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Journal of International Council on Electrical Engineering Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 44~48, 2011

Protectability Evaluation for Overcurrent Relay based on a Probabilistic Method

Wen-Hao Zhang*, Seung-Jae Lee** and Myeon-Song Choi
Abstract - This paper proposes a probability measure for evaluation of relay performance from two aspects - correct trip and no-unwanted trip. They are developed based on the relationship between relay settings and relay measurements which follows a Gaussian probability model. The proposed method is applied to protection capability evaluation of overcurrent relays. Keywords: Overcurrent relay, Protectability evaluation, Probabilistic model

1. Introduction
Overcurrent relay is a well known device used in power system protection in the sub-transmission and distribution side. Its purpose is to isolate electrical equipment in the presence of a fault. If the main overcurrent relay fails in operating in the presence of a fault, the backup relay should be operating at a specified delayed time [1, 2]. In other words, there should be some coordination constraints between the main and the backup relay [3-5]. The overcurrent relays are also used as a backup unit protection device for other protection relays such as the distance protection relays [6]. Presently the Inverse Definite Minimum Time (IDMT) overcurrent relay is used for the purpose of overcurrent protection. Using the inverse time characteristics, the relay delays the trip according to the ratio of the fault current to the set point current according to the Time Dail Setting (TDS). The ratio of the fault current and the set point current is called the Plug Setting Multiplier (PSM). A detailed mathematical description of this relay can be viewed in the inverse time relay standards defined by IEEE [7]. The use of IDMT overcurrent relay has some disadvantages. Most of the problems relate to the coordination between the main and the backup relay. One of the problems faced by the overcurrent relay is fault severity variation. This would mean that for a single setting, the relay would require more time to trip for a less severe fault such as a single phase to ground fault and a shorter time if the fault was more severe such as a double or a triple phase to ground fault [8]. It would be more desirable for the
Corresponding Author: Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Tongji University, China (xiwen.ren@gmail.com) * Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Tongji University, China (xiwen.ren@gmail.com) ** Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Myongji University, Korea (sjlee@mju.ac.kr, mschoi@mju.ac.kr) Received: May 1, 2010; Accepted: October 16, 2010

relay to trip with nearly the same time delay regardless of the fault severity. Another problem associated with the conventional overcurrent relay includes the inability to detect the presence of a High Impedance Fault (HIF) [9]. During a HIF, the overcurrent relay would detect a smaller fault current. This current would at times be similar to the load current. The relay would then look at the fault as if it was a normal operation. Overcurrent relays are connected and set in such a way that the minimum amount of load is lost when the relays are activated in an event of a fault. However when the relays have activated, the other relays which are in the system have not been configured to the post fault conditions and parameters. With the pre fault setting on the other relays, there is a possibility that the coordination of the relays will be lost in an event of another fault [10, 11]. The potential of a mal-tripping exist in these kinds of situations. The distance of the fault from the main relay also plays an important part in determining the time delay of an inverse time overcurrent relay. The longer the distance of the fault from the relay, the smaller the fault current detected by the current transformer will be. The effect of this situation will be a larger time delay for the inverse time overcurrent relays. Previous studies have shown that there has been a lot of work being done in coordination of the inverse time Overcurrent relay to ensure that the relays would trip as fast as possible without violating the coordination constraints. A linear programming method could be used in order to optimize the settings of the overcurrent relays such that the tripping time is minimized and the coordination constraints followed [12-16]. In this paper, the measurement errors are modeled in the second section and concepts of correct trip probability and no-unwanted trip probability are proposed to evaluate the protectability of overcurrent relays.

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2. Probabilistic Modeling
Due to errors that are a consequence of a relays own imperfection, CT and VT errors and inaccuracy of line constants, the operation of protective relays would not follow its apparent setting strictly. In other words, the relay may not be able to trip correctly. A probabilistic model for relay errors was presented in [9, 10] for the distance relay protection, which can be extended to all types of protective relays. The combination of measurement errors modeled by uniform probability distributions yield an approximate Gaussian function. Therefore the effective protection reach that determines a real operation of a protective relay can be assumed to follow the following probability distribution function:
f (XE ) = ( X X )2 exp E 2 S 2 2 1

however, due to the errors, the setting LS would have an effective reach LE which determines the actual trip characteristics of the relay. This effective reach LE can be considered to have a probabilistic behavior resulted by relay errors. To be more specific, let's suppose an apparent setting LS that is determined by a relay engineer and its effective reach LE would locate around LS as a Gaussian distribution so the relay has the probability of underreaching the fault within its protection zone, and it may also overreach the fault outside the protection zone. For this Gaussian distribution model, the most important factor is its deviation. Considering 5% CT error, 5% VT error, 3% impedance error, and 5% calculation error, the generic equation for a single line to ground fault is given by (2) that represents fault distance seen by the relay from its measurements:

(1)

LE =

Vm 1 ) + ( I I Z [ m 0 m 0m Z1m ) Z1m ] Z1m

(2)

Here XE represents an effective range that determines the actual operation and XS represents relay setting. Note that it is a Gaussian distribution function with a mean of XS and standard deviation of which can be determined by MATLAB simulation of generic equation of protective relay operation. Relays usually have inputs from several current transformers (CTs), and the zone of protection is bounded by these CTs. In order to explain about the relationship between relay setting and its effective protection zone, the types of relays could be classified into two types [11]: Protective relays with open protection zone have a degree of uncertainty in determining the location of protection boundary. Non-pilot relays usually employ the open zone protection. Protective relays with closed protection zone have absolutely selective characteristic for the internal and external fault, also known as differential. Here, take the Relay in Fig. 1 with open protection zone as example since its much easier to be understood.

Here, Vm, Im, I0m are measurements, Z0m, Z1m are the line impedances assumed and is the calculation error. In MATLAB, uniform values of variable r can be generated from interval [a, b] as
r=a+(b-a)*rand(k,1)

(3)

Here, k is the random data number. Take the 5% CT error as an example. Im can be a uniform distribution in the interval [1-5%, 1+5%] with 1e6 data number. All parameters generated using (3) can be substituted into (2) and the density of LE would follow the Gaussian distribution shown in Fig. 2. The shadow area represents a probability of 99% with [0.871, 1.129] which equals [1-2.58, 1+2.58], from which the deviation is calculated as 5%, which can be used for the protectability evaluation. In similar process, the deviations of other relays can be obtained.

Fig. 1. Distance relay setting and its effective reach. Seen from Fig. 1, if there are no relay errors, the trip characteristic of relay R1 will seriously follow its setting LS,

Fig. 2. Probability of 99% with the shadow area.

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Protectability Evaluation for Overcurrent Relay based on a Probabilistic Method

Seen from the above probabilistic analysis, the setting of a protective relay has an effective zone of protection following the Gaussian distribution. The operation of power systems highly depends on the performance of relays. However, protective relaying performance is not easy to be quantified. The relay performance is high affected by the measurement errors which come from the CT, VT, inaccuracy of line impedance, A/D conversion and so on. All these errors can be modeled by uniform probability distributions, and the combination of a number of distributions would yields an approximate Gaussian function. Due to these errors, the relay setting would not trip exactly as the setting value and it would have an effective reach which determines the actual trip characteristic. Its trip characteristic would follow this Gaussian distribution with the setting as mean value, the effective reach as variable, and a deviation which could be decided by the combination effect of errors. The concepts of under-reach and overreach need to be specified before evaluating the relay performance. Under-reach means that the relays effective reach fails to reach the setting value which might result in a failure to trip. On the contrary, overreach means that the relays effective reach exceeds the setting value which might lead to a mis-tripping. Note the additional restriction on overreach to avoid loss of coordination for some relays.

Protectability is defined as an index to denote the protection degree of a relay for its supposed protection target under variable relay setting and variable system conditions. In order to evaluate the performance of a protective relay, protectability is evaluated in two aspects from the viewpoint of a relay operation in this study: 1) Correct trip probability(CTP) for a fault in its supposed protection line , which is related to the sensitivity 2) No unwanted trip probability(NUTP) for a fault outside its supposed protection line, which related to the selectivity---protection coordination Note that sensitivity and selectivity are the most critical requirements of protection. Protectability index derived based on the probabilistic model introduced above.

4. Protectability Evaluation
Using the difference between the currents flowing through the relay installed place at normal state and fault state to judge the exact operating sate is the basic principle of the overcurrent relay. There must be a substantial reduction of short-circuit current as the fault is moved away from the relay toward the far end of the line. The inverse time delay overcurrent relay is proposed based on this current change along the line. However, the closer the fault is to the source, the greater the fault current magnitude, yet the longer the tripping time. The instantaneous overcurrent relays makes this system of protection viable as an addition. The instantaneous relay can be set to see almost up to, but not including, the next bus to lower the fault-clearing times. A typical application of overcurrent relays is shown in Fig. 3.

3. Protectability Definition
The operation of power systems highly depends on the performance of relays. However, protective relaying performance is not easy to be quantified. The relay performance is high affected by the measurement errors which come from the CT, VT, inaccuracy of line impedance, A/D conversion and so on. All these errors can be modeled by uniform probability distributions, and the combination of a number of distributions would yields an approximate Gaussian function. Due to these errors, the relay setting would not trip exactly as the setting value and it would have an effective reach which determines the actual trip characteristic. Its trip characteristic would follow this Gaussian distribution with the setting as mean value, the effective reach as variable, and a deviation which could be decided by the combination effect of errors. The concepts of under-reach and overreach need to be specified before evaluating the relay performance. Under-reach means that the relays effective reach fails to reach the setting value which might result in a failure to trip. On the contrary, overreach means that the relays effective reach exceeds the setting value which might lead to a mis-tripping. Note the additional restriction on overreach to avoid loss of coordination for some relays

Fig. 3. Application of overcurrent relays.

Basically, as the increase of setting, the CTP would become smaller. If the current setting decreases, there would be increasing NUTP for the fault in the next line or

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potential coordination problems. The protectability of different types of overcurrent relays can be evaluated as follows by considering their specific characteristics.

trip probability of the inverse time-delay overcurrent relay are very difficult to define since as the relay setting changes it could trip with different time delay because of the measurement errors. Normally, the inverse time delay overcurrent relay would has smaller correct trip probability (CTP) and also smaller no-unwanted trip probability (NUTP) as the larger time delay brought by current setting increase.

Fig. 4. Sample system.

5. Conclusion
A. Instantaneous overcurrent relay The instantaneous OCR must be set to provide highspeed protection for an appreciable portion of the circuit and at the same time, to prevent the relay from operating for faults beyond the end of the line. For a fault on its own line l1, with a larger current setting, it would have smaller probability to trip the fault, which means that the correct trip probability (CTP) decreases. Also, the fault current in the next line l2 would be smaller comparing to the fault close to the source so the increase of current setting for R1 would have a smaller mis-tripping probability, which means theres higher no-unwanted trip probability (NUPT) if the setting increases. As for the optimal setting, its correct trip probability (CTP) of instantaneous overcurrent relay must keep 1 for its protection zone with no probability to mal-operate for fault in the next line. The instantaneous OCR must be set not to overreach the bus at the remote end of the line, so its no-unwanted trip probability (NUTP) must also be 1 for the fault in the next line. B. Time-Delay Overcurrent Relay The definite, inverse time-delay overcurrent relays are set to coordinate with the instantaneous overcurrent relay to protect the rest of the line. 1) Definite Time Delay Overcurrent Relay Definite time delay overcurrent relay is adopted to protect the rest of the line. The correct trip probability (CTP) decreases as the setting increases comparing to the fault current. And the no-unwanted trip probability (NUTP) would also decrease if the setting increases because it would have smaller mis-tripping probability for the fault in next line. The optimal setting for definite time delay overcurrent relay must have a correct trip probability (CTP) as 1 for the fault in its own line. And its nounwanted trip probability (NUTP) considering the coordination with instantaneous overcurrent relay in the next line must be as large as possible under the constraint of correct trip probability (CTP) as 1. 2) Inverse Time-delay Overcurrent Relay The correct trip probability (CTP) and no-unwanted

A probabilistic model is proposed to describe the effective protection zone of protective relay setting under the influence of measurement errors and system parameter errors. A concept of protectability is defined to indicate the protection degree of the protective relay. The protectability is evaluated from two aspects: correct trip probability (CTP) and no unwanted trip probability (NUTP) by which to elaborate the performance for different types of overcurrent relays. Protectability evaluation here is proposed from a qualitative view based on this Gaussian model and the quantitative analysis would be done in the further study.

References
[1] Stanley H. Horowitz and Arun G. Phadke, Power System Relaying, Research Studies Press Ltd, John Wiley And Sons Inc. 1993. [2] Warrington, ARC, The Protective Relays. Theory and Practice, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1969. [3] Westinghouse Electric Corp., Applied Protective Relaying, Westinghouse Electric Corp., Newark, NJ., 1979. [4] General Electric Co. Measurements, Protective Relays Application Guide, GEC, United Kingdom, 1975. [5] M. Gopal Control Systems Principles and Design, Mc. Graw Hill, second edition 2003. [6] Gerhard Ziegler Numerical Distance Protection Principles and Applications, Publicis MCD, Munich and Erlangen, 1999. [7] IEEE Standard Inverse-time Characteristic Equations for overcurrent relays, IEEE Std C37.112-1996 [8 ] Arturo Conde and Ernesto Vazquez Operation logic proposed for time overcurrent relay IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, Vol. 22 No 4 October 2007. [9] A.H. Etermadi and Sanaye-Pasand High impedance fault detection using multi resolution signal decomposition and adaptive neural fuzzy interface IET Gener. Transm. Distrib. 2008.2.(1). pp. 110-118.

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Protectability Evaluation for Overcurrent Relay based on a Probabilistic Method

[10] Alberto J. Urdaneta, Harold Restrepo, Saul Marquez and Jorge Sanchez Coordination of directional overcurrent relay timing using linear programming IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, Vol. 11, No. 1, January 1996. [11] Alberto J. Urdaneta, Ramon Nadira and Luis G. Perez Jimenez Optimal coordination of directional overcurrent relays in interconnected power systems IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, Volume 3, No 3, July 1988. [12] J.P. Whiting and D. Lidgate, Computer prediction of IDMT relay settings and performance for interconnected power systems, IEE Gen., Transmiss., Distrib., Vol. 130, No. 3, pp. 139-147, 1983. [13] Hossien Askarian Abyaneh, Majid Al-Dabbagh, Hossien Kazemi Karegar Seyed Hesameddin Hossien Sadeghi, A new optimal approach for coordination of overcurrent relays in interconnected power system, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, Vol. 18, No. 2, April 2003. [14] Bijoy Chattopadhyay, M.S. Sachdev, T.S. Sidhu, An on-line relay coordination algorithm for adaptive protection using linear programming technique, IEEE Trans. Power Delivery, Vol. 11, No. 1, January 1996. [15] Perez L. G. and Urdaneta. A. J.Optimal computation of distance relays second zone timing in a mixed protection scheme with directional overcurrent relays, IEEE. PWRD, Vol. 16, No. 3, July 2001. [16] A.H. Eternadi and Sanaye-pasand High resolution fault detection using multi-resolution signal decompositionand adaptive neural fuzzy inference system IET Gener. Transm. Distrib., 2008, 2 (1), pp.110-118.

Seung-Jae Lee was born in Seoul, Korea in 1955. He received his B.E. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University, Korea in 1979 and 1981, respectively. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle, USA in 1988. Currently, he is a Professor at Myongji University and a Director at the Next-Generation Power Technology Center (NPTC). His major research fields include protective relaying, distribution automation, and MultiAgent applications to power systems. Myeon-Song Choi was born in Chungju, Korea in 1967. He received his B.E., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University, Korea in 1989, 1991 and 1996, respectively. He was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania State in 1995. Currently, he is a Professor at Myongji University. His major research fields include power system control and protection, including Multi-Agent applications.

Wen-Hao Zhang was born in Shanxi, China, in 1982. He received his B.E. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China in 2003. He received his M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Xian Jiao Tong University, Xian, China in 2006. He received his Ph.D. at Myongji University, Yongin, Korea in 2010. Currently he is working in Dept. Electrical Engineering at Tongji University, China. His research interests are power system protection and control and power system automation.