The widespread use of sensitive equipment makes grounding issues more important than ever before - and a facility-wide Grounding Study by Alliant Energy's PowerCure™ power quality experts can provide critical information.

Protect your business

A site-wide grounding study will check your systems for safety and power quality in three key areas:

Personnel: Proper grounding reduces the chance of high touch voltages when there's a fault in the system.
Safety: A ground fault return path to the point where the power source neutral conductor is grounded is needed to assure operation of protective devices. Codes vary on how this is achieved.
Electrical noise control: Differences in ground locations can stress insulation, create circulating ground currents in low-voltage cables, and interfere with sensitive equipment that may be grounded in several places.

Power quality engineers can analyze your electrical system in several ways, including a site survey of conductors and connections, and measuring voltage, current and impedance in the circuit.

View a sample grounding study report [PDF format]

Why it's needed

Most businesses depend on sensitive equipment used for data processing and communications. Improper grounding of an electrical system can wreak havoc on these machines, causing them to malfunction, and it can jeopardize worker safety

The grounding of electrical circuits is a safety practice that allows electricity to take a path back to a circuit breaker or fuse in the case of a short circuit to ground.

Without a proper ground path, the circuit breaker or fuse would not trip and the current would flow through a person touching the electrical circuit - causing a shock.

There are many causes of improper grounding. Equipment may not be grounded at all, there may be multiple or improper neutral-to-ground connections, or there may be ground loops caused by multiple ground rods.

An effective grounding path needs to be permanent and continuous - not relying solely on the earth as an equipment grounding conductor.

Learn more about power quality and your business

Contact your Alliant Energy account manager to learn more about PowerCure™