Protection

Zone

A. T 1
 Zones of Protection system

 Protection zone is defined as the part of the power system which is

protected by a certain protective scheme.
 The relay will be considered to be selective if it responds only to
faults within its zone of protection.
 Relays usually have inputs from several CTs, and the zone of
protection is bounded by these CTs.
 While the CTs provide the ability to detect a fault inside the zone
of protection, the circuit breakers (CBs) provide the ability to
isolate the fault by disconnecting all of the power equipment inside
the zone.
 Thus, a zone boundary is usually defined by a CT and a CB.
A. T 2
 Zones of Protection system
Cont…
 In order to cover all power equipment by protection systems, the
zones of protection must meet the following requirements.
 All power system elements must be encompassed by at least one
zone.
 Zones of protection must overlap to prevent any system element
from being unprotected

A. T 3
 Zones of Protection system
Cont…
 The protection zone of the power system mainly depends upon the
rating of the machine, its location, the probability of faults and
abnormal condition of the equipment.
 A zone of protection may be closed or open. When the zone is
closed, all power apparatus entering the zone is monitored at the
entry points of the zone.
 Such a zone of protection is also known as ‘differential’, ‘unit’ or
‘absolutely selective’.
 Conversely, if the zone of protection is not clearly defined by the
CTs, i.e. the limit of the zone varies with the fault current, the zone
is said to be ‘non-unit’, ‘unrestricted’ or ‘relatively selective’.

A. T 4
 Zones of Protection system
Cont…
 The fault F1 lies in a closed zone, and will cause circuit breakers
B1 and B2 to trip.
 The fault at F2, being inside the overlap between the zones of
protection of the transmission line and the bus, will cause circuit
breakers B1, B2, B3 and B4 to trip, although opening B3 and B4 is
unnecessary.
 Both of these zones of protection are closed zones.

A. T 5
 Zones of Protection system
Cont…
 Now consider the fault at F3. This fault lies in two open zones.
 The fault should cause circuit breaker B6 to trip.
 B5 is the backup breaker for this fault, and will trip if for some
reason B6 fails to clear the fault.

A. T 6
 Zones of Protection system
Cont…
 Protection systems in successive open zones are arranged to
operate in times that are graded through the sequence of
equipment.
 The speed of response will often depend on the severity of the
fault, and will generally be slower than for a unit system.

A. T 7
 Overlapping Zone of Power System
 Different neighbouring zones of protection are made to overlap
each other, which ensure that no part of the power system remains
without protection.
 The fault occurs in the unprotected system will damage the
equipment and hence disturb the continuity of the supply.
 The probability of failure in the overlap region is very small. But
the overlap region will cause the tripping of more circuit breakers
than the minimum necessary for the disconnection of the faults
region.
 Because when the fault occurs in any one of the two overlapping
regions, then the breaker of both the region will be opened, and the
systems are isolated.
A. T 8
 Overlapping Zone of Power System
cont…

 CTs are located at both  CTs are located at one

sides of CB-fault side of CB-fault
between CTs is cleared between CTs is sensed
from both remote sides by both relays, remote
right side operate only.
A. T 9
 Primary and Backup Protection
 A protection system may fail to operate and, as a result, fail to
clear a fault.
 It is thus essential that provision be made to clear the fault by
some alternative protection system or systems.
 These alternative protection system(s) are referred to as duplicate,
backup or breaker-failure protection systems.
 The main protection system for a given zone of protection is called
the primary protection system.
 On EHV systems it is common to use duplicate primary protection
systems in case an element in one primary protection chain may
fail to operate.
A. T 10
 Primary and Backup Protection
cont…
 On lower voltage systems, only backup relaying is used. Backup
relays are generally slower than the primary relays.
 Backup relaying may be installed locally
 Remote backup relays are completely independent of the relays,
transducers, batteries and circuit breakers of the protection system
they are backing up.
 Local backup relays generally use common elements such as the
transducers, batteries and circuit breakers, and can thus fail to
operate for the same reasons as the primary protection.

A. T 11
 Primary and Backup Protection
cont…
Examples
 Consider the fault at location F in Figure below. It is inside the
zone of protection of transmission line AB. Primary relays R1 and
R5 will clear this fault by acting through breakers B1 and B5.

A. T 12
 Primary and Backup Protection
cont…
 At station B, a duplicate primary relay R2 may be installed to trip
the breaker B1 to cover the possibility that the relay R1 may fail to
trip. R2 will operate in the same time as R1 and may use the same
or different elements of the protection chain.
 The local backup relay R3 is designed to operate at a slower speed
than R1 and R2; it is probably set to see more of the system.
 It will first attempt to trip breaker B1 and then its breaker failure
relay will trip breakers B5, B6, B7 and B8.
 This is local backup relaying, often known as breaker-failure
protection, for circuit breaker B1.

A. T 13
 Primary and Backup Protection
cont…
 Relays R9, R10 and R4 constitute the remote backup protection
for the primary protection R1.
 No elements of the protection system associated with R1 are
shared by these protection systems, and hence no common modes
of failure between R1 and R4, R9 and R10 are possible.
 These remote backup protections will be slower than R1, R2 or
R3; and also remove additional elements of the power system

A. T 14
 Primary and Backup Protection
cont…
 Directional Overcurrent Relay
 The directional overcurrent relay incorporates a directional unit
which responds to power flow in a specified direction.
 The directional relay senses the direction of power flow by means
of a phase difference (f) between voltage (V) and current (I).
 When f exceeds a certain predetermined value and the current is
above the pick-up value, the directional overcurrent relay operates.
 The directional relay is a double actuating quantity relay with one
input as current I from CT and the other input as voltage V from
VT.

A. T 15
 Primary and Backup Protection
cont…
 In case of electromagnetic directional overcurrent relays,
discrimination is affected when voltage drops down to very low
values under fault conditions.
 In static directional relays, this problem is less serious because the
static comparators used in these relays are inherently very
sensitive and they can give reliable performance up to 1% of
system voltage which is well within the minimum fault voltage.

A. T 16
A. T 17