Industrial Power System Grounding Design Handbook

by J.R. Dunki-Jacobs • F.J. Shields • Conrad St. Pierre

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About the Authors

All the authors began their power-system engineering careers with General Electric in Schenectady, New York, by taking intensive GE courses, including the "Power Systems Analysis Course" offered as an advanced study for Electric Utility Engineers.

J.R. Dunki-Jacobs, ("Dunki") received his BSEE (eqv) degree from the Higher Technical College in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.  He evolved his Schenectady-GE career as a power system design engineer, primarily in the Petrochemical industry, leaving evidence of his 30-year involvement in various regions of the world. Among those, the then longest 34.5-kV industrial submarine-cable to power an oil-gathering platform, 27 mile offshore Kuwait in the Persian Gulf (1961); and the then longest 300-mile, 138-kV transmission and multi-generation system, installed in the Sahara desert to transport crude to the Libyan Mediterranean coast (1969). Further evidences can be found in Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Indonesia, as well as many locations throughout the United States.

He is a Life-Fellow of IEEE (1982), the recipient of the R.H. Kaufmann Award (1991), the 1996 Medal for Engineering Excellence, as well as the Third Millennium Medal (2000).  He received five GE Management Awards.  He co-authored 18 IEEE Papers, for which he received seven Prize-Paper Awards, while ten papers were published in the IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications.

When he retired from GE in 1984, he formed "Industrial Power Systems, Inc." to continue his career as a Power System Consultant and Lecturer, until 1995.


Francis J. Shields, received his BEE degree with Magna Cum Laude distinction, whereupon he developed his career with the General Electric in Schenectady, NY as a Power System Design Consulting Engineer responsible for the analyses of a wide range of power-system problems using advanced engineering studies. He advanced the understanding of the effect of ground-fault currents on system operating conditions as a function of system-neutral-grounding modes. He advanced the knowledge of the behavior of arcing ground faults and their consequent formulation of effective neutral-grounding and ground-fault-protection practices to minimize their destructive behavior. He provided global consulting support to industrial customers and performed specialized analyses and studies to explore adverse operating and protection occurrences using advanced computer technologies and facilities. He presented many lectures on power system design to consulting engineers and professional society meetings. . He (co)-authored 13 papers and articles for Company, professional society, and trade journals. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of New York.


Conrad St. Pierre, received his BSEE and MSEE degrees from University of Maine and Union College in Schenectady, NY.  He started his Schenectady GE career by joining the Industrial Power Systems Engineering Operation (IPSEO) where he was responsible for the analyses of power systems for large industrials and electric utility companies, utilizing the broad array of computer programs, which he helped write, update, and served as instructor for  In 1986 he became Manager of IPSEO. Conrad is the recipient of several GE Managerial Awards. Upon completing 26 years of GE service, he joined Power Technologies, Inc. (PTI) in Schenectady, as Manager of Industrial Power Systems, where he continued to perform studies of his expertise for the following 6 years.

In 1997, he formed "Electrical Power Consultants, LLC" in Schenectady, NY providing ongoing analytical and engineering services to date. 

Conrad was a Senior Member of the IEEE and served on several subcommittees; as Chairman of the Violet Book (on short circuits), and as a member of IEEE-1584 Arc Flash Working Group.  He was a member of the U.S. National Committee of the International Electrotechnical Commission's Technical Advisory Group. He (co)-authored some 20 articles for trade journals, and Papers for IEEE Conferences, of which five were published in the Transactions.  He self-published a book entitled: "A Practical Guide to Short-Circuit Calculations" (2001).


"... in this self-published book, the authors document their first-row observations and acquired knowledge from an era when major historical developments shaped the current state of design practices detailed in this book..."

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