PROTECTION SYSTEM OF DISCOs & PUBLIC SAFETY

Engr. Muzamil Faiz

Assistant Manager (P & I) GRW

E lectrical Energy usage is increasing continuously in developed and

developing countries as almost all the facilities in lives of human
beings are directly or indirectly depending upon this. The comparison
between developments of different countries can easily be done by
comparing electrical energy consumption per capita per annum. Almost all the pillars of a
country, including communication means, defense system installations, industrial progress,
home appliances and even life saving equipments are based upon electrical energy
generation, transmission and distribution network. Demand supply gap of electrical energy is
narrow for developed countries whereas developing countries are striving hard for this
purpose.
Protection system is working for safe, reliable and efficient operation of electrical
network and safety of public life and property. Utilities are conventionally protecting their
distribution system through Auto reclosers, sectionalizers, over current (O/C), earth fault
(E/F) and distance relays whose working principles are based upon the increased current or
decreased impedance condition during system exigencies.
1- Faults Classification:
Normally faults on power system are of two type namely:
1. Low Impedance faults 2- High Impedance faults
1.1- Low Impedance Faults:
These faults normally face lower impedance and are also called as short
circuit faults. These faults are protected by DISCO’s worldwide by O/C, E/F and distance relays
whereas some are also using Auto reclosers and sectionalizers in addition to these relays. Detection of
these faults and isolation of faulty portion of network becomes easy due to increased current and
decreased voltage levels at pre decided transducer points of the power system. In Pakistan, especially
in GEPCO, general consumer feeders are designed for maximum current of 400A whereas
independent feeders (B-3 consumers) according to their sanctioned load. Over current & earth fault
relays start tripping operation for phase to phase faults beyond this maximum allowed current level
and for phase to earth faults at 10-20% of maximum allowed level of current respectively.
1.2- Protection System Operating Sequence in Pakistan:
Properly coordinated protection system
will operate in sequence and in allocated time slot prescribed by system protection department of the
NTDCL for low impedance faults. Time of operation for protective equipments increases gradually
when moving from consumer to source side as given in table.
Location Protective Device Operating Time
Consumer’s premises MCB Instantaneous
Pole mounted transformers (PMT) Fuse 100 ms
Outgoing feeder (general/independent) Vacuum circuit breaker 200 ms
(VCB)
Transformer LV side Vacuum circuit breaker 400 ms
(VCB)
Transformer HV side SF6 /Oil/Air circuit breaker 600 ms
Transmission line SF6 /Oil/Air circuit breaker 800 ms
 2.1- High Impedance (HiZ) Faults:
HiZ faults occur mainly due to
1. Broken conductor 2- Tree limbs touching the wires
3. Insulator damage/cracks 4- Distribution wires touching high resistive surfaces
This type of protection is employed for the safety of public life and assets/property in a few
countries from last few decades. HiZ faults pose a fire hazards to crops and forest due to
arcing, cause danger to human life as well as animals through possibility of electric shock and
transformer damaging due to continuous unbalanced loading condition. These faults are
difficult to detect by conventional over current, earth fault and distance protection relays as
the current flow is either less than or equal to steady state flow. Owing to non detection of
HiZ faults, population may be exposed to the risk of electric shocks for hours, days and even
weeks and system recovery is delayed due problems in ascertaining the faulty portion of
feeder. It is also worth mentioning that HiZ faults cannot be detected and rectified
automatically and up till now layman reporting and manual patrolling of feeder is adopted for
such kind of faults.

2.2- High Impedance Fault Detection:

During HiZ faults, current flow is always less than the minimum operating threshold of
outgoing feeders in conventional protection system. Normal fault current values when an
energized conductor touches the high resistive surfaces are given in table below.
Surface Current (A) Surface Current
(A)
Dry Asphalt 0 Dry grass 25
Dry sand 0 Wet sod 40
Concrete (Non-reinforced) 0 Wet grass 50
Wet sand 15 Concrete (Reinforced) 75
Dry Sod 20
This table shows that when conductor falls on different HiZ surfaces then current flowing
through E/F relay will not be enough to initiate tripping command to circuit breaker until or
unless some low resistive objects like human being or animals touch this energized
conductor. However digital signal processing techniques have abilities to detect the HiZ
faults as some special signatures are present in current and voltage signals obtained from CTs
and PTs during HiZ faults. Presence of harmonic content, change in phase angles of
harmonics (2nd , 3rd and 5th ) and change in energy pattern during arcing condition and their
relationship helps in detection and location of these faults.

3-Need of Time:
To overcome the increasing general public accident rate all the DISCOs must start a
nationwide awareness drive about the potential hazards and inculcate the ways by which one
can play its role for safety purpose. It is also need of time to encourage R&D (Research and
Development) team in planning and engineering departments of DISCOs, leading universities
and research organizations for devising solutions of problems faced by field formations.