Paul,
They were used in exactly the same way on TT supplies in Ireland although the ESB would have determined when they were necessary and installed them after the meter as part of the service. The contractor just installed the fuse board and internal cabling.
TT supplies here are, however relatively rare. The ESB has full authority to choose the most appropriate earthing system for a particular supply / group of supplies. They never needed to consult any political / state athority to do their job and seem to have always favoured avoiding TT where at all possible.
ELCBs were also regularly installed on normal supplies too though as an optional extra safety device before mandatory RCDs arrived in 1980. Plenty of urban houses would have had them along side a big panel of diazed fuses.
Most rural supplies here are hooked up as individual taps into the 10/20kV 3-phase distribution system using pole mounted can-type transformers feeding a 220V supply into the house via a short cable drop (usually a twisted pair) / underground cable. I am not 100% sure what the general earthing / neutralising arrangements are with those supplies.
Any ideas?
I know very little about rural supplies in general other than what I've read / observed.
