Enrolment Code: 285796413

Fundamentals of Power
System Protection

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 Evolution of Power System
An electrical power system is a tool for converting and transporting energy

Transmission:
Connecting links between the
Generation: generating stations and
• Thermal distribution system and leads
Distribution:
• Hydroelectric to other power stations over Supply to individual loads
• Renewable interconnections
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 Evolution of Power System ..
 Power system has evolved from
 DC to AC and again started to convert to DC.
 Isolated power systems feeding their own loads to huge
interconnected power systems spanning an entire country or
region.
 Low-voltage systems to high-voltage systems
 Low-power handling capacities to high-power handling
capacities.
 The requirements imposed on the protective system
are closely linked to the nature of the power system.

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 War of currents
 War of currents between DC and AC
 Edison developed direct current - current that runs
continually in a single direction. But problem was the
conversion of voltage levels.
 Nicola Tesla believed that alternating current (or AC)
was the solution to this problem, due to the invention
of transformers.
 Due to the invention of HVDC converters, DC voltage
conversion is also possible.
 So, the war of currents is not over, and both systems
are expected to be run in parallel.
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 Isolated Power Systems
 Simpler systems
 No synchronization requirements.
 Does not suffer from stability problem as faced by a multi
machine system.
 Example:
 Emergency diesel generator powering the uninterrupted
power supplies as well as critical auxiliaries in a thermal or
nuclear power station.
 Fault handling
 Easy to handle due to lower magnitudes of fault currents.
 However, fault will lead to blackout, unless there is a back up
source of power.

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 Interconnected Power Systems

 Modern power supply systems

are all interconnected systems.
 Continuity of service
 Power maybe fed from alternate
paths.
 Economic Load Dispatch
 Reduced generation cost.

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 Interconnected Power Systems ..
Negative Synergy:
 Increase the requirements of newer and modern
protection design.
 The integrity of the whole system is endangered due to
possibility of disturbance propagation.
 Possibility of cascade tripping due to loss of stability.
• Angle stability
• Voltage stability
 Possibility of cyber attacks
 Undesirable effects, such as harmonic distortion,
propagate throughout the system rather than remain
localized.
 Increase the filtering requirements
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 Importance of PSP
 Why design Power System Protection?
 To minimize damage to life, equipment and property
 To ensure the maximum continuity in supply of electricity
 To mitigate the effect of faults
 Protection engineer needs to understand.
 Fault characteristic of individual power system elements
 Closest possible match between fault characteristics and
tripping characteristics of relay
 Protection engineering tends to be an art where an engineer
has to mark a balance between the threat and the level of
protection offered by an additional relay.

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 Types of Faults
 No power system can be designed failsafe, the failures
in the power system are called faults.
 The job of protection system is to mitigate the effect
of fault and limit the disturbance to smallest possible
time and area.
 Two major kind of faults are
 Shunt Fault
 Series Fault

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 Series Fault
 Series faults are nothing but a break in the path of
current.
 Less common nature of faults
 Series fault itself does not cause any harm other that
power supply interruption.
 It can be converted into shunt fault if broken
conductor touches other conductor or ground.
 Most of the series fault eventually turn into short circuits.
 Open circuit can also have dangerous consequences
 Open secondary of a current transformer
 Open field winding of dc machine
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 Shunt Faults

 The abnormal flow of current to undesired path.

 Fault creates a shunt or parallel path to the flow of
current.
 Permanent fault
• Phase conductor is directly connected to ground through grounding
resistance or metallic short circuit (no grounding resistance)
 Temporary / transient fault
• Can be cleared if the path of the fault arc is cut

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 Classification
a
b
c
Asymmetrical Symmetrical

 Symmetrical Faults (Most sever faults)

 All three phases are equally involved in the short circuit
 Triple line (LLL) fault
 Triple line to ground (LLLG) short circuit fault.
 Asymmetrical Faults
 Asymmetrical or unbalanced faults involve one or two
phases in the short circuit
 Line to ground (LG) fault (Least severe fault)
 Line to line (LL) fault
 Double line to ground (LLG) fault
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 Classification ..
 Ground faults involve only one of the phase
conductors and ground
 Phase faults involve two or more phase conductors,
with or without ground.
 Fault severity
 Expressed in terms of the magnitude of the fault current and
hence its potential for causing damage
 Most severe fault: three-phase fault
 Least severe fault: single line-to-ground fault

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 Statistics
 Overhead transmission lines: 45 – 55% Insulator
 Line to ground faults: 80 – 90% Flashover
 Double-line faults: 6 – 10% Mostly
 Double-line-to-ground faults: 3 – 7% temporary in
 Triple-line faults: 2% or less nature

 Underground cables: 8 – 12%

 Switchgears: 13 – 17%
 Power transformers: 10 – 14%
 CTs and PTs: 1 – 3%
 Control-circuit equipment: 2 – 4%
 Miscellaneous: 7 – 9% 14
 Insulator flashover
 The most common cause of
temporary fault is insulator
flashover
 Partial short circuit through
fault arc across spark gap
across insulator.
 One of the major causes of
shunt fault is the flashover
across insulator.
 An arc is produced across the
insulator string, creating a
short circuit between phase
conductor and ground.
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 Insulator flashover
Arc modelling
 Arc is highly non-linear phenomenon
 Arc can be represented by non-linear
resistor using various models.
 One of the commonly used model is
Warrington model
𝟖𝟕𝟓𝟎(𝑺 + 𝟑𝒖𝒕)
𝑹𝒂𝒓𝒄 =
𝑰𝟏.𝟒

 S Spacing (feet)
 u Air velocity (mph)
 t time (seconds)
 I Fault current (A)

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 Causes of shunt faults
 Shunt faults (insulation breakdown or insulator
flashover) are mainly the failure of insulation.
 Insulation breakdown maybe due to its own
weakening
 Ageing
 Temperature
 Chemical pollution
 Overvoltage due to lightening or switching surges
 Impact of foreign objects
 Insulator flashover
 Lightening
 Environmental pollution
 Humidity
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 Effects of shunt faults
Thermal damage
 High magnitudes (2 to 10 pu) of fault current could cause
excessive heating to the electrical equipment.
 Over-currents, in general, cause overheating and attendant
danger of fire.
 Temperature could exceed the thermal withstand level of
insulation.
 The insulation can thermally breakdown resulting into
another fault in the absence of remedial steps.
 Thermal breakdown occurs after a certain time depending
on the amount of fault current.
 Overheating also causes deterioration of the insulation,
thus weakening it further, resulting in reduced service life
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 Effects of shunt faults
Electrodynamic damage
 In case of severe fault current (8-10pu) repelling
electromagnetic forces could be generated within
different power system components
 It can lead to mechanical destruction to electric
equipment.
 Two current-carrying conductors experience a force.
 This force can go out of bounds during faults, causing
mechanical distortion and damage.
 Transformers are known to have suffered mechanical
damage to their windings, due to faults.
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 Effects of shunt faults
𝑋𝑆
Stability damage 𝐸𝐴 ~ 𝑉∅

 Power transfer from generator to load or network is

proportional to the voltage angle of EA with respect to Vϕ.
Considering single phase
𝑉∅ 𝐸𝐴
𝑃= sin 𝛿
𝑋𝑆
 Under balanced operation mechanical input is set to adjust rotor
angle according to load demand or active power setting.
 The electrical power output from an alternator near the fault
drops sharply.
 The mechanical power input remains substantially constant at
its pre-fault value.
 This causes the alternator to accelerate.
 Alternators maystart swinging with respect to each other.
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 Effects of shunt faults
Stability damage ..
 If the power system just consisted of isolated alternators
feeding their own loads, then the steady-state fault
currents would not be much of a concern.
 Thus, in an interconnected power system, the system
stability is at stake.
 If fault is not timely localized, it can result in cascaded
tripping of all generators due to loss of synchronism,
ultimately resulting in blackout in larger areas.
 Therefore, the faults need to be isolated as selectively and
as speedily as possible.
 It is considered as the possible cause of blackout in
Pakistan on 9th January, 2020.
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 Auto-Reclosing
 The power arc between two phases or flashover across line
insulator due to overvoltage is a transient fault.
 According to one estimate, only 5% of the power system
faults are permanent. Majority of faults are transient or
semi-transient in nature.
 If arc path is allowed to de-ionise for sufficient time by
interrupting the electric power supply, the arc will not
restore on power supply recovery.
 The process of interruption followed by intentional
restoration of power supply is known as auto-reclosing.
 In low-voltage systems up to three reclose attempts are
usually made.
 However, only one reclose attempt is allowed in EHV
systems where the damage due to short circuit may be
very large and the system stability at stake.
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 General outcomes of fault
 Short circuit fault is associated with
 Rise in current
 Drop in voltage
 Unbalance of the phases
 If the fault is a metallic fault, the voltage at the fault
location become zero.
 The voltage at the terminals of the generator will also
drops as impact of fault travels to the generator
terminals.
 Normally the relay is away from the fault location. A
fault is characterized by
 a build-up of current
 collapse of voltage
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General outcomes of fault ..

As compared to pre-fault
condition, the fault voltage at
the relay location is
 Lower in magnitude
 Lags in phase

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General outcomes of fault ..

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Phasor diagrams

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Phasor diagrams..

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 Abnormal operating conditions
 There is no crisp boundary between the normal and
fault state.
 Although fault is also an abnormal situation.
 Certain operating conditions inherent to the operation
of the power system which are definitely not normal,
but these are not electrical faults either.
 Examples are
 Magnetizing inrush current of a transformer
• May be up to 10 times higher than normal current
 Starting current of an induction motor
• 5 or 6 times the motor full load current
 Conditions during power swing

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 Abnormal operating conditions ..
 Magnitude wise, the currents under many abnormal
operating conditions may qualify as faults
 But there is no need to provide protection from them.
 Thus, the protection system must be able to
discriminate between the abnormal operating
conditions and faults.
 Such handling in protection strategy design may also
reduce the sensitivity of fault detection.
 So, there is always a need to compromise the
sensitivity to avoid unnecessary tripping.
 00% prevention of faults may not be guaranteed by
any protection system.
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 Purpose of Protection System
 Fault detection – Relay
should be able to
 Detect the fault with the help
of electrical quantities
(currents and voltages)
 Differentiate the faulty
section from healthy system

 Fault – Isolation
 Isolation of only the faulty section from the healthy system
 Avoid the disturbance due to fault to travel to the healthy system
 A typical relay spends all of its life monitoring the power
system.
 It is said that a relay operates far more number of times during
testing and maintenance than during actual fault.
 Thus, relaying is like an insurance against damage due to faults.
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 Attributes of Protection System
 Sensitivity
 The protective system must be alive to the presence of the
smallest fault current. The smaller the fault current it can
detect, the more sensitive it is.
 Protection system should be able to differentiate the least
severe fault from most severe disturbance.
 There is always a compromise on the boundary of least severe
fault and most severe disturbance to set the relay sensitivity.
 Selectivity
 Protection system should be able to detect and isolate only the
faulty section
 Selective operation helps to maintain the power supply
continuity to the healthy system.

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 Attributes of Protection System ..
 Speed
 It is necessary to isolate the faulty section as fast as possible
 Longer the fault persists on the system, farther the impact of fault
travels along the system.
 Increased selectivity requires more time for decision making.
 Therefore, there is always a compromise on speed and selectivity.
 Reliability
 Protection system must also be reliable.
 Simpler systems are more reliable but process lesser information.
 Processing of only local end information can have higher reliability
and speed, but lower selectivity.
 Dependability
 Operation of various protection systems should be dependable on
each other through the overlapping protection zones.
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Organization of protection
 Protection system around each
element is formed in the forms of
rings.
 If there is any fault within this ring,
the relays associated with it must trip
all the allied circuit breakers of the
ring.
 Such “ring of security” is called the
zone of protection.
 Internal faults: Faults within the zone
 External / through faults: Faults outside
the zone
 Reach point: Farthest point of the zone
 Reach of the relay: The distance between
the relay location and the reach point
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 Primary and backup protection
 There is always a possibility of primary protection failure
 Detection failure (CT, PT, relay etc.)
 Circuit breaker failure
 One of the common causes is the failure of the trip-battery due to
inadequate maintenance.
 It is necessary to trip adjacent zones of protection.
 Each protection installation can be designed to trip in multiple
zones of protection (second, third etc.)
 Protection for adjacent zones is termed as backup protection.
 Backup protection should wait for primary protection to operate.
 Therefore, the operating time of the back-up protection must be
delayed by an appropriate amount (say tdelay).
𝒕𝒃𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒖𝒑 = 𝒕𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒚 + 𝒕𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒚

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 Primary and backup protection ..
TA(zone-2) = TA(zone-1) + Tdela y TB(zone-2)
Operating TA(zone-1) TB(zone-1)
time

PA PB

 Zones of protection installation PA

 Zone-1: The line AB, which is designed to be protected by PA
 Zone-2: The line BC, which is designed to be protected by PB
 The line BC is zone-1 of PB
 Similarly other zones can also be defined.
 Zone-3 of PA will be zone-2 of PB.
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 Mal-operations
 There should be proper coordination between the
operating time of primary and back-up protection.
𝑇𝐴 = 𝑇𝐵 + 𝑇𝐶𝐵 + 𝑇𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑦
 There is always a possibility in delayed operation of
primary protection longer than Tdelay.
 Fault can also be detected to be internal to the backup
protection due to unexpectedly increased severity.
 This results in the operation of both the primary and
the back-up, resulting in a longer and unnecessary
disruption to the system.
 It is said that with every additional relay used, there is
an increase in the probability of mal-operations.
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 Mal-operations

Normal
Operation

Mal-
Operation

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 Practice Problem 1
The percentage impedance of a transformer is 8%
Determine the short-circuit current for a three-phase
short circuit on the secondary terminals of the
transformer.

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 Practice Problem 2
In the diagram of Figure 1.16, TB = 0.2 s. If the circuit
breaker operating time is 0.5 s, determine the operating
time of relay RA so that there is no loss of selectivity.

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 Practice Problem 3
In the diagram of Figure 1.16, the operating time of relay
RB = 0.3 s, operating time of relay RA = 0.6 s. The circuit
breaker operating time is 0.5 s. Investigate whether there
will be any loss of selectivity between the primary and
the backup protection.

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