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principle of power system protection

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17 views24 pages

principle of power system protection

Uploaded by

dipendra.077bel003
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Principle of Power-system

protection
Switchgear
Switchgear is a generic term which includes all
the switching devices associated with mainly
power system protection. It also includes all
devices associated with control, metering and
regulating of electrical power system.
Assembly of such devices in a logical manner
forms switchgear.
Principle of Power-system protection
Power-system protection is a branch of
electrical power engineering that deals with
the protection of electrical power systems
from faults through the isolation of faulted
parts from the rest of the electrical network.
The objective of a protection scheme is to
keep the power system stable by isolating only
the components that are under fault, whilst
leaving as much of the network as possible
still in operation.
Causes of Electrical Faults
• Weather conditions:
– lightning strikes,
– heavy rains,
– heavy winds,
– snow falls and ice accumulation

These environmental conditions interrupt the power supply


and also damage electrical installations.

• Equipment failures:
– insulation failure of cables and winding.

These failures result in high current to flow through the


devices or equipment which further damages it.
Causes of Electrical Faults
• Human errors:
– selecting improper rating of equipment
– loose joints
– forgetting metallic or electrical conducting parts after servicing or
maintenance,
– switching the circuit while it is under servicing, etc.
• Smoke / Dust:
– Ionization of air
– insulation failure
• Man made:
– Insulator damage by stones throwing
• Others
– Vehicles hitting poles
– Birds, snakes, animals
– Landslide, flood etc.
Effects of electrical faults
• Over current flow:
– When fault occurs it results in a very high current being drawn from
the supply
• Danger to operating personnel:
– Fault occurrence can also cause shocks to individuals and even may
lead to death.
• Loss of equipment:
– Heavy current due to short circuit faults result in the components
being burnt
• Disturbs interconnected active circuits:
– active interconnected circuits to the faulted line get disturbed.
• Electrical fires:
– Short circuit causes flashovers and sparks which further may lead
to fire
Need of protection scheme in power system
• Electrical power system operates at various voltage
levels from 400 V to 750 kV or even more.
• Electrical apparatus used may be enclosed (e.g.,
motors) or placed in open (e.g., transmission lines). All
such equipment undergo abnormalities in their life
time due to various reasons.
• For example, a worn out bearing may cause
overloading of a motor. A tree falling or touching an
overhead line may cause a fault.
• A lightning strike (classified as an act of God!) can
cause insulation failure.
• Pollution may result in degradation in performance of
insulators which may lead to breakdown.
Need of protection scheme in power system

• Over frequency of a generator may result in


mechanical damage to it's turbine requiring
tripping of an alternator.
• It is necessary to avoid these abnormal
operating regions for safety of the equipment.
• Even more important is safety of the human
personnel which may be endangered due to
exposure to live parts under fault or abnormal
operating conditions. Small current of the
order of 50 mA is sufficient to be fatal
Components of a protection system
Protection systems usually comprise five components:

• Current and voltage transformers to step down the


high voltages and currents of the electrical power
system to convenient levels for the relays to deal with
• Protective relays to sense the fault and initiate a trip,
or disconnection, order;
• Circuit breakers to open/close the system based on
relay and autorecloser commands;
• Batteries to provide power in case of power
disconnection in the system.
• Communication channels to allow analysis of current
and voltage at remote terminals of a line and to allow
remote tripping of equipment.
Trip circuit
Trip circuit
Basic requirement of protection scheme
Reliability and simplicity
The most important requisite of protective
relay is reliability. They remain inoperative for
a long time before a fault occurs; but if a fault
occurs, the relays must respond instantly and
correctly.
Simplicity of construction and good quality of
relay, correctness of design and installation
etc. influence the reliability of protection
scheme.
Selectivity and discrimination
• The relay must be operated in only those
conditions for which relays are commissioned in
the electrical power system.
• There may be some typical condition during fault
for which some relays should not be operated or
operated after some definite time delay hence
protection relay must be sufficiently capable to
select appropriate condition for which it would
be operated.
• It means the protective scheme must be able to
discriminate between those conditions for which
prompt operation is required and those for which
no operation or time delay operation is required.
Sensitivity

• The relaying equipment must be sufficiently sensitive


so that it can be operated reliably when level of fault
condition just crosses the predefined limit. It is a
function of volt-amperes input to the relay coil
necessary to cause its operation.
Speed
• The protective relays must operate at the required speed.
• There must be a correct coordination provided in various power
system protection relays in such a way that for fault at one portion
of the system should not disturb other healthy portion.
• Fault current may flow through a part of healthy portion since they
are electrically connected but relays associated with that healthy
portion should not be operated faster than the relays of faulty
portion otherwise undesired interruption of healthy system may
occur.
• Again if relay associated with faulty portion is not operated in
proper time due to any defect in it or other reason, then only the
next relay associated with the healthy portion of the system must
be operated to isolate the fault.
• Hence it should neither be too slow which may result in damage to
the equipment nor should it be too fast which may result in
undesired operation.
Main and Back up protection
Primary protection may fail due to the
following reasons

• Failure of DC supply to the tripping Circuit


• Failure in circuit breaker tripping mechanism
• Failure of main protective relay operation
• Failure in the wiring of relaying system
• Failure of CTs or PTs operation
Main and Back up protection
Coordination

• Relay protection coordination means that


downstream devices (breakers/fuses)
should activate before upstream devices.
• At the substation level, feeder breakers
should trip before the main breaker.
• Likewise, the downstream breakers
should trip before the substation feeder
supplying the panel
Protection Zone
Protection Zone
• Protection zone is defined as the part of the power
system which is protected by a certain protective scheme.
• In power systems, all power system elements must be
encompassed by at least one zone
• The more important elements must be included in at least
two zones
• Zones must overlap to prevent any element from being
unprotected.
• A zone boundary is usually defined by a CT and a CB.
• When the fault occurs on any of the protection zones then
only the circuit breakers within that zone will be opened.
Thus, only the faulty element will be isolated without
disturbing the rest of the system.
Protection Zone
Protection Zone

• Consider the two protective zone A and B which


will overlap each other. The X is the fault point in
the zone B, and due to this fault, the circuit
breakers of zone B tripped along with the C
(circuit breaker). The relay of the zone B will also
trip the circuit breaker of zone A for other faults
in the zone B which occurs to the right of the C
(circuit breaker). Hence the unnecessary tripping
of the breaker can be tolerated only in the
particular region.

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