Standard Training Courses
(with Optional Level 1 Certification)

Course Objective

This 5-day course, which is currently offered in a webinar format, provides attendees a unique opportunity to acquire practical and up-to-date engineering knowledge, from the world's leading specialists and researchers, on how to study and design efficient and economical grounding and lightning mitigation systems. Whether you wish to protect a power system, plant or a nearby utility subjected to electromagnetic interference from power system faults, lightning or switching surges, this course will present pertinent principles for utility, industrial and various public installations, during steady state, fault and transient conditions, using realistic models of the environment.

Emphasis is placed on the demonstration of scientific concepts, using practical examples drawn from the extensive number of research projects and engineering studies conducted by SES researchers since 1978. Pertinent analytical derivations are included in an extensive Reference Manual made available to all course participants. One of the main goals of this course is to explain and eliminate many misconceptions, ambiguities and incorrect measurements, analysis and design techniques which still abound in the industry and are taught at some courses.

Course Outline

Please note that this course outline applies to the webinar version of the course.

During Part I of the course, the three modes of electromagnetic energization will be explained. Earth resistivity measurement and interpretation techniques will also be discussed, for uniform and multilayered earth (soils with two and more horizontal and vertical layers). The concept of soil model equivalence and soil layer resolution will be explained based on computer simulations. The analysis and design of simple and complex grounding systems made of arbitrarily oriented three dimensional conductors buried in multilayered soils will be discussed and illustrated with practical examples. The case of a grounding system partially buried in a finite volume (e.g., backfill) of heterogeneous soil will be explored. The scientific concept of earth impedance measurements using the Fall-of-Potential method will be clearly explained based on various realistic soil models. Transmission line, buried cable and buried pipeline parameters (self and mutual impedances) in layered earth will be analyzed and fault current distribution computation techniques will be described. Electrical safety concepts will be introduced, and issues related to body currents, body impedances and foot resistances will be discussed for power frequency and high frequency electric exposure.

Part II is focused on demonstrating how to use SES’s powerful input and output processors such as SESCAD, RowCAD and SESShield-3D.

In Part III of the course, conductive and inductive interference effects caused by energized conductors on overhead and buried bare or coated metallic structures and conductors, such as pipelines, fences and communication wires are introduced and investigated in detail. Mitigation methods and equipment are presented and their relative merits are discussed. Interaction between the sources of the interference and the victim lines or circuits will be examined in detail. Finally, electric and magnetic fields generated by energized overhead and buried conductors at low and high frequencies as well as during transient conditions, such as lightning strikes, will be described and typical analysis methods and computation results explained.

Course Schedule

Course Instructors

The principal course lecturer will be Dr Farid P. Dawalibi, an internationally recognized expert and authority in grounding and electromagnetic interference. In addition to his pioneering research work, Dr. Dawalibi was the project leader of the team which developed the GATL and ECCAPP software packages (EPRI EL2699 and EL5472) and the AUTOGRID® software package (CEA 249 D 541). He is presently the Director of Engineering and R&D and is responsible for the research department in charge of developing and maintaining CDEGS®, the most advanced and powerful grounding and electromagnetic interference software package. Dr. Dawalibi has published over 450 technical papers, research and engineering reports and has presented more than 150 technical seminars and short courses. He has written part of ANSI/IEEE Standard 80 and has also served as an expert witness at several challenging court hearings and is a technical advisor and industry consultant to several leading power, pipeline and railway utilities.

Course Fee

The course fee is USD 2,600. The fee includes an extensive Reference Manual entitled "Power System Interaction with Earth and Industrial Utility Installations", annotated copies of course display materials, and several copies of pertinent technical papers published by the instructors.

Education Credit

Participants will be issued a certificate of completion and awarded the equivalent of 3.0 CEU (Continuing Education Unit) or 30 PDH (Professional Development Hours). The CEU and PDH are recognized units for recording participation in non-credit educational programs.

Those who wish to participate in the Level 1 certification and pass the Level 1 certification tests will receive their SES Level 1 certification by mail, and will be eligible for future Level 2 and Level 3 certifications.

Cancellation Policy

SES reserves the right to cancel or change the dates or location of any training sessions at any time. If this occurs, participants will be notified immediately and any fee received will be refunded in full. SES is not responsible for travel-related or any other expenses incurred by participants.

Participants may cancel their registration by notifying SES in writing prior to the training session start date, subject to the following:

• Cancellation requests received more than 6 weeks prior to the training session start date will result in a full refund.
• Cancellation requests received within 6 weeks of, but at least 4 weeks prior to the training session start date will result in a 50% refund.
• There are no refunds for cancellation requests received less than 4 weeks prior to the training session start date, or for failure to attend the training session.
• Cancellation requests for web-based seminars (webinars) received more than 2 weeks prior to the webinar start date will be refunded in full. There are no refunds for cancellation requests received less than 2 weeks prior to the webinar start date, or for failure to attend the webinar.

How to Enroll