WHAT IS A PROTECTION ?

Why it is required?
Humans need protection from external disease , sun and
whether. All the internal parts of the human beings are
protected naturally. Heart and lungs are protected by ribs
bones from external impact. Brain is protected by skull.Eyes
are protected by eyelids and by closing eyes. We need
cloths to protect us from external environment conditions.

Similarly electrical equipment needs protection from

any external or internal faults which may produce a
detrimental effect on it.

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 What is protection?

• The process of keeping (something or

someone) safe and Secure

• Electrical equipment are protected from

abnormal conditions.

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Different parameter to measure the
fault
• Voltage
• Current
• Power
• Frequency
• Capacitance
• Inductance
• Resistance

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 Any abnormalities of these
parameter is fault
Protective relays finds, calculates and locate
the fault and display it and isolates the
faulty circuit.To prevent any further
damage to equipment.

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 Different protection is used to
locate the fault
• For voltage – Over voltage/under voltage
protection
• For current – Differential , over current and
fuse
• For power – Overload
• For lines- Distance relay

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Primary
Relaying Generator Protection

Circuit Breaker
Low voltage SG
Protection
Power Trans.
Protection

High voltage SG
Protection
Transmission line Prot.

High voltage SG
Protection

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 NEED OF TL PROTECTION

DUE TO GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION OF GENERATING

STATIONS PRACTICALLY ALL PRODUCED ELECTRIC
ENERGY IS TRANSMITTED OVER TRANSMISSION & SUB
TRANSMISSION LINES & THIS IS THE REASON WHY
OPERATIONAL REALIABILITY OF THE TRANSMISSION
NETWORKS IS OF VITAL IMPORTANCE.

THE TRANSMISSION LINES ARE THE MOST WIDELY

SPREAD PART OF THE POWER SYSTEM AND OVER
HEAD LINES ARE THE LEAST PROTECTED FROM
ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES.

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 Objective of Relay Protection
• Protect persons and equipment in the
surrounding of the power system

• Protect apparatus in the power system

• Separate faulty parts from the rest of

the power system to facilitate the
operation of the healthy part of the
system

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 Electrical faults in the
power system

• Transmission lines 85%

• Busbar 12%

• Transformer/ Generator 3%

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 Fault statistics

• Single phase to earth 80%

• Two phases to earth 10%
• Phase to phase faults 5%
• Three phase faults 5%

The probability of line faults caused by

lightnings are 0 - 2.3 faults/ 100 km and
year

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 Fault types
• Transient faults
– are common on transmission lines, approximately
80 - 85%
– lightnings are the most common reason
– can also be caused by birds, falling trees, swinging
lines etc.
– will disappear after a short dead interval
• Persistent faults
– can be caused by a broken conductor fallen down
– can be a tree falling on a line
– must be located and repaired before normal
service

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REQUIREMENTS OF PROTECTIVE RELAYS
SENSITIVITY : The relay shall be sensitive to operate for
minimum quantity of operating parameter.

SELECTIVITY: The relay/scheme should be able to select the

faulty section and isolate.

SPEED : The relay should operate faster so that fault is

isolated as fast as possible.

RELIABILITY : The relay/scheme should operate for all types

of faults with repeatability and reliability.

COST :The relay/scheme should be economical .

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 Measuring principles

• Overcurrent protection

• Differential protection

• Phase comparison

• Distance protection

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• Ohms Law:
• Voltage / Current = Resistance
• In AC, this constant is called IMPEDANCE
• Z=V/I
• We had studied this in School. We thought
Impedance is Constant. But, to understand the
basics of protection, let us examine Impedance
in detail.

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• Think of a sub station from where one
transmission line is taken out to another
sub station. Once the line is charged, we
can monitor the voltage and current on this
line through instrument transformers. V/I
gives impedance. Can this be constant?

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• A transmission line is made up of
aluminium conductors with a fixed
resistance per km (R). Once the line is
strung, the reactance (X) is also fixed
(depends on the tower configuration,
height from ground etc.). Impedance is
R+jX . So this should be constant. So ….

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• No. How to measure this impedance? V/I
gives only the Impedance seen from the
sub station. This contains the load effect
also. Hence, depending on the load
variation, the impedance seen is going to
vary.
• Then why we should monitor V/I?
• Due to load variation, V/I will vary in a
limited Range.

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• During fault, like a tree touching the conductor,
the Current will shoot up and voltage will
collapse. Thus V/I will change rapidly.
• Impedance Relays or Distance Relays work on
this principle. When the impedance seen by the
relay is reduced within the set limits, the relay
operates and trip the Circuit Breaker.
• E.g. YTG, RAZFE, Micro Mho, LZ96, Numerical
Relays

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• For Protecting a transmission line, the best
method is Impedance Protection. We can
also use a current comparison method. In
this method, the currents at both ends of
the line are continuously compared at both
ends (other end information through
Power Line Carrier Communication), and
in case of non-match, a trip is generated.
(e.g. P40)

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• For protecting a transformer, we can compare
the currents on High Voltage Side and Low
Voltage side. It should match as per the
transformer ratio. This comparison is used in
Differential Protection.
• In a shunt reactor, the currents on the HV side
and Neutral ends are Compared.
• E.g. RADSB

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• To protect a transformer or reactor,
another important protection is “Restricted
Earth Fault” (REF). The sum of current
entering and leaving a transformer or
reactor is zero. After paralleling all CT’s,
the relay is connected across to monitor
the spill current which occurs if there is
earth fault within the protected area.

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• Transformer is also protected with Directional
Over Current Relays where the power flow
direction is also measured by monitoring current
and voltage.
• Reactor is also protected with Impedance Relay
(Backup Impedance) where the winding
impedance is monitored like a Line Distance
Protection.

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• Another protection of transformer is Over
Fluxing: Here the V/f ratio is monitored from the
Bus Voltage.
• In addition to these, transformer and reactors
are having mechanical protections like :
Pressure Release Device, Winding Temperature
Indicator, Oil Temperature Indicator, Oil Surge
Relay, Gas Operated Relay (Buchholz). A
contact from these mechanical relays operate
the trip relay to trip the circuit breaker.

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• Transformers are also having Alarms for
Buchholz, WTI, OTI, Magnetic Oil Gauge.
If the transformer is provided with “OF” (Oil
Forced) ie., pumps, and “AF” (Air Forced)
ie., fans, they are automatically switched
ON and OFF through WTI contacts. The
WTI is also wired for control room
indication.

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• All electrical protections require Voltage or
Current or Both. The current is taken from
the Bay CT or Bushing CT or Line CT. To
sum up the current, the main and tie bay
CT secondary will be paralleled.
• The Voltage for transformer protection is
taken from Bus CVT. For the line, it is from
Line CVT.

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• A “Zone of Protection” will be decided by the CT
location.
• 400KV CT’s are having 5 cores. 2 cores are
used for Bus Bar Protection, 2 cores are used
for Line / Transformer Protection and the centre
one ie., Core 3 is used for metering.
• CVT is having 3 cores : 2 for protection and 1 for
metering.

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• The sub station has 2 sets of 220 Volts batteries. They
produce DC-1 and DC-2. This supply is used for
powering the relays. The relays generally work at 48
Volts. For this purpose, it uses DC-DC converters to step
down from 220V to 48V.
• 1 or 2 sets of 48V batteries are used to power up PLCC
and similar equipment.
• The entire protection and operation system covering
circuit breaker Trip Coil 1, 2 , Closing Coil, Isolator
opening and closing contactor coils etc., are permanently
connected to ‘-’ ve of the DC

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• The ‘+’ ve for these are provided in a
controlled way to get the desired
operation.
• E.g. When we hand trip a breaker, + is
extended to the TC-1 and TC-2 which will
operate the breaker.
• When a protection operates, + is extended
to correct breakers, PLCC panel etc.

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• The wiring in the sub station is most important to
have correct trippings, avoiding open circuit of
CT.
• The protection system consists of Instrument
Transformers – Wiring Scheme – Relays –
Wiring Scheme – Breaker.
• Out of these, CT is provided with 2 wires per
secondary to avoid failure. In case of failure of
Line CVT, Bus CVT voltage can be used.

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• The relays are mostly duplicated and working
parallelly and independently. For line they are
called Main-I and Main-II.
• The circuit breaker trip coils are continuously
monitored for its continuity. The breaker is
having 2 trip coils which are acting parallelly and
independently. The breaker readiness is further
ensured by monitoring the air pressure, gas
pressure etc.

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• Still if a breaker fails to operate due to any
problem like mechanical etc., the Local Breaker
Backup (LBB) or Breaker Failure Relay (BFR)
will operate to trip other related breakers to clear
the fault. The LBB monitors the circuit current for
200 milli second after a trip command to the
breaker, and if the circuit current is persisting,
LBB trips all connected breakers. This can lead
to tripping of Bus Bar, other end of line etc.

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• To trip a line, it is required to trip Main breaker,
tie breaker and other end Main and tie breakers.
The other end tripping is achieved through
PLCC codes. While tripping the second local
breaker or during protection operation, PLCC
panel will get triggering to generate the code
and transmit to other end. Once the other end
PLCC panel get the code, it will trip those
breakers.

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• The distance relay require voltage and current
inputs. Since the relay has got some processing
delay, it require some memory to store the
voltage before it can collapse. But if the line is
charged to a fault, voltage may not build up at
all. The distance relay may not get any voltage.
There is one feature in distance relay : Switch
On To Fault (SOTF). If the relay gets current and
no voltage from idle condition, SOTF will trip the
breaker.

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• The line is divided into Zone 1, Zone 2, Zone 3 for the
distance protection. If the impedance set in the relay
corresponds to 80% of the line, it is Z1. It will trip
immediately. Z2 covers 60% of next line also. Z2 will
operate after 0.5 sec. Z3 covers further lines and operate
after 1.5 sec.
• While tripping one end in Z1, it will send a PLCC code to
other end. If the other end is picked up in Z2, on receipt
of this code, it will trip immediately without waiting up to
0.5 sec.

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• A slow reduction in Impedance can
happen during load changes due to fault in
other lines. If this happens, it is called
“Power Swing”. The distance relay can
block its operation if it finds a power swing.
This will allow temporary overloading of
the line to save other systems.

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• What happens if the fuse of CVT fails?
• The voltage to the distance relay collapses and
still current is there. It can trip the line. To save
the line, Fuse Failure Relay is used. FFR gets 2
sets of voltage from the CVT. One set is given to
the distance relay also. If only one side voltage
is absent in the FFR, it will block the operation of
the distance relay.

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 BUS BAR PROTECTION
Bus bar is subdivided into sections, each of which is separately
protected. A fault in one section does not involve the tripping of the
complete station. Important load can be supplied from the healthy
sections, and will not suffer any interruption of supply if one section
is tripped. Bus bar protection is stable and free from thro’ faults.

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 SYNCHRONIZING SCHEME
CHECK SYNCHRONIZING RELAY: Generally used in auto re closing
sequencing of inter connector along with auto re closing relay. The relay
contacts are connected in series with the circuit breaker closing circuit and
ensures that the differences in phase voltage and frequency are with in pres
selected limit before closing up two section of a power system .

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 V.T. SUPERVISION:
The Ac voltage connection and circuits of distance relays are normally protected
by fuses. The voltage transformer supervision unit uses filters o derive the NPS
(negative phase sequence) components of the line voltage and line currents,
with level detectors to determine whether these components are above the set
levels. Under healthy system conditions, both NPS voltage and NPS current
levels are below the set levels and the VTS unit does not operate. An
unbalanced fault on the primary transmission systems causes both NPS voltage
and NPS current to be above threshold and again the VTS unit does not operate.
Only an unbalanced fault in the voltage transformer circuit causes NPS voltage
above setting without detectable NPS current and cause VTS to operate. In case
of all the three fuses getting opened, VTS will not operate. TO overcome this
eventuality, a separate voltage sensitive circuit is connected across one of the
fuses.

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 AUTOMATIC SWITCH ON TO FAULT PROTECTION
The switch on to fault system detection is activated by using an external
breaker closing signal. The breaker close signal is used in applications where
the voltage transformers are placed on the bus side of the line circuit breaker.
When activated the switch on to fault protection will stay activated for some
fixed duration (say 1 sec). Faults occurring during this period will be tripped
instantaneously. Faults occurring after this fixed time period will be measured
in the normal way.

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 STUB PROTECTION
When a line is supplied via two circuit breakers in a 1-½ breaker bus
arrangement, the line protection includes the area between the two CT’s.
However, when the line isolator is open, the line CVT’s for the distance
protection are connected to the line and cannot provide the correct voltage
for the stub end, the area between the line isolator and CT’s. To provide
protection for a fault in this area, stub protection is provided which gives an
over current trip if the line isolator is open and the current exceeds the set
value in each phase. Separate DC logic is provided for connection of line
isolator auxiliary contact.

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AUTO RECLOSING
As 80 % - 90 % of the faults in power system are transient in
nature auto re closure scheme s are employed to successfully
restore the system stability and synchronism
Lightning is the most common cause of transient faults, other
possible faults being swinging of wires and temporary contacts of
foreign objects.

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TYPES OF DISTANCE RELAYS EMPLOYED
STATIC RELAYS:
MICHRO MHO (GEC)
LZ 96 (ABB)
RAZFE (ABB)
NUMERICAL RELAYS:
1) REL 100(ABB)

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 OPERATION INDICATORS
Protective systems are invariably provided with indicators also called as
flags. The indicators may be simple armature elements either with or
without contacts. Operation of the armature releases a shutter to expose an
indicator.
SUPERVISION OF TRIP CIRCUITS
The trip circuit extends beyond the relay enclosure and passes through
more components, such as fuses, links, relay contacts, auxiliary switch
contacts and so on, and in some cases through a considerable amount of
circuit wiring with intermediate terminal boards.

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 Switch on to Fault (SOTF)

The protection is provided with switch onto

fault feature to cater to breaker closing
onto forgotten earthing device. This also
takes care of auto reclosing on to a
permanent fault. Automatic switch onto
fault takes care of configurations where
Line PT is used as voltage input to the
distance terminal.

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 FUSE FAIL SUPERVISION
• THIS FUCTION IS BASED ON CONDITION
3UO > 20 % OF Un / Ö 3 AND 3IO < 20 % OF In
• IT CAN BE SELECTED TO BLOCK PROTECTION
AND GIVE ALARM OR JUST TO GIVE ALARM.

• FUSE FAIL SUPERVISION IS BLOCKED FOR 200ms

FOLLOWING:
LINE ENERGISATION IN ORDER NOT TO OPERATE
FOR UNEQUAL POLE CLOSING AND ALSO DURING
AUTORECLOSING.

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53
SYSTEM SUPERVISION.

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