Portable generators

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Dsg319

Dsg319

Senior Member
Location
West Virginia
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Wv Master “lectrician”
Wanna get some insite from others. The electrical company I work for we do a lot in the oil and gas industry such as compressor stations, meter stations, control valves, ect. Many of the safety personnel gas companies wanna see that you have the portable generator on the job site grounded with a ground rod. I could be wrong but it doesn’t make any sense to me to do that if the neutral if already bonded to the frame of the generator. My theory if you have a rod driven and are you have a piece of equipment which has a metal case and say the equipment grounding conductor has failed or never properly connected than in the event of a ground fault in my eyes all the rod does is create paths back to the generator through the touch of the human and actual earth which is shown all the time not an efficient ground fault current path. If I am wrong please correct me just trying get others ideas and why
 
Dsg319 said:
Wanna get some insite from others. The electrical company I work for we do a lot in the oil and gas industry such as compressor stations, meter stations, control valves, ect. Many of the safety personnel gas companies wanna see that you have the portable generator on the job site grounded with a ground rod. I could be wrong but it doesn’t make any sense to me to do that if the neutral if already bonded to the frame of the generator. My theory if you have a rod driven and are you have a piece of equipment which has a metal case and say the equipment grounding conductor has failed or never properly connected than in the event of a ground fault in my eyes all the rod does is create paths back to the generator through the touch of the human and actual earth which is shown all the time not an efficient ground fault current path. If I am wrong please correct me just trying get others ideas and why
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You are correct that the ground rod does little to make the generator safe and that the most important thing is a properly connected equipment grounding conductor and a proper neutral to ground bond.

The NEC does require a ground rod if the generator is set up as a Separately Derived System but that's because we connect to earth for reasons other than clearing a fault.
 
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