LC) since
1999. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of California.

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