ASANSOL INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT – POLYTECHNIC

ASANSOL

Protective Relaying: 3.1 Zones of protection, primary & back-up Protection, Essential qualities of
protection, classification of protective schemes, basic relay terminology.
3.2 CT & PT used in protection: Requirements, Basic circuit diagram, working principle & application of
CVT and CCVT.
Pre-test:
1. What is a relay in power system?
2. What do you mean by instrument transformer?

Introduction: The objective of power system protection is to isolate a faulty section of electrical power
system from rest of the live system so that the rest portion can function satisfactorily without any severer
damage due to fault current. Actually circuit breaker isolates the faulty system from rest of the healthy system
and this circuit breakers automatically open during fault condition due to its trip signal comes from protection
relay.

Main Body:
Protection zone is defined as the part of the power system which is protected by a certain protective scheme. It
is established around each power system equipment. When the fault occurs on any of the protection zones then
only the circuit breakers within that zone will be opened. Thus, only the faulty element will be isolated without
disturbing the rest of the system. The various components which are provided with the protective zone are
generators, transformers, transmission lines, bus bars, cables, capacitors etc. The protection zone covers the
entire power system, and no part of the equipment is left unprotected.

Concept of primary and back up protection:

The protection provided by the protective relaying equipment can be categorized into two types as :
1. Primary protection
2. Backup protection.
The primary protection is the first line of defence and is responsible to protect all the power system
elements from all the types of faults. The backup protection comes into play only when the primary protection
fails.
The backup protection is provided as the main protection can fail due to many reasons like,
1.Failure in circuit breaker
2. Failure in protective relay
3. Failure in tripping circuit
4. Failure in d.c. tripping voltage
5. Loss of voltage or current supply to the relay
When the primary protection is made inoperative for the maintenance purpose, the backup protection acts like a
main protection. The arrangement of backup protective scheme should be such that the failure in main
protection should not cause the failure in back up protection as well. This is satisfied if back up relaying and
primary relaying do not have anything common. Hence generally backup protection is located at different
stations from the primary protection. From the cost and economy point of view, the backup protection is
employed only for the protection against short circuit and not for any other abnormal conditions.
Example: Consider the remote backup protection is provided by a small time graded relay, as shown in the
figure below. Let F be the fault occur on relay R4. The relay R4 operates the circuit breaker at D and isolate the
faulty section. Now if the circuit breaker D fails to operate, the faulty section would be isolated by the operation
of the relay R3 at C.

The use of the backup protection depends on the economics and technical consideration. The backup protection
usually for the economic reason not so fast as the main protection.

A protective relay is a device that detects the fault and initiates the operation of the circuit breaker to isolate
the defective element from the rest of the system.

The relays detect the abnormal conditions in the electrical circuits by constantly measuring the electrical
quantities which are different under normal and fault conditions. The electrical quantities which may change
under fault conditions are voltage, current, frequency and phase angle. Having detected the fault, the relay
operates to close the trip circuit of the breaker. This results in the opening of the breaker and disconnection of
the faulty circuit.

In order that protective relay system may perform this function satisfactorily, it should have the following
qualities:
(i) selectivity (ii) speed (iii) sensitivity (iv) reliability (v) simplicity (vi) economy
(i)Selectivity- It is the ability of the protective system to select correctly that part of the system in trouble and
disconnect the faulty part without disturbing the rest of the system. In order to provide selectivity to the system,
it is a usual practice to divide the entire system into several protection zones. When a fault occurs in a given
zone, then only the circuit breakers within that zone will be opened. This will isolate only the faulty circuit or
apparatus, leaving the healthy circuits intact.
(ii) Speed- The relay system should disconnect the faulty section as fast as possible for the following reasons:
(a) Electrical apparatus may be damaged if they are made to carry the fault currents for a long time.
(b) A failure on the system leads to a great reduction in the system voltage. If the faulty section is not
disconnected quickly, then the low voltage created by the fault may shut down consumers’ motors and the
generators on the system may become unstable.
(c) The high speed relay system decreases the possibility of development of one type of fault into the other
more severe type.
(iii) Sensitivity-It is the ability of the relay system to operate with low value of actuating quantity.
Sensitivity of a relay is a function of the volt-amperes input to the coil of the relay necessary to cause its
operation. The smaller the volt-ampere input required to cause relay operation, the more sensitive is the relay.
(iv) Reliability- It is the ability of the relay system to operate under the pre-determined conditions. Without
reliability, the protection would be rendered largely ineffective and could even be- come a liability.
(v) Simplicity: The relaying system should be simple so that it can be easily maintained. Reliability is closely
related to simplicity. The simpler the protection scheme, the greater will be its reliability.
(vi)Economy: The most important factor in the choice of a particular protection scheme is the economic aspect.
Sometimes it is economically unjustified to use an ideal scheme of protection and a compromise method has to
be adopted. As a rule, the protective gear should not cost more than 5% of total cost.

To measure the current and voltage of high magnitude we can transform the voltage or current down with
a transformer whose turns ratio is accurately known, then measuring the stepped down magnitude with a normal
range instrument. The original magnitude can be determined by just multiplying the result with the
transformation ratio. Such specially constructed transformers with accurate turns ratio are called as Instrument
transformers. These instruments transformers are of two types - (i) Current Transformers (CT) and
(ii) Potential Transformers (PT).
There are two types of instrument transformer.1-Current transformer 2-Potential transformer

The three main tasks of instrument transformers are:

1. To transform currents or voltages from a usually high value to a value easy to handle for relays and
instruments.
2. To insulate the metering circuit from the primary high voltage system.
3. To provide possibilities of standardizing the instruments and relays to a few rated currents and voltages.
Current Transformer:
Current transformers are generally used to measure currents of high magnitude. These transformers step
down the current to be measured, so that it can be measured with a normal range ammeter. A Current
transformer has only one or very few number of primary turns. The primary winding may be just a conductor or
a bus bar placed in a hollow core (as shown in the figure). The secondary winding has large number turns
accurately wound for a specific turns ratio. Thus the current transformer steps up (increases) the voltage while
stepping down (lowering) the current. Now, the secondary current is measured with the help of an AC ammeter.
The turns ratio of a transformer is NP / NS = IS / IP. Generally, current transformers are expressed in their
primary to secondary current ratio. A 100:5 CT would mean the secondary current of 5 amperes when primary
current is 100 amperes. The secondary current rating is generally 5 amperes or 1 ampere, which is compatible
with standard measuring instruments.

Current transformers are used extensively for measuring current and monitoring the operation of the power grid.
They are used to measure or monotor thecurrent in transmission line and to isolate the metering equipment and
relay connected to the secondary side.

Potential transformer:

Potential transformers are also known as voltage transformers and they are basically step down transformers
with extremely accurate turns ratio. Potential transformers step down the voltage of high magnitude to a lower
voltage which can be measured with standard measuring instrument. These transformers have large number of
primary turns and smaller number of secondary turns. A potential transformer is typically expressed in primary
to secondary voltage ratio. For example, a 600:120 PT would mean the voltage across secondary is 120 volts
when primary voltage is 600 volts.
 PT is used to measure or monotor thevoltage in transmission line and to isolate the metering
equipment from the lines.

Application of CVT and CCVT

A capacitor voltage transformer (CVT or CCVT), is a transformer used in power systems to step down extra
high voltage signals and provide a low voltage signal, for metering or operating a protective relay.

The device consists of three parts: two capacitors across which the transmission line signal is split, an inductive
element to tune the device to the line frequency, and a voltage transformer to isolate and further step down the
voltage for metering devices or protective relay.
The device has at least four terminals: a terminal for connection to the high voltage signal, a ground terminal,
and two secondary terminals which connect to the instrumentation or protective relay.
In practice, capacitor C1 is often constructed as a stack of smaller capacitors connected in series. This provides a
large voltage drop across C1 and a relatively small voltage drop across C2. As the majority of the voltage drop is
on C1, this reduces the required insulation level of the voltage transformer. This makes CVTs more economical
than the wound voltage transformers under high voltage (over 100kV), as the latter one requires more winding
and materials.
"Capacitive voltage transformers exist and are used by utilities for high-voltage (greater than 66 kV) metering.
CCVT means coupling capacitor voltage transformer.

Difference between a CT and PT:

Summary:
  Protection zone is defined as the part of the power system which is protected by a certain protective
scheme.
 The primary protection is the first line of defence and is responsible to protect all the power system
elements from all the types of faults. The backup protection comes into play only when the primary
protection fails.
 In order that protective relay system may perform this function satisfactorily, it should have the
following qualities:
(i) selectivity (ii) speed (iii) sensitivity (iv) reliability (v) simplicity (vi) economy
 Instrument transformers are special types of transformers intended to measure currents and voltages.

 These instruments transformers are of two types - (i) Current Transformers (CT) and (ii) Potential
Transformers (PT).
 Instrument transformer is used to transform currents or voltages from a usually high value to a value
easy to handle for relays and instruments.
 Current transformers are generally used to measure currents of high magnitude. These transformers
step down the current to be measured, so that it can be measured with a normal range ammeter.
 Potential transformers step down the voltage of high magnitude to a lower voltage which can be
measured with standard measuring instrument.
 The secondary winding of a CT has large number turns while PT has large number of turns in the
primary and smaller number of turns in the secondary side.
 A capacitor voltage transformer (CVT or CCVT), is a transformer used in power systems to step
down extra high voltage signals and provide a low voltage signal, for metering or operating a protective
relay.
 "Capacitive voltage transformers exist and are used by utilities for high-voltage (greater than 66 kV)
metering.
 CCVT means coupling capacitor voltage transformer.

Post test:
1. Write the concept of primary and back up protection.
2. What must be the Essential qualities of protection?
3. Write a short note on CVT.
Home assignment:
1. Write the difference between a CT and PT.
2. Write the working principle of a CT.