EE4209 Power System Protection

Fall 2023
Lecture 1

Akbar Ali Khan

1st Floor, IEECE, PU
Office hours:
Tue 10.30-11.30am, Thu 9.30-10.30am, Fri 2-4pm
email: Akbar.ee@pu.edu.pk
Pre-Requisite(s)
EE 4106 Power System Analysis

Learning Objectives (CLOs)

CLOs Description PLO
Acquire basic knowledge of protection system attributes and
CLO-1 associated equipment/instruments. 1

Evaluate protection schemes for various aspects of power system.

CLO-2 2
 Marking Scheme

• Mid-term 35 Marks
• Final-term 40 Marks
• Quizzes 15 Marks
Can be announced/surprised
• Assignments 10 Marks
 Recommended Books
[1] Fundamentals of Power System Protection by Y.G. Paithankar and S.R.
Bhide, 2nd Ed, 2010
[2] Protective Relaying; Principles and Applications, by J. Lewis Blackburn,
Thomas J. Domin, 4th Ed, 2014
[3] Power System Relaying by Stanley H. Horowitz and Arun G. Phadke, 4th
Ed, 2014.
Supplementary/Additional Books
[4] Power System Analysis by John J. Grainger and William D. Stevenson, 13th
Reprint, 2003.
[5] Power System Analysis and Design by J. Duncan Glover, Thomas J.
Overbye, and Mulukutla S. Sarma, 6th Ed, 2017.
[6] Practical Power System Protection by L.G Hewitson, Mark Brown and
Ramesh Balakrishanan, 2004
Introduction: Necessity of Protection in Power System
• Ideal requirement from power systems:
> To meet exact user load demand, at exactly required voltage and
frequency
> To maintain stable supply of power, with minimum outage, in case
of inevitable disturbances

• Disturbances in the operation of Power systems is highly likely owing to

> natural events -> lightning, wind, ice, earthquake, fire, falling trees,
physical contact by animals, contamination.
> physical accidents -> vehicles hitting poles, accidental (human) contact
with live equipment, digging into underground cables.
> equipment failure -> permanent damage due to high fault current flow for
longer period
> human error -> Miscalculations, bypassing protection system, incorrect
pole placement, sag management
Introduction: Necessity of Protection in Power System

The Art Typical Artist for DTs (Pak)

Introduction: Necessity of Protection in Power System
• Considerable effort is made to minimize these disturbance possibilities, but
complete elimination is nearly impossible.

• Both failure to operate and incorrect operation can result in major system
upsets involving increased equipment damage, increased personnel
hazards, and possible long interruption of service.

• These disturbances commonly called as faults, are typically correspond to

very large current and low voltage in power system.

• Overcurrent can cause overheating, risk of fire, weakening of insulation,

mechanical stress on preceding equipment and risk of generator swing
instability.
Introduction: Necessity of Protection in Power System

• In the wake of such disturbances, the challenge is to restrict the

disturbances during such failures to a limited area and continue power
distribution in the balanced areas.

• Special equipment is normally installed to detect such kind of failures

(typically called ‘faults’) that can possibly happen in various sections of a
system, and to isolate faulty sections so that the interruption is limited to a
localized area in the total system. These equipment are termed as
‘protective relay’ and the process is referred as ‘protective relaying’.
Protective Relaying
• As per IEEE definition, “protective relay is a relay whose function is to detect
defective lines or apparatus or other power system conditions of an abnormal or
dangerous nature and to initiate appropriate control circuit action” (IEEE 100,
2000).

• Another important device to detect and isolate faulty system is a fuse which is
“an over-current protective device with a circuit-opening fusible part that is
heated and severed by the passage of the overcurrent through it” (IEEE 100,
2000).

• Protective relay is a low power device, used for detection and signaling only.

• Protective relay is accompanied by circuit breakers (or contactors in some cases),

who by virtue of arc quenching mechanism, physically breaks the connection by
separating its contacts.
A typical relay system
A typical relay system comprises of:

• Sensing devices -> Current Transformer (CT),

Potential/ Voltage Transformers(PT/VT)

• Signal conditioning network -> To transform the

output of CT and VT into signal input

• Relay circuit -> Decide for abnormal condition in

target quantity (current, voltage, frequency etc.)
and generate trip signal

• Switching device [e.g., circuit breaker (CB)] -> • Conventional Nomenclature and Device
Isolate the fault by opening circuits Numbers in one-line diagrams -> See Article
1.4 in [2]
• Auxiliary power source (battery) -> Supply DC to
protective relay and breaker trip coil
Types of Fault
• From protection perspective, faults can be
classified into two broad categories:
Shunt faults (short circuits)
Series faults (open circuits)

• Shunt faults (short circuits)

> Insulation breakdown or
> direct contact among different phases/
phase(s) to ground
> provides a low resistive i.e. high current
path among effected phases
Types of Faults
• A shunt fault can correspond to
> Complete short circuit -> Metallic or bolted fault offering effectively
zero fault resistance. Complete load current is bypassed through this.
or > Partial short circuit -> Some effective resistance in the fault path such as
resistance of arc flashover

• Failure of insulation can be due to

Weakening of insulation for reasons like Ageing, temperature, rain, snow,
chemical pollution etc.
External factors such as lightning or switching.

• Insulation breakdown can be temporary fault. Can be cleared with small circuit
interruption
• Reclosing is used to handle this, typically upto 3 in low voltage networks, once in
HV systems
Types of Faults
• Shunt faults have further classification as
Phase faults: Faults involving 2+ phase conductors, with/without ground
Ground faults: Faults involving one of the phase conductors and ground

• Probability of occurrence
L-G fault 85% (least severe)
L-L fault 8%
L-L-G fault 5%
L-L-L 2% (most severe)
Also
Overhead lines 50%; underground cables 9%; transformers 10%;
Generators 7%; switchgear 12%; CT, PT, control equipment (12%)
Types of Faults
• Series faults (open circuits)

Simply a break in the path of current

Usually not dangerous unless broken conductor touches other
conductor or some grounded part
In practice, most of the open conductor faults (series faults) sooner or
later develop into short circuits (shunt faults)

But

Open circuit can be dangerous in some cases e.g. secondary of CT, field
circuit of DC shunt machine
Attributes required in protective relay
• Ideal target of protection system is to isolate the faulty portion quickly, while the
unaffected part of the system can continue to function

• Protection relaying system does not prevent the fault rather minimize the
abnormal behavior time and optimally sectionalizing the healthy part.

• A protection relay system needs to have following attributes

i. Reliability
ii. Selectivity
iii. Speed
iv. Sensitivity
v. Simplicity
vi. Economics
Attributes required in protective relay
i. Reliability
Reliability has two aspects: dependability and security.

Dependability is “the degree of certainty that a relay or relay system will operate
correctly”. (IEEE C37.2-2008)

It is easy to determine dependability by testing that it will operate as required.

Security “relates to the degree of certainty that a relay or relay system will not
operate incorrectly”.

Determining security is not straightforward as there might be almost infinite variety

of transients that might upset the protective system undesirably.

Typically security and dependability has a trade off i.e. enhancing one aspect
decreases other.
Attributes required in protective relay
i. Reliability

• For the scenario in the given example,

the fault at ‘F’ needs B1 and B2 to be
operated (via R1,R2)

• If R2 doesn’t operate B2, it is loss of

dependability.

• If R5 operates B5 instead/before R2
operated B2, it is loss of security.
Attributes required in protective relay
ii. Selectivity
Relays have an assigned area known as the primary protection zone.

The relays may operate in response to conditions outside their primary

zone. This is designated as the backup or overreached zone.

Selectivity, also known as relay coordination, is the process of applying

and setting the protective relays in terms of zones

The relays operate as fast as possible within their primary zone. But have
delayed operation in backup zone.

Operation of the backup protection is incorrect and undesirable unless

the primary protection of that area doesn’t respond in time.
Attributes required in protective relay
ii. Selectivity
The relay system is secure if it operates properly within its defined zones

Typically CT and CB combinedly define the zone. CT sense the normality of

the given zone and corresponding CB isolates it when needed.

All sections/components of given power system must be within at least one

zone

Zones must have small overlap to avoid any component left unprotected

For a fault within a zone, all CBs of that zone operate to isolate that region

For a fault in overlapping section, all CBs of overlapping zones operate to

isolate a larger region of power system.
Attributes required in protective relay
ii. Selectivity

• F1 is in transmission line protection zone, B1,B2 has to be operated.

• F2 is in overlap zone, of T.L. and bus, so will cause B1,B2,B3,B4 to operate.

• F3 is in open zone, B6 has to be operated; B5 is backup.

Attributes required in protective relay
iii. Speed
It is desirable that the protection isolates a trouble zone as rapidly as possible
(but as per system/zonal requirement).

Zero-time or very-high-speed protection, although inherently desirable, may result in an

increased number of undesired operations.

As a broad generality, the faster the operation, the higher the probability of incorrect
operation.

High-speed relay [IEEE Std. 100-2000] -> that operates in less than 50 ms (3-cycles on a
60 Hz frequency)
Instantaneous relay [IEEE Std. 100-2000] -> when no time delay is purposely introduced
in the action of the device.
Ultrahigh speed -> This term is not included in the Relay Standards but is commonly
considered to be operated in 4 ms or less.
Modern high-speed CBs operate in the range of 17-50 ms (1-3 60 Hz cycles). While the
total clearing time (relays plus CB) is usually 35 -130 ms (2-8 60 Hz cycles).
Relay speed is especially important in a stability-sensitive area
Attributes required in protective relay
iv. Sensitivity
The Relay System should be able to detect the smallest margin of abnormal condition.
The smaller the faulty condition a relay can detect, the more sensitive it is.

v. Simplicity
A Relay system should be as simple as possible in understanding and operation. i.e. it
should operate with minimum equipment and circuitry and be easier to operate and
understand.
Each additional component provides a potential source of trouble (incorrect
operation) and added maintenance.

vi. Economics
Maximum Protection at minimum cost
Initial cost is not the only factor; installation, operation and risk of outage/damage due to
cost compromise should also be considered.
Factors affecting the choice of Protection System
• Economics

• Personality Factor

• Location of measuring and switching equipment

• Significant Fault Indicator

Primary and Breakup Protection
• For a given zone, the main protection assembly is applied to operate as fast as possible, removing
the least amount of power system region.

• In some cases, the protection system fails to operate.

• On EHV system, a duplicate protection system is also applied sometimes. i.e. another relay/set of
relay being applied in same system to cover up for any failure of operation of 1st relay.

• The alternative of duplicate relay is backup protection relay system.

• Backup relays are typically slower that primary relays and removes a larger zonal area.

• Another type of relay used for increased dependability is breaker failure relay. Its timer energises
with the trip signal to breaker and de-energises with clearance of fault. But if fault current persists
longer than the anticipated delay, it trips all backup breakers that can clear the fault.
Primary and Breakup Protection
• Backup Relays can be local backup or remote backup. Local Backup may use some
of the common elements with primary system such as battery, transducers etc.
• Remote Backup can be out of the substation/primary location and have no
common elements. But may not see all the faults and isolates even larger region.

• Identify primay, duplicate and backups

for fault ‘F’?