ECN Forum Forums Code Related Discussion Canadian Electrical Code Topics Light Pole Grounding

Am helping a client with a light pole design for Canada. They only supply the pole, so no luminaire, hood, or wiring. There’s been some conflicting discussion about grounding terminals required to be supplied on the pole to ground the luminaire when installed onsite. The pole currently has a primary grounding terminal at the base. In practice, does the pole itself need an additional terminal at the top for the luminaire to be bonded to, or is the grounding wire connected from the luminaire down to the primary terminal considered sufficient?

Thanks!

The luminaire is grounded via the GEC that is part of te branch circuit feeding the lighting.

The pole is bonded via the GEC at a lug accessable via the handhole.

That is USA, and NEC, Canada may be the same.

IIRC, there was some past debate about this, apparently the jist orbited around weather a light pole could be considered a structure ,and then have art 225 follow suit with GEC's and all that.

I'm not sure where that went , but i do know metallic poles 1000' away from the serving facility are best having some bond to the 'crete they sit upon , usually the 4 threaded rods ,man made electrode

And no , i don't have a code ref , sorry..

Well, now lets go to the ‘spec’, tediously written, and most times drawn within the plans. Some spec a 8’ rod, cadwelded to #6 or 4 cu, up into the pole base. Some spec a 10’ rod, or some spec 20’ min., #x rebar, with #4 Cu.

Thinking back, one that jumps to mind is site lighting for a new bank. Spec was 10’ rod, cadweld, #4 Cu. No sweat, yje EC did his thing & insp was OK. Poles arrive, I just was driving by, ‘sparky’ had the pole on his shoulder, all 15’ of it. Turns out the poles is the fixture schedule were FIBERGLASS!!! Duh,

I don't know if they ever revised it, but at one time the local Code for one of the cities in Ohio included a detail of how to attach the grounding conductor to a lug on a fiberglass pole.

Double-duh.