Okay, now I see where this is going . . .
I once got an emergency “power out” call from a major industrial customer on Thanksgiving. Seems their computers were down and there were some crazy power quality issues. The cause turned out to be degraded bonding between panels.
In this particular place — which had been built by the very guy who got the Ufer into the code — the main service had mounted right next to it three large panels, all connected together by RMC nipples. In each panel the ground buss was bonded to the neutral buss. For the brief space between the panels and the main disconnect, the pipe was acting as both neutral and ground, just carrying the current imbalance. Loosening and corrosion, over time, had made this a path with great impedance. Separating the grounds from the neutrals and extending the neutral from the panels back to the main disco solved the problem.
That’s where this discussion is getting off track. We are NOT talking about (fault) ground paths here. We are talking about the GEC — a wire that some modern countries don’t even use. The GEC if of relevance only for “natural” electricity — that is, static and lightning. That’s the only electricity that has any interest in going to earth. PoCo power wants to go back to the PoCo transformer where it was made.
The idea is: Each lightning target gets one GEC network. For an example like the PVC service pictured (meter base serving a disconnect right next to it, on the same structure), I would say the preferred practice would be to run the GEC to the meter base rather than the panel. After all, lightning will hit the meter can first . . .
