Electrical installation questions

There are a couple of questions on the standard Installation form for which I would appreciate some help.

  1. Prospective fault current
  2. External loop impedance

How do I calculate or obtain these figures ? Are there defaults that can be assumbed and used ?

Thanks Andy

(John, many thanks for the email)

Reply to
ac1951
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External Loop impedence (Ze) is obtained from the electricity supplier. It is the impedence of the circuit loop from the consumer back to the supply transformer and then back to the consumer.

You have to pester your local leccy company and try and find somebody who knows what "what's the Ze here?" means. I wrote it down in my On-Site Guide as soon as I found it. It's 0.35Ohm in Sheffield.

Calculating prospective fault current in in the regs, section 3.7 or something.

-- JGH

Reply to
jgh

On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 06:44:03 -0800 (PST) someone who may be ac1951 wrote this:-

The two are related, as the impedance determines what the prospective fault current is.

Option 1. Measure the supply and calculate. How this is measured depends on the equipment one has available, or hires. A fair indication can be obtained by using a basic moving coil meter to measure how the supply voltage varies with known loads. Don't try this unless you know what you are doing.

Option 2. You can ask the supplier and they may eventually give you a figure. This is likely to be the worst case, in order to protect their backsides. I would ignore any figures they might provide.

Reply to
David Hansen

Mine's 0·35 ohms as well. The substation is just behind next-door's garage.

Reply to
Frank Erskine

Ze really needs to be tested on site. It is perfectly possible (although rare) for there to be a fault in the supply. The supplier will only quote the maximum allowed Ze for the type of supply. I saw two Ze values last year that were out of spec and that was from of hundreds of tests.

Adam

Reply to
ARWadworth

Out via the line (phase) conductor and back via whatever is providing the earth, that is.

Only if you have a PME (TN-C-S) supply, where the earth path is via the neutral conductors of the service cable and street mains.

For TN-S supplies, where earthing is via the sheaths or armouring of cables, the default quoted value is 0.8 ohm.

For TT supplies, where the supplier doesn't provide a metallic earth path, the value is 21 ohms (20 ohms being the statutory limit on the DNO's earthing electrodes, plus a notional 1 ohm for the metallic conductors).

These are national maximum values which apply for single-phase supplies of up to 100 A, but they are not guaranteed.

When testing your installation you should measure and record Ze using a loop tester (for TN systems only). To do this the main bonding should be temporarily disconnected from the main earth terminal, so that the result is not artificially lowered by the effect of any fortuitous parallel earth paths. If a value significantly above 0.35/0.8 ohm is found the DNO should be notified.

You can only calculate the PSSC from a Ze value for the PME case, where the earth and neutral paths are one and the same. For the other systems the supply impedance between line and neutral is usually lower than Ze, so the PSSC would be underestimated if calculated from Ze.

The calculation is Ipssc = Uoc / Z, where Uoc is the o/c phase voltage at the supply transformer (usually taken as 250 V) and Z is the measured impedance at the supply terminals. Most modern loop testers will do the calculation for you, using a voltage value measured prior to the test.

For certification purposes though it's OK to just fill in the DNO's declared maximum value, which will usually be 16 kA (again for 1-ph, 100 A).

HTH

Reply to
Andy Wade

These values can me measured/calculated for an individual property.

The "standard" answer you will get from the regional electricity distribution company is based on the "standard" values in this document:

"EA Engineering Recommendation P25/1" (The short-circuit characteristics of Public Electricity Suppliers? low voltage distribution networks and the co-ordination of overcurrent protective devices on 230V single-phase supplies up to 100A), which is not available for free download.

However, the relevant info is available from vairious websites, e.g.

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is summarised here:

Low Maximum prospective short circuit current is used to determine the short circuit rating requirement of electrical equipment.

Low Voltage Connections (up to 1000V)

The following values can be assumed at low voltage connections:

  • Single phase connection; 16kA * Two phase, split phase or three phase connection; 25kA

The maximum earth fault loop impedance is used to calculate the available earth fault current within an installation connected at low voltage (below 1000V).

The following values are typical for low voltage installations:

Earthing Type Maximum Earth Fault Loop Impedance PMEarthing (TN-C-S) 0.35 ohms* TN-S 0.8 ohms* Direct Earth (TT) Dependent on resistance of the customer?s earth electrode. Values exceeding 100 ohms can apply.

  • These values are sometimes exceeded where the connection is derived from a long overhead line network or from a small pole mounted transformer.

In practice, a 16kA PSCC would only apply if you were very close to a large substation.

My last house was about 200m from a small sub-station and featured a PSCC of 750A. You can get a higher PSCC from a 100kVA generator!

The BS1361 type II suppliers cut-out fuse protecting the property is rated at 33kA breaking capacity.

Reply to
Rumble

Many Thanks for all the contributions.

Reply to
ac1951

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