International Conference on Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies [i-PACT2017]
Out-of-Step Technique Based Symmetrical fault
Analysis
Srikanta Mohapatra ,Subodh Kumar Mohanty, Tapas Kumar Patel
School of Electrical Engineering, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar-751024 (ORISSA)
E-mail: 1srikantfel@kiit.ac.in , 3patel.tapaskumar64@gmail.com,
Abstract— During the normal condition of the power
system, power flows through the line in nominal frequency.
Sometimes the disturbances occur due to sudden load change
or due to any fault in the transmission line. So during the
recovery of the system electromechanical oscillation is there in
the power system network which results in power swing, this
encourages undesirable tripping or cascade tripping of line
causes the power system blackouts. To avoid this situation like
blackouts, Here current differential protection scheme and the
phasor difference analysis between two bus power system is
analyzed to detect the fault during out-of-step condition
accurately.
Keywords— Fast fourier transform, Power swing block,
Out of step trip , Phasor measurement unit (PMU)
I. INTRODUCTION
All over the world the power system functions operate at
its nominal frequency. At this steady state condition the
active power flow and the reactive power flow in the
transmission line should be normal. If any transients or
stability imbalance occurs in the power system network we
should remove the reason of system imbalance as soon as
possible. The main reasons of system imbalance are sudden
change in load, any type of fault occur, line switching,
generator disconnection and loss of loads occurred in the
system. During the clearance of fault, some electro-
mechanical oscillation occurs. This results in power flow
oscillation in the transmission line. Technically during this
period variation of the rotor angle occurs [1]. On the basis of
variation of rotor angle there are two types of power swing.
If the fluctuation die down then we call it as stable power
swing and if oscillation increases gradually then it is called
as unstable power swing. And this results in loss of
synchronism of two area system known as out-of-step
condition [2].
Generally distance relay in transmission line is used to
avoid unusually tripping of relay which results in severe
blackouts. In distance relay load impedance plays a major
role to identify weather it is a fault or power swing [3].
During power swing if the load impedance come in between
the operating zone of distance relay then the relay trips
unnecessarily, which is undesirable operation of relay which
may results in cascading outage and power blackouts. A
978-1-5090-5682-8 /17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
Power Swing Block (PSB) function is used to detect fault
during power swing. In other word PSB differentiate
between power swing and fault [4]. During the loss of
synchronism of power network the generating station must
be separated at predetermined locations to avoid damage of
power networks and to maintain power system stability. The
Out-of-Step Trip (OST) function is used to differentiate
stable and unstable power swing and initiates the area
separation at the predetermined locations.
By applying the PSB and OST function we can detect the
power oscillation or out-of-step conditions. The very general
method of detecting fault in transmission line is to measure
the rate of change of apparent impedance seen by the relay
location. In this conventional method, the technique decide
the zone time in which the impedance passing through the
operating zone of distance relay [3]-[6]. A preset value of
time is defined which decide whether the power swing is
stable or unstable. Due to any reason if load impedance
enters the circle zone of distance relay the start time is
calculated by the timer setting and it decide the fault or
power swing by the end time. If the time is greater value then
a unstable power swing or fault condition is there and relay
trips [7]-[9].
Here a current differential protection [10] and load angle
difference between two substations is used to detect the fault
during the power oscillation or out-of-step [11] conditions.
In differential current protection scheme [12] the
instantaneous current data’s are obtained from PMU’s are
taken. This technique is used in 2-bus system to get fast and
accurate [13] result. This technique is verified through
PSCAD software.
II.PROPOSED METHOD
A novel method to detect stable and unstable power
swing is to current differential protection in which the
positive sequence PMU data of the instantaneous current is
taken as the major parameter to find the fault during power
swing. To get the positive sequence current in both line Fast
Fourier Transform (FFT) concept is used.
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 International Conference on Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies [i-PACT2017]

enters the operating zone of the distance relay.Fig-2 and Fig-

3 gives the idea about the normal condition and the faulty
condition respectively. Here the phasor difference of two bus
system is taken as the important parameter to detect fault
during power swing.
The phase difference of the two bus voltage shown in fig-
4 is used as the main parameter to detect the fault during the
power oscillation.
Fig.1:- Line current in two bus system
V1∠δ 1 V2 ∠δ 2
As per above fig.1,the current difference is taken as the
central parameter to detect the fault in the power system
network weather it is symmetrical fault or asymmetrical fault
during the power oscillation.

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 Fig.4:- Phase angle of two bus system
0.4
I(t)

0.2
III.SIMULATION RESULT BY USING PHASOR DIFFERENCE
0 As you know the fault and power swing are same in
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 nature as current increases and voltage decreases. So in fig.5
TIME(sec.)
the two bus system model first the fault occur. Then after this
Fig.2:-Sending end and Receiving end current component another fault is occurred inline 2 intentionally which results
without fault in power oscillation in the power network due to rotor angle
variation of two bus system. So by taking the phasor
difference between the two system, we can get the clear
1 appearance of the fault or unbalance power swing during out
of step conditions.
0.5

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
0.4
I(t)

0.2

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
TIME(sec.)
Fig.3:- Sending end and Receiving end current component Fig.5:-Single line diagram of modeled 2-bus system
with fault

In line AB the fault is occurred at 0.4second for the

Unstable power oscillation in the transmission line is
undesirable operation for a power system network. We
cannot control this phenomena but we can avoid it by
detecting the power swing and fault during out of step
conditions. The loss of synchronism between power system
affects the transmission line relays and system in various
ways. During the out-of-step (OOS) event, a distance relay
may detect the OOS as a phase fault if the load impedance
duration of 0.05 second. So all the power are transmitted
through the line CD and results in power imbalance. Another
fault is occurred at 0.8sec for the duration of 0.05 second.
Hence this fault occurred during the power swing and by
using the phasor analysis of positive sequence component of
the phase difference of the two bus system, we can detect the
fault and avoid the unwanted operation of relay. The
waveform of voltage and currents are as below;

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 International Conference on Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies [i-PACT2017]

50
0
Va
-50 The fault data of the 2-bus system is given below;
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
50 Fault-1
0
Time = 0.4
Vb
-50
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 Fault resistance=1.0
50
0 Fault duration =0.05
Vc-50 Transmission length =300km
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
TIME(sec.)

Fig.6:-Voltage waveform of 3-phase fault Fault-2

Time =0.8second
2 Fault resistance=1.0
0 Fault duration =0.05 second
Ia
-2 Transmission length =300km
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
2
0 IV.SIMULATION RESULT BY USING CURRENT
Ib-2 DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
2
0
The current differential protection is used here to detect
Ic -2
the fault during out of step conditions or power swing. Here
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 we are taking the difference of the positive sequence of
TIME(sec.) instantaneous current which is obtained from the Phasor
Fig.7:-Current waveform of 3-phase fault Measurement Unit (PMU). Here intentionally by creating
two in line-1 and line-2 respectively, we will create a power
swing. Then the Fault during power swing is detected by
using the current differential potential skill.
In fig.6 and fig.7, the voltage and current parameter is given,
but the clear view of fault during power swing is not At t =0.4 second first fault occurs for 0.05 sec, then after
obtained here. So phase difference technique comes into removal of this fault another fault is occur at t=0.8second for
picture. ite interval of 0.05 second and this phenomena results in
power swing.Fig-9 and fig-10 shows the voltage and current
0.8 waveform, where the fault detection is not so easy. Then we
are detecting the fault during out of step condition by using
current differential protection. The results are shown below:-
PHASE DIFFERENCE

0.6

0.4 50
0
0.2 Va-50
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
50
0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
TIME(sec.) Vb-50
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
Fig.8:-Phase difference waveform of 3-phase fault 50
0
Vc-50
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
TIME(sec.)

Fig.9:-Voltage waveform of 3-phase fault

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 International Conference on Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies [i-PACT2017]

Transmission length =500km

2
0
Ia-2
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
2
0 V.APPENDIX
Ib -2
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
2 Generator Data:
Rated Power 600MVA
0
Ic Voltage 22kV
-2 Frequency 50Hz
0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
TIME(sec.) Inertia Constant 4.4MW/MVA
Fig.10:-Current waveform of 3-phase fault
Transformer Data:
Rated Power 600MVA
Voltage Ratio 22/400Kv
3
Frequency 50Hz.
2
PHASE DIFFERENCE

1 VI .CONCLUSION

0 The fault during power oscillation and during out-of-step

(OOS) conditions should be detected to maintain the power
-1
system stability of the network. In this situation the rotor
-2 phase angle difference exceed 180 degree, hence it is called
as out of phase condition or unbalanced power swing. So by
-3 using phasor difference technique and current differential
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
TIME(sec.) protection algorithm, we can clearly got the fault during the
power oscillation condition by using PSCAD software.
Fig.11:-Current differential waveform of 3-phase fault

The comparison in fig-8 and fig-11 gives the better

understanding to find the fault during power swing. The
current differential scheme is preferred on phase differential VII. REFERENCES
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