Impact study of short-circuit calculation methods on the design of a wind farm's grounding system

Safe operation of a wind farm (W/F), under fault conditions, requires a grounding study to ensure protection against developed voltages (step and touch). A key stage in the design of a wind farm's grounding system is to determine the maximum ground fault current. The aim of this work is to examine how different short-circuit calculation (SCC) procedures affect the calculation of developed voltages (step and touch) at a wind farm and therefore the provided level of safety. For this purpose, the response of the interconnected grounding system of an actual wind farm is calculated, under fault conditions, using three alternative SCC methods and the results obtained concerning violation or not of safety criteria are presented.