Introduction to Power System

Protection

Dr. Ibrahim El-Amin

• Topics of 1st Lecture:

1. Basic terms used in power system protection
2. The essential knowledge you need to process in the
study of power system protection
3. The major considerations for an effective protection
system
4. The design criteria of main, local backup and remote
backup protection
5. How relaying quantities are derived
6. Trend of protection development

• Why do we need Protection?

• To limit the Consequences of a Fault
• Reduce the risks to acceptable levels
while maintaining the disruption to
operation of the power system.

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 Possible consequence of inadequate protection

Onset of an overhead line fault

• Effect of Un-cleared Faults

• Damage to the equipment causing destruction
and fire;
• explosions in equipment containing insulating
oil;
• overheating of system equipment;
• Causing undervoltages or overvoltages in the
vicinity of the fault in the system;
• Blocking power flow;
• Causing reduction instability margins;
• Causing improper operation of equipment due to
system unbalance; and
• Causing the system to become unbalanced and
"break up“ (i.e. lose synchronism) by an event.

• What is the purpose of Protective Relays?

• To Operate the correct Circuit Breakers so

as to disconnect only the faulty equipment
from the system as quickly as possible,
thus minimising the trouble and damage
caused by faults when they do occur.

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• Types of Faults:
• Short Circuit faults
• Open circuit faults (open conductor)
• Complex faults (broken conductor)
• Inter turn faults in windings
• Abnormalities:
• Overload, power swings, over and
undervoltage…etc

• Fault Calculation
• Fault Current is approximately 10 to 20 times
normal full load current. To understand the relay
performance, you must know how severe is the
fault. Fault calculation, mostly symmetrical fault,
aided with the knowledge of unsymmetrical fault
is required. This knowledge is required to find
out the condition at the relaying point under fault
conditions, for example, voltage at relaying point
and current passing through relays. Based on
this you can deduce what the relay will see.

• Methods of Detecting Faults:

• Magnitude of current “overcurrent protection”
• Magnitude of current in earth or neutral “Earth fault protection”
• Magnitude & phase angle of current ‘Directional fault protection”
• Magnitude & phase angle of current in earth or neutral “Directional
Earth Fault Protection.
• V/I ratio “Impedance protection”
• Difference between 2 or more currents “Differential protection”
• Difference between phase angles of 2 currents “phase comparison
protection”
• Magnitude of –ve sequence current.
• Magnitude of voltage “over- or under- voltage protection”
• Magnitude of Frequency “over or under-frequency protection
• Temperature “Thermal protection”
• Special i.e. transformer gas protection.

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• Behaviour of current and voltage
transformers (CT & VT) – As protective
• equipment cannot be connect directly on
line, they are the major link between the
primary system and the relays. They will
supply signals to relays. It is therefore
necessary to study how they behave
under normal and fault conditions. At the
end of this study you should be able to
choose a suitable CT and VT.

• Distribution network protection –

Distribution network covers a large area
from customers to the infeed from the EHV
transmission system. Due to the enormous
quantity of equipment to be used, it must
be economic and yet effective. Distribution
network protection topics that will be
covered includes fuses, overcurrent and
earth fault protection, and directional
protection.

• Transmission network protection –

Transmission network transmits energy to
various areas in the power system.
Unnecessary cut off of transmission lines
or unclear faults in the line due to
protection mal-operation can lead to
system instability and possible system
collapse. It is therefore necessary to
ensure that protection will behave
correctly. Studies will include distance
protection and differential protection that
are mostly used to protect transmission
lines, busbars and generators.

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The following definitions are generally used in
relation to power system protection:
• a. Protection System: A complete arrangement
of protection equipment and other devices
required to achieve a specified function based
on a protection principal
• b. Protection Equipment: A collection of
protection devices (relays, fuses, etc.). Excluded
are devices such as CT’s, CB’s, Contactors, etc.
• c. Protection Scheme: a collection of protection
equipment providing a defined function and
including all equipment required to make the
scheme work (i.e. relays, CT’s,CB’s, batteries,
etc.)

• Major Considerations for a Protective

System:
• Reliability
• High reliability should not be pursued as
an end in itself, regardless of cost, but
should rather be balanced against
economy, taking all factors into account.
Incorrect operations can be attributed to
one of the following classifications:
a) Incorrect design.
b) Incorrect installation.
c) Deterioration.

• Sensitivity
Is a function of the volt-ampere input to a
protective device to cause operation.
Sensitivity is a term frequently used when
referring to the minimum operating current
of a complete protective system. A
protective system is said to be sensitive if
the primary operating current is low.

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• Selectivity
• Is the attribute of protective device
whereby only the faulty part of Electric
system is disconnected.

• Stability
• It is the attribute of a protective system
whereby it remains passive under all
conditions and faults external to the
relevant zone.

• Setting:
• Is the assigned quantity (current, voltage,
power, etc) at a relay will function under
specified conditions, and/or the assigned
time in which the relay will function under
specified conditions.
• The C/s of relays is such that their
operating time at the setting current is
infinite. The minimum current to cause
operation is a finite time must be not more
than 1.3 times the setting current.

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• The Distance setting:
Is the maximum distance a fault can be from
the relay to cause operation.
• The Impedance setting of a distance
measuring relay is the maximum ratio of
voltage to current for which operation
occurs.

• Speed

Typical values of power that can be transmitted

as a function of fault clearance time.

• Apparatus to be protected:
The elements of a power system covering
generation, transmission, distribution and
utilization that require to be protected are:
• Generators and Transformers
• Bus bars
• Capacitors and Reactors
• Motors

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• Zones of protection, primary and back-up
protection:
A protective scheme is divided into
protected zones. The protection of the
network consists of one or more
overlapping zones.

Division of power system into

protection zones

Overlapping zones of protection systems

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 Overlapping around CB

Back-up protection is slower in operation

than the main protective gear. Their
functions are:
To cover those parts of the system that are
not protected by the main relay.
To disconnect a fault that is uncleared by
the main protection.
To protect a part of the power system where
the main protective equipment is out of
service for any reason.

• Components of Protection
• Relays - Relays are the heart of protective
schemes. There are many diverse designs, each
aims at achieving particular results. They may
be electromagnetic, solid state or even micro-
processor based. There are two main groups of
relays. The first group belong to relays designed
to detect and to measure abnormal conditions.
The second group are auxiliary relays, designed
to be connected in the auxiliary circuits
controlled by the measuring relay contacts, and
to close (or open) further contacts usually in
much heavier circuits.

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• Current transformers (C.T.) - The rated
secondary current of all C.T.s are
standardised at either 5A or 1A. There are
two types of C.T.s, for protection and for
measurement. C.T.s used for protection
are usually designed to handle fault
current. Their accuracy at rated current is
usually worse than measurement C.T.s.
C.T.s used for measurement usually
produced more accurate output at current
not larger than 20% above rated current.
They are not expected to function correctly
at excessive currents.

• Voltage transformers (V.T.) - There is

not difference between a V.T. used for
measurement and a V.T. used for
protection. The two main types are: wound
type V.T. and capacitive V.T. (C.V.T.).
• Circuit breakers - to cut off faulted
equipment in order to maintain the power
system stability.

• Tripping and other auxiliary supplies - In

general the source of tripping supply is 110V DC
supplied from storage battery together with a
battery charger. The charger must be capable to
supply the standing load (e.g. indicating lamps)
and for the normal losses of the battery.
• Fuses, protective devices for distribution system
and domestic supply systems.
• Communication - Pilot (telephone) circuits and
other communication media (microwave and
optical fibre) are used to provide communication
between control centres, substations, and
between protective relays.

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 • Derivation of Relaying Quantities.

Combined overcurrent and earth-fault protection

Zero-sequence relay connection using core balance current transformer

Zero-sequence relay connection using residual connection of line current transformers

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 Zero-sequence relay connection using system neutral current

The use of negative sequence bridge to supply a negative sequence current relay

Use of summation transformer to provide single-phase output from a three-phase system

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• Trend of Protection Development
• Electromagnetic relays:
• Date back to the 30s. Many electromagnetic
relays are still in use today. The most well
known example being the induction disc
overcurrent relays.
• Static relays
• Application begins in the 60s. Early models have
a lot of problems due to the leakage current from
transistors and components used. The 2nd and
latter generations have overcome these
problems and they are now very reliable.

• Digital relays
Research and development can be dated back to
the 60s. In early developments, the focus is in
using one computer to provide many protective
functions and replace many protection relays,
say, to look after the whole substation, due to
the high cost of computers. The low cost of
computers nowadays have of course reverse the
direction of development and the development
trend is to use dedicate processor for individual
protection function.

• Adaptive relays:
• A function within a protective relay or system
that automatically adjusts the operating
characteristics (setting or state change) of the
relay system in response to changing power
system conditions can be said to have an
adaptive function. The adaptive function may
require additional measurements or signals or it
may use the normal protective relaying input
signals or it may use the normal protective
relaying input signals combined with enhanced
signal processing techniques for its operation.

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• Intelligent relays
Relays that can handle limited unknown
conditions by giving them prior training.

Overcurrent Protection:
• Advantages over Overcurrent Relaying:
• – Greater instantaneous trip coverage
• – Lower sensitivity to source impedance
changes
• – Better sensitivity to fault currents
• – Reduced sensitivity to load
• – Easier coordination with other distance
relays

If I p ⇒ Trip
I f ≺ I p ⇒ Block

If : Fault Curent
Ip: Pickup value of relay

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T = Functio ( I f − I p )
T : Re lay operating Time

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