Ground-fault protection — All you need to know

Abstract

Industrial power systems, whether low voltage (LV) or medium voltage (MV) systems, are the backbone of any industrial facility. To keep production going and minimize downtimes, they are required to be very reliable. Therefore, it is important to deploy various protection systems to detect and react appropriately to any abnormal condition that can lead to a failure to deliver power or to a hazardous condition. Ground faults are the most common condition experienced by a power system. Hence the ability to detect and react as needed quickly is paramount. The goal of this paper is to help protection engineers, engineering consultants, and power system operators to apply ground-fault protection systems correctly while also complying with local electrical codes.