International Earthing Developments and How They’ll Impact Australia

Closing Plenary

The last decade has seen remarkable changes in the electrical earthing space; both nationally and internationally. AS/NZS 2067:2016 was a significant step forward, but Australia is now being tasked with moving to adopt international standards, notably IEC 61936. Whilst 2067 has reflected aspects of 61936 for some time, in fact in a few areas outside of earthing there is significant similarity, we will soon see an Australian version, AS/NZS IEC 61936. The earliest version of 2067 had drawn extensively from IEEE Guide 80, which many would argue was the leading reference at the time. Since those early years, the IEEE Guides 80 and 81 had undergone only small changes. Whilst the IEEE documents are used in many countries around the world, 80 in particular remained significantly different to the European approach embodied in both 61936 and EN 50522. This difference made global harmonisation unlikely.

With the late-stage revisions of 80 and 81 some of these gaps are closing and it is now possible that a new level of international consistency can be achieved. This presentation will explain the author’s experience over this journey and suggest the possible and likely changes our earthing specialty will need to face.