Busbar Protection

The word bus is derived from the Latin word omnibus which
means common for all.
Busbars are the nerve-centres of the power system where various
circuits are connected together. These are the nodes of the electrical
circuit. Figure 5.1 shows a busbar having an N, number of
incoming lines and an N2 number of outgoing lines. The protective
zone, to be generated by the protective relays, is also shown. It may
be noted that under the normal power flow condition the sum of
incoming currents is equal to the sum of outgoing currents, i.e


Problems caused by Inrush Phenomenon
Figure 1: Introduction to busbars
There is a large concentration of short-circuit capacity at the
busbars. A fault on the busbar, causes enormous damage.
When protective relays operate to isolate the busbar from the
system, there is a large disruption to the loads. Busbars are
located in switchyards, substations, and supply kiosks. The
switchyards are well shielded from direct lightening strokes
but because of their outdoor nature, are subject to the
vagaries of weather. The substations are well protected in all
respects and fault probability is indeed very low. Similarly,
supply kiosks are totally enclosed and sealed.
The causes of faults experienced on busbars are: weakening of
insulation because of ageing, corrosion because of salty water,
breakdown of insulation because of overvoltages, foreign
objects, and so on. For example, rodents, lizards and snakes are
known to have caused busbar faults in remote unmanned
substations.
Differential Protection of Busbars
Selection of CT Ratios in Case of Busbar Protection:
Wrong Method

Figure 2 shows a busbar, having two incoming feeders and one
outgoing feeder, being protected by a simple differential protection
scheme. The currents shown are for normal load flow. Let us decide
the CT ratios on the basis of maximum primary load current seen by
each CT. Thus, the CTs on the incoming feeder will have CT ratios of
1000/1 A and 2000/1 A, respectively. The CT on the outgoing feeder
will have a CT ratio of 3000/1 A. However, with this choice of CT
ratios, it can be seen from the diagram that there is a spill current even
during the healthy condition. Thus, the method of selecting CT ratio on
the basis of maximum primary current seen by the feeder is not
correct.
Figure 2. Wrong method of selection of CT ratios for
differential protection of busbars.
Selection of CT Ratios in Case of Busbar Protection:
Correct Method
Figure 3 shows the correct method of setting the CT ratios for the
busbar differential protection. It can be seen that the CT ratios of
all the CTs are equal and are based on the primary current of that
feeder which carries the maximum current. Thus, all the CT
Figure 3. Correct method of selection of CT ratios for
differential protection of busbars.
ratios are 3000/1 A. Therefore, there is no spill current through
the OC relay connected in the spill path and the scheme remains
stable. We draw an important rule for the selection of CT
ratios for all the CTs in a busbar differential protection,
namely:
External and Internal Fault
When the CT primary current, or the burden on it, is within its
design limits, the CT can indeed be assumed to be more or less
ideal. However, as the primary current exceeds the design value
or the CT burden (output of CT in VA) becomes excessive, the CT
no longer behaves in an ideal fashion then on-ideal behaviour of
the CT has very serious implications for the protective schemes.

Figure 4 shows currents during an external fault beyond CT
C
. It can
be seen that CT
C
, the CT on the faulted feeder, has to carry the sum
of all currents fed into the fault by various feeders. Therefore, CT
C

sees a substantially larger primary current than either CT
A
or CT
B
. In
all likelihood, CT
C
will therefore become saturated. We can,
therefore, no longer assume that CT
C
will faithfully transform the
fault current. For the sake of illustration, we have assumed that the
secondary current of CT
C
is only 4 A instead of 10 A. It can be
seen from Figure 4 that this results into a spill current of 6 A,
causing the scheme to maloperate, i.e. lose stability on external
fault.
Figure 4 : Behaviour of busbar differential scheme on external fault
In the worst case scenario, CT
A
and CT
B
continue to
transform faithfully as per their nameplate CT ratio but
CT
C
, which carries the total fault current, gets completely
saturated. This clearly indicates the occurrence of an
imbalance in transformed secondary currents, resulting in
substantial spill current. This situation most likely will
cause the scheme to operate. Operation of a differential
scheme under external faults is, therefore, clearly a case
of maloperation
Interestingly, as the fault shifts by a small distance to the left and
becomes an internal fault, still drawing the same current, the
situation dramatically changes as far as CT
C
is concerned. This is
depicted in Figure 5, wherein it can be seen that CT
C
now does not
carry any fault current (assuming a single-end-fed system with
source on left hand side). Since CT
A
and CT
B
are not carrying
excessive primary currents, they transform the current without too
much error. There is thus a spill current in the spill path and the
scheme operates as expected.
The maloperation of the busbar differential scheme on external
faults is caused due to non-ideal behaviour of a CT carrying
excessive primary current. It will, therefore, be pertinent, at this
point to take a closer look at the actual behaviour of protective
current transformers.
Figure 5 : Behaviour of busbar differential scheme on internal fault
Actual Behaviour of a Protective CT
Figure 6 shows the equivalent circuit of a current transformer
referred to the secondary side. R
p
and X
p
are the primary
winding resistance and leakage reactance, respectively, referred
to the secondary side. R
s
and X
s
are the resistance and leakage
reactance of the equivalent circuit (referred to secondary).
At low values of primary current Ip and therefore Is voltage
Es, to be induced by the secondary winding, which is
approximately equal to (Z
burden
* Is) , is quite low. The
working flux in the CT, which is equal to (Es/4.44 fN) is also
very low. The magnetizing current requirement is, therefore,
correspondingly low. Thus, the secondary current Is is
substantially equal to Ip/N.
If the primary current increases, initially, the secondary current
also increases proportionately. This causes the secondary
induced voltage to increase as well. Increased secondary
voltage can only be met with an increase in the working flux of
the CT. AS the flux increases, the transformer needs to draw a
higher magnetizing current. However, because of the nonlinear
nature of the B-H curve for the CT, as the knee of the
excitation characteristics is passed, any further increase in
flux demand causes a disproportionately large increase in
the magnetizing current requirement of the CT. This is
illustrated in Figure 5.7. It may also be noted that I, is no
longer sinusoidal and its waveform has a prominent peak.


Figure 6 Equivalent circuit of CT.
Figure 7 Operation of the CT beyond the knee point of the B-H
curve
As the primary current goes on increasing, a stage comes when the
magnetizing current requirement is so large that almost all the transformed
current is taken up by the CT for the sole purpose of magnetization, with
the result that there is hardly any current available for the burden. When this
occurs, it means that the CT is completely saturated.
The secondary induced voltage and burden current waveforms of a CT,
operating in saturation, are highly distorted. They, in fact, consist only of
sharp pulses near the zero-crossings of the primary current. This is shown in
Figure 8, where it can be seen that in order to reach the peak of the
sinusoidal flux waveform, the CT is driven deep into saturation. Due to
flatness of the excitation curve in this region, a very large amount of exciting
current is demanded by the CT. The waveform of the exciting current
becomes distorted and is, in fact, very peaky in nature.
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Circuit Model of Saturated CT
The circuit model consists of a current source of value (Ip/N) feeding
into a short circuit through Rp and Xp. The connections to the outside
world are available through Rs and Xs.
Figure 9 : Circuit Model of Saturated CT

External Fault with One CT Saturated: Need for
High Impedance Busbar Protection
Consider the external fault of 30,000 A, on the busbar shown in
Figure 4. Assuming that CT
C
gets completely saturated while CT
A

and CT
B
continue to operate normally, Figure 10 shows the
equivalent circuit as seen from the CT secondaries. Note that for
simplicity, all leakage reactances have been neglected. It can be
seen from Figure 10 that currents [(I
A
/N) I
0A
] and [(I
B
/N) I
0B
]
sum up and the resultant current has two parallel paths available.
One path is through the over-current relay and the other is
through (R
s
+ R
L
) via the short representing the saturated CT
magnetizing branch.
Thus, the part of fault current will flow through the over-current
relay, causing it to trip, even though the fault is external. Hence,
the OC relay needs to be restrained from tripping on external
faults (with one CT completely saturated). We can easily
accomplish this by connecting a high resistance (known as the
stabilizing resistance) in series with the OC relay. The
stabilizing resistance should be of such a value that under the
worst case of maximum external fault and full saturation of one
CT, the current through the OC relay is less than its pick-up value.
Such schemes are known as high impedance busbar
differential schemes.
Figure 10 Secondary equivalent circuit with one CT fully saturated
during external fault,