Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 General
With the increasing dependence on electricity supplies, in both developing and
developed countries, the need to achieve an acceptable level of reliability, quality
and safety at an economic price becomes even more important to customers.
A further requirement is the safety of the electricity supply. A priority of any
supply system is that it has been well designed and properly maintained in order to
limit the number of faults that might occur.
Associated with the distribution networks themselves are a number of ancillary
systems to assist in meeting the requirements for safety, reliability and quality of
supply. The most important of these are the protection systems that are installed to
clear faults and limit any damage to distribution equipment. Among the principal
causes of faults are lightning discharges, the deterioration of insulation, vandalism,
and tree branches and animals contacting the electricity circuits. The majority of
faults are of a transient nature and can often be cleared with no loss of supply, or just
the shortest of interruptions, whereas permanent faults can result in longer outages.
To avoid damage, suitable and reliable protection should be installed on all circuits
and electrical equipment. Protective relays initiate the isolation of faulted sections of
the network in order to maintain supplies elsewhere on the system. This then leads to
an improved electricity service with better continuity and quality of supply.
A properly coordinated protection system is vital to ensure that an electricity
distribution network can operate within preset requirements for safety for indivi-
dual items of equipment, staff and public, and the network overall. Automatic
operation is necessary to isolate faults on the networks as quickly as possible in
order to minimise damage. The economic costs and the benefits of a protection
system must be considered in order to arrive at a suitable balance between the
requirements of the scheme and the available financial resources. In addition,
minimising the costs of non-distributed energy is receiving increasing attention.
When providing protective devices on any supply network, the following basic
principles must apply. On the occurrence of a fault or abnormal condition, the
protection system must be capable of detecting it immediately in order to isolate
the affected section, thus permitting the rest of the power system to remain in
service and limiting the possibility of damage to other equipment. Disconnection of
equipment must be restricted to the minimum amount necessary to isolate the fault
2 Protection of electricity distribution networks

from the system. The protection must be sensitive enough to operate when a fault
occurs under minimum fault conditions, yet be stable enough not to operate when
its associated equipment is carrying the maximum rated current, which may be a
short-time value. It must also be fast enough to operate in order to clear the fault
from the system quickly to minimise damage to system components and be reliable
in operation. Back-up protection to cover the possible failure of the main protection
is provided on most circuits in order to improve the reliability of the protection
system. While electromechanical relays can still be found in some utilities, the
tendency is to replace these by microprocessor and numerical relays, particularly in
the more complex protection arrangements.

1.2 Basic principles of electrical systems

The primary aim of any electricity supply system is to meet all customers’
demands for energy. Power generation is carried out wherever it achieves the
most economic selling cost overall. The transmission system is used to transfer
large amounts of energy to major load centres, while distribution systems carry
the energy to the furthest customer, using the most appropriate voltage level.
Where the transport of very large amounts of power over large distances is
involved, an extra high voltage (EHV) system, sometimes termed major or pri-
mary transmission, is required. Such systems operate in the >300-kV range,
typical values being 400, 500 and 765 kV.
High-voltage (HV) networks transport large amounts of power within a particular
region and are operated as either interconnected systems or discrete groups. Below the
transmission system, there can be two or three distribution voltage levels to cater for
the variety of customers and their demands. In general, the medium-voltage (MV)
networks and low-voltage (LV) networks are operated as radial systems.
Figure 1.1 illustrates the interrelation of the various networks. The HV
networks are supplied from EHV/HV substations that themselves are supplied by
inter-regional EHV lines. HV/MV transforming substations situated around each
HV network supply individual MV networks. The HV and MV networks provide
supplies direct to large customers, but the vast majority of customers are connected
at low voltage and supplied via MV/LV distribution substations and their asso-
ciated networks, as shown in Figure 1.2.

1.3 Protection requirements

The protection arrangements for any power system must take into account the
following basic principles:
1. Reliability: The ability of the protection to operate correctly. It has two
elements – dependability, which is the certainty of a correct operation on the
occurrence of a fault, and security, which is the ability to avoid incorrect
operation during faults.
 Introduction 3

EHV

EHV/HV
Major HV
substation

HV/MV

HV network

HV/MV

MV

MV
overhead MV cable
network network
To adjacent
MV
network

Urban distribution

Rural MV/LV
distribution
LV board

LV network

Generator Circuit breaker Feeder Customer

Transformer Disconnector Fuse

Figure 1.1 EHV/HV/MV/LV network arrangements [reproduced from LAKERVI, E.,

and HOLMES, E. J.: ‘‘Electricity distribution network design’’,
Peter Peregrinus, 1995, 2nd Edn.; revised 2003
4 Protection of electricity distribution networks

Generation

EHV
Generation

EHV/HV

HV

HV/MV

MV
Consumption

MV/LV

LV

Consumption

Figure 1.2 Block schematic of transmission and distribution systems [reproduced

from LAKERVI, E., and HOLMES, E. J.: ‘‘Electricity distribution
network design’’, Peter Peregrinus, 1995, 2nd Edn.; revised 2003]

2. Speed: Minimum operating time to clear a fault in order to avoid damage to

equipment.
3. Selectivity: Maintaining continuity of supply by disconnecting the minimum
section of the network necessary to isolate the fault.
4. Cost: Maximum protection at the lowest cost possible.
Since it is practically impossible to satisfy all the above-mentioned points
simultaneously, inevitably a compromise is required to obtain the optimum
protection system.
 Introduction 5

1.4 Protection zones

The general philosophy for the use of relays is to divide the system into separate zones,
which can be individually protected and disconnected on the occurrence of a fault, in
order to permit the rest of the system to continue in service wherever possible.
In general, a power system can be divided into protection zones – generators,
transformers, groups of generator transformers, motors, busbars and lines. Figure 1.3
shows a system with different protection zones. It should be noted that the zones
overlap at some points indicating that, if a fault occurs in these overlap areas, more
than one set of protection relays should operate. The overlap is obtained by connecting
the protection relays to the appropriate current transformers as illustrated in Figure 1.4.

M M
~ ~

Figure 1.3 Protection zones

1.5 Primary and back-up protection

All the elements of the power system must be correctly protected so that the relays
only operate on the occurrence of fault. Some relays, designated as unit type
6 Protection of electricity distribution networks

Busbar protection

Line protection

Figure 1.4 Overlap of protection zones

protection, operate only for faults within their protection zone. Other relays are able
to detect faults both within a particular zone and outside of it, usually in adjacent
zones, and can be used to back up the primary protection as a second line of
defence. It is essential that any fault is isolated, even if the associated main pro-
tection does not operate. Therefore, wherever possible, every element in the power
system should be protected by both primary and back-up relays.

1.5.1 Primary protection

Primary protection should operate every time an element detects a fault on the
power system. The protection element covers one or more components of the power
system, such as electrical machines, lines and busbars. It is possible for a power
system component to have various primary protection devices. However, this does
not imply that they all have to operate for the same fault, and it should be noted that
the primary protection for one item of system equipment might not necessarily be
installed at the same location as the system equipment; in some cases, it can be
sited in an adjacent substation.

1.5.2 Back-up protection

Back-up protection is installed to operate when, for whatever reason, the primary
protection does not work. To achieve this, the back-up protection relay has a sen-
sing element that may or may not be similar to the primary protection, but that also
includes a time-delay facility to slow down the operation of the relay so as to allow
time for the primary protection to operate first. One relay can provide back-up
protection simultaneously to different pieces of system equipment. Equally the
same equipment can have a number of different back-up protection relays, and it is
quite common for a relay to act as primary protection for one piece of equipment
and as back-up for another. It is convenient to introduce here the term ‘redundant’,
which is related to back-up. Redundant is a duplicate of a protective system.
Back-up oversees a protection scheme and its operation necessarily is delayed.
 Introduction 7

1.6 Directional protection

An important characteristic of some types of protection is their capacity to be able

to determine the direction of the flow of power and, by this means, their ability to
inhibit opening of the associated switch when the fault current flows in the opposite
direction to the setting of the relay. Relays provided with this characteristic are
important in protecting mesh networks, or where there are various generation
sources, when fault currents can circulate in both directions around the mesh.
In these cases, directional protection prevents the unnecessary opening of switch-
gear and thus improves the security of the electricity supply. On protection sche-
matic diagrams, the directional protection is usually represented by an arrow
underneath the appropriate symbol, indicating the direction of current flow for
relay operation.
Example 1.1: Using the power system shown in Figure 1.5, examples are given
where there has been incorrect operation of protection and the associated breakers,
leading to the operation of back-up protection to isolate the fault from the system,
followed by an example of correct relay operation, with a final example of unne-
cessary relay operation. The directional protection is indicated by the arrows below
the corresponding breakers.

A B C
G2 G3 G4
2 5 9

G1
1 3 4 6 10

F1 F2 F3

7 8 11

F4

Figure 1.5 Power system for Example 1.1

Table 1.1 shows the breakers that failed to open and those that were tripped by
the primary protection and by the back-up protection.
For fault F1, the protection correctly tripped breaker 4 to open one end of the
faulted feeder. With breaker 3 failing to open, breakers 1 and 2 were tripped by
back-up protection to stop fault current flowing into the fault from generators
8 Protection of electricity distribution networks

Table 1.1 Relay/breaker operations for Example 1.1

Case Breakers Breakers Tripped by Tripped by

that that primary back-up
operated maloperated protection protection
F1 1, 2, 4 3 4 1, 2
F2 3, 5, 8 6 – 3, 5, 8
F3 10 – 10 –
F4 8, 11 8 11 –

G1 and G2. With fault F2, when breaker 6 failed to operate, the directional pro-
tection on breakers 3 and 8 operated to open the incoming feeders from the adjacent
busbars, and the back-up protection on breaker 5 tripped to stop G3 feeding into
the fault.
Fault F3 was correctly cleared by the tripping of feeder breaker 10. Fault F4
was correctly cleared by the operation of breaker 11, so that the tripping of breaker

G1

1
Termoyumbo 115 kV

G2 2 3 4

F1 5 6 29
10
Bajo Anchicayá 115 kV Chipichape 115 kV San Luis 115 kV

9 28
11 12 13 14 7 8

15
20 27
Pailon 115 kV Chipichape 34.5 kV San Luis 34.5 kV

F3
16 21 22 26

17 18 23 24

Tabor 115 kV Diesel 34.5 kV

F2

19 25

G3

Figure 1.6 Schematic diagram for Exercise 1.1

 Introduction 9

8 was incorrect. Any fault current flowing along inter-busbar feeder 7–8 before
breaker 11 opened would have been from 7 to 8. Relay 8 is directional, and
operation should not have been initiated for flows from 7 to 8. Thus, the first two
cases illustrate maloperation from a dependability point of view, with the last one
illustrating maloperation from a security standpoint.

Exercise 1.1
For the power system arrangement shown in Figure 1.6, complete Table 1.2, taking
into account the operation of the circuit breakers as shown for each fault case.
Please note that, as in Example 1.1, some of the circuit breakers that operated may
have done so unnecessarily.

Table 1.2 Relay/breaker operations for Exercise 1.1

Case Breakers Breakers Tripped by Tripped

that that primary by back-up
operated maloperated protection protection
F1 2, 3, 4, 5 2, 5
F2 21, 22, 23, 24, 27
F3 10, 11, 17, 19