An Algorithm to Secure the Zone 3 Operation

of Distance Relay
Pallavi Bedekar† Prashant Gawande∗, Vidyulata Joshi† and Sanjay Dambhare∗
∗Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, Pune-411005, India
†Department of Electrical Engineering, Sardar Patel College of Engineering, Mumbai-400058, India

Abstract—The insecure third zone operation of distance locus of the admittance trajectory and its center behavior
relay due to its inability to distinguish between symmetrical are investigated to detect power swing. Time frequency
faults and system stresses has led to severe blackouts. domain approaches can be seen used in [6] for detecting
An algorithm to enhance the security of the zone 3
operation of distance relay using only the local information symmetrical faults during power swings. In [7] a method
is proposed in this paper. The proposed scheme takes based on negative-sequence current is proposed for de-
advantage of the fact that a system unbalance exists during tecting all types of faults during power swing. Using the
the post fault window of a three phase fault which is sign and time criteria of the moving window average, the
absent during the system stressed conditions. The ratio symmetrical faults are distinguished from power swing
of the negative sequence impedance to positive sequence
impedance monitored during the system stressed conditions in [8]. In [9], a novel phase-space method is used to
is nearly equal to zero whereas during the symmetrical identify symmetrical faults during power swing.
fault conditions this ratio becomes non-zero. The proposed The necessity to fulfill the load demand using the
methodology is tested on the WSCC three generator, limited power transfer corridors leads to overloading of
nine bus system modeled in ATP-EMTP environment for certain transmission lines. This increase in the power
symmetrical faults during power swing, load encroachment
and voltage stressed conditions. The results obtained prove flows through the line also reduces the voltage at the bus.
the reliability of the scheme. This causes the apparent impedance seen by the relay to
Index Terms—Distance relay, Zone 3, power swing, load enter its operating zone and issue undesired trip signal.
encroachment, voltage stress, positive sequence impedance, A new adaptive load encroachment prevention scheme
negative sequence impedance. based on steady-state security analysis and adaptive anti-
encroachment zone is proposed in [10]. This new scheme
I. I NTRODUCTION identifies the vulnerable distance relays through real-
Zone 3 of distance relay is used to provide remote time security analysis. In order to distinguish between
backup protection to adjacent sections of transmission line overloads and faults, the line outage distribution
lines in power system [1]. The modern day power system factor and generation shift factor based power flow
experiences stresses due to its operation which is close estimation method, and a secure peer-to-peer communi-
to the security margins. Due to the large reach setting cation structure are adopted in [11]. These schemes are
of zone 3, the apparent impedance seen by the distance dependant on the communication channel reliability. An
relay happens to enter the relay characteristic during the approach of comparison of bus voltage values calculated
stressed condition [2]. The inability of distance relay to through dissimilar paths is made in [12] to identify load
extricate between symmetrical faults and system stresses encroachment. In [13] a combination of the steady-state
have led to severe blackouts [3], [4] in the past. Owing components and the transient components using a state
to the severity of the issue, many researchers have diagram is made to distinguish load encroachment from
been drawn towards developing algorithm to enhance the fault conditions.
security of distance relay operation. The rapid reduction in the voltage during volt-
Oscillation in the active and reactive power flows age instability condition is the cause for the apparent
in the transmission line following a sudden large dis- impedance seen by distance relay to enter its zones
turbance on the power system such as line switching, of protection. In [14] the rate of change of voltage
generator outage, faults, heavy loads switching is termed is used as an additional relay criteria to increase the
as power swing. This power swing condition may cause relay security with respect to voltage instability. The
the impedance trajectory to enter distance relay trip synchronized voltage and current phasors are used to
zone and cause its mal-operation. In [5] the circular compute the apparent impedance in [15] for secured third
zone operation. 3 operation; so symmetrical faults are simulated in the
In this paper the ratio of the negative sequence zone 3 of the relay i.e. on line 6-9.
impedance to the positive sequence impedance is used to
detect symmetrical faults during system stressed condi- A. Performance during Power Swing
tions. Three phase faults, even being balanced in nature, The power system under study experiences power
are observed to produce negative sequence components swing when a three phase fault on line 7-5 is cleared
for the post fault window. The ratio of the negative by opening breakers at bus 7 and bus 5. The impedance
sequence impedance to the positive sequence impedance trajectory enters the zone 3 of the distance relay at
is thus zero during the system stressed conditions; but 1.21 sec and leaves at 2.45 sec which is larger than the
after the symmetrical fault inception, the ratio turns intentional trip time for the third zone. Thus, the con-
non zero. The proposed scheme is not computationally ventional distance relays may mal-operate during such
challenging as the required inputs for the algorithm are circumstances. A three phase fault strikes the system
readily available in the modern day distance relay. The under power swing at 2.4 sec at the midpoint of line 6-
distance relay is found to operate securely for three 9. The voltage and current waveforms for the simulated
phase faults during power swing, load encroachment and condition are shown in Fig. 2. The performance of the
voltage stresses in its third zone. proposed scheme can be seen from Fig. 3.
It can be seen that the trigger impedance does not
II. P ROPOSED M ETHODOLOGY cross the restraining region during power swing; whereas
The proposed scheme uses the ratio of the negative
sequence impedance to the positive sequence impedance,
hereafter referred to as trigger impedance, to make
reliable trip decision for symmetrical faults in the zone
3 region of distance relay during system stressed condi-
tions like power swing, load encroachment and voltage
stresses. The fact that system stresses are a balanced
phenomenon whereas the post symmetrical fault win-
dow has credible unbalance gives us the advantage to
use this simple yet secure technique for detecting the
symmetrical faults during system stresses.
The positive and negative sequence currents and volt-
ages are computed using the full cycle recursive Discrete
Fourier Transform, from which the trigger impedance
is computed. The trigger impedance is plotted on the
R-X plane and monitored for the symmetrical fault
Fig. 1. One line diagram of the simulated WSCC three generator, nine
inception. Owing to the fact that slight unbalance does bus system.
exist even during system stresses, a restraining region
is set in the R-X plane. The boundary of the restrain
region is decided after rigorous simulations. The trigger
impedance resides within the restraining region during
the system stresses; whereas on the symmetrical fault
inception it shifts to the operating region.

III. T EST C ASES

The performance of the proposed algorithm is tested
on the WSCC three generator, nine bus system. The
details of the simulated model can be obtained from [16].
The model is simulated in the ATP-EMTP environment
and the load flow results are verified before simulating
the test cases. The relay is located on line 7-8 near
bus 7 as shown in Fig. 1. All lines are 100 km long. Fig. 2. Current and voltage waveforms of phase A for a bolted three
The purpose of the proposed algorithm is secure zone phase fault during power swing at the midpoint of line 6-9 at 2.4 sec.

2
 C. Performance during Voltage Stress
The rapid increase in reactive power demand tends
to reduce the voltages at several buses in the power
system. This causes the apparent impedance to enter the
operating zone of distance relay causing undesired trip.
The increase in the reactive power demand on bus 8
causes the voltages at buses 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 to reduce
rapidly. Under such voltage stressed condition, a bolted
three phase fault strikes the line 6-9 at a distance of 80
km from bus 9 at 2.5 sec. The voltage waveform for the
simulated condition is shown in Fig. 6. The output of
Fig. 3. Trigger impedance trajectory for a bolted three phase fault trigger impedance is shown in Fig. 7.
during power swing at the midpoint of line 6-9 at 2.4 sec.

after the three phase fault strikes the system, the trigger
impedance enters the operating region indicating trip
decision to remote breaker.

B. Performance during Load Encroachment

The increase of power flows through a transmission
line due to change in network topology or generation
shift leads to the load encroachment problem. Load
encroachment phenomenon is the major player amongst
the system stresses to have caused cascaded tripping in Fig. 5. Trigger impedance trajectory for a three phase fault of 10 Ω
the past. during load encroachment on line 6-9 at a distance of 10 km from bus
9 at 5.3 sec.
To simulate the load encroachment condition, the load
on bus 8 is increased gradually from 0.1 sec to 4.2 sec.
This causes the apparent impedance seen by the distance
relay to enter its zone 3. A three phase fault of 10 Ω
strikes the line 6-9 at a distance of 10 km from bus 9
at 5.3 sec. The current and voltage waveform for this
simulated case is shown in Fig. 4. The output of the
proposed algorithm is shown in Fig. 5. The symmetrical
fault is reliably detected during the load encroachment
Fig. 6. Phase A voltage waveforms at bus 7 for a bolted three phase
condition and the distance relay is operated securely. fault during voltage stresses on line 6-9 at a distance of 80 km from
bus 9 at 2.5 sec.

Fig. 4. Current and voltage waveforms of phase A for a three phase Fig. 7. Trigger impedance trajectory for a bolted three phase fault
fault of 10 Ω during load encroachment on line 6-9 at a distance of during voltage stresses on line 6-9 at a distance of 80 km from bus 9
10 km from bus 9 at 5.3 sec. at 2.5 sec.

3
 IV. C ONCLUSION [11] S.-I. Lim, C.-C. Liu, S.-J. Lee, M.-S. Choi, and S.-J. Rim,
“Blocking of zone 3 relays to prevent cascaded events,” IEEE
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[13] C.-H. Kim, J.-Y. Heo, and R. K. Aggarwal, “An enhanced zone
merit of the scheme is proved by its ability to identify 3 algorithm of a distance relay using transient components and
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT stability. John Wiley & Sons, 2008.

The authors would like to thank the Center of Ex-

cellence in Smart Renewable Energy Systems (CoE-
SRES) and Technical Education Quality Improvement
Programme - II (TEQIP - II) at College of Engineering,
Pune, India for supporting the work.

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