Automatic Ground Fault Location in Industrial Facilities

Automatic Ground Fault Location in Industrial Facilities

Why is a ground-fault location system necessary?

Reduce maintenance costs and increase equipment utilization with our fully automated ground-fault location system, the EDS series. Automatic identification of the faulted circuit eliminates the need to manually “hunt” for a ground fault location and allows the rest of the power system to continue to operate normally. There is no longer a need to sequentially deenergize loads. You may use EDS automatic fault location to augment the required ground detectors required by NEC Article 250.21(B) and CE Code Rule 10-400.

How does it work?

When a ground fault occurs, its presence is detected by an insulation monitoring device (IMD) such as an iso685‑D‑P (“P” stands for pulse), which signals that there is a fault, begins to send an identifiable current signal into the power system, and activates the EDS device. The EDS is a multichannel detector to which measuring current transformers (CTs) are connected. The CTs monitor feeders or loads in a zero-sequence fashion (all load conductors pass through the CT window) and are sensitive to the locator pulse, which only flows to the fault. The EDS reports the fault location to the IMD, which displays the information on its LCD and communications interface. This all occurs without the need for operator intervention. Watch the video on the right to learn more about how the EDS system works.

Real world examples

The EDS can be used in nearly every application imaginable. Commonly, the EDS is used to locate ground faults in food processing or manufacturing facility. The fault location can take place far upstream (by the transformer) or all the way downstream (at the load level).

Another common application is using the EDS to locate faults on solar or energy storage installations. These faults can be located to the string, combiner, battery, or inverter level. The same technology can be applied to locating faults on processing equipment on a land or sea-based oil vessel. Bender has also applied numerous EDS units to sensitive applications, such as nuclear control process equipment or hospital isolated power panels.

Benefits

Reduced maintenance costs
Noticeable decrease in maintenance costs due to the accuracy of detection and decreased personnel interaction with the system.

Automatic location of faults
Automatic location negates the need for opening branch circuit breakers or disconnecting equipment.

Locate DC Protection & Control Faults
Unprecedented ability to pinpoint a ground fault in critical 125 Vdc P&C systems which cannot be randomly switched off for fault location.

Remote alarms and trend data
Standard network interface shifts critical information to a centralized maintenance and engineering point.

Downloads

NameCategorySizeLanguageTimestampD-/B-Number
iso685 Product Brochures 1.8 MB EN2019/05/1313.05.2019D00022
iso685-… Quickstarts 1.6 MB FR2024/02/2828.02.2024D00022
EDS440/EDS441 Datasheets 9.3 MB EN2023/11/2828.11.2023D00201
EDS309x Datasheets 717.2 KB EN2019/05/1313.05.2019D00012
Industrial EDS Flyers 1.1 MB EN2021/04/2828.04.2021

Products

Ground-Fault Location, Ungrounded

ISOSCAN® EDS440
ISOSCAN® EDS440 Series

Ground-fault location module for ungrounded AC/DC systems

ISOSCAN® EDS30…
ISOSCAN® EDS3090 Series

Portable ground-fault location systems for ungrounded and grounded systems

ISOSCAN® EDS460-D
ISOSCAN® EDS460-D

- This device series is in the discontinuation phase. -
Deliverable according to availability until 01.01.2025.

Ground-Fault Location, Ungrounded

ISOSCAN® EDS440
ISOSCAN® EDS440 Series

Ground-fault location module for ungrounded AC/DC systems

Details
ISOSCAN® EDS30…
ISOSCAN® EDS3090 Series

Portable ground-fault location systems for ungrounded and grounded systems

Details
ISOSCAN® EDS460-D
ISOSCAN® EDS460-D

- This device series is in the discontinuation phase. -
Deliverable according to availability until 01.01.2025.

Details

Learn more about EDS