Proceedings of the IEEE 2017 International Conference on Computing Methodologies and Communication

(ICCMC)

Optimum Coordination of Overcurrent Relays in

Distribution Systems using Big-M and Revised
Simplex Methods

A.M.S.Deepak, S.Madhu, M V G Raju Dr. O.V. Gnana Swathika*

School of Electrical Engineering School of Electrical Engineering
VIT University, VIT University,
Chennai, India Chennai, India
*gnanaswathika.ov@vit.ac.in

Abstract- Suitable protection system is a must to protect
people and primary electric power equipment from disaster or
damage. Most frequent faults that occur in the distribution
system are overcurrent faults. Overcurrent (OC) relays are used
significantly in protecting power distribution system from
frequently caused faults like short circuits, ground faults, etc.
Optimization algorithms maybe used to minimize the time of
operation of relays. This paper implements Big M and Revised
Simplex method for optimum time coordination of overcurrent
relays in a distribution network and identifies the optimized time
multiplier setting (TMS) of the relay. This helps in quick
coordination of overcurrent relays and also fast fault clearance.
This paper proposes the use of Revised Simplex technique and
Big-M method on distribution network for finding optimized
values of time multiplier setting (TMS) and time of operation
(top) of relays.
II. COORDINATION OF OC RELAYS IN A RADIAL SYSTEM
A 2–bus radial system is shown in Fig.1. R1 and R2 are the
directional OC relays. Fault locations are considered either as
just after R2 or just after R1. If fault occurs at ‘F, R2 acts as the
primary relay and R1 act as backup relay.

Keywords-overcurrent relays; radial network; time multiplier

setting; big-m; revised simplex

I. INTRODUCTION
Power is received by consumers through distribution
systems. It is transmitted through very high power distribution
lines. Fault occurs due to the excessive accumulation of
electric charge i.e. excessive current over a place and therefore
an overcurrent (OC) protection is needed in power system
networks. Overcurrent relay is used to protect the system from Fig. 1. The radial two bus system
different types of faults like short circuit faults, earth faults
and winding faults [1-3]. During fault conditions, the primary Let the operating time of relay R2 be 0.2s after the fault
relay i.e. relay which lies nearer to the fault disconnects the identification. Relay R1 should operate after a fixed time
circuit from the fault. Each relay in the system is coordinated (constant) which is known as coordination time interval (CTI).
with the relay protecting the adjacent equipment. There are CTI in turn depends on operational time of circuit breaker at
two types of relay present depending on the position of its bus 1, overshoot time of relay R2 and time of operation of
protection zone. First one is primary relay and the second one relay R2 i.e. 0.2s. The operating time of primary relay must be
less than the backup relay [1].
is the backup relay which acts when the primary relay fails to
operate. If backup protection is not provided mal-function of Based on these concepts in this paper, the problem
system takes place and a huge loss occurs. Hence proper relay formulation is done as constrained optimization LPP which is
coordination is required to achieve proper fault identification solved by Big-M method and Revised Simplex method.
and fault isolation [4-5]. The number of equipment used to
protect a system depends on the rating of the system. The III. PROBLEM FORMULATION
number of equipment increases with the capacity and rating of
The coordination of relays are achieved by setting it into
the power system. Proper and faster coordination is achieved optimization problem, where the sum of the operational time
using optimization techniques [6-8].

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 Proceedings of the IEEE 2017 International Conference on Computing Methodologies and Communication
(ICCMC)

of the relays of the system, for near end fault is to be along with the artificial variable in the objective function.
minimized [9-15]. Artificial variable is introduced only for basic feasible solution
other than that it has no physical significance. So, these are
k eliminated before the final solution is reached. By this method
Min y = ∑ ti (1) we can solve only the functions having ≥ in their constraints
i=1
and introduces high penalty +M in the objective function for
where, minimization.
k number of relays,
ti operating time of the primary relay ‘i’, for a The main purpose of using Big-M is to find the
fault at ‘i’ optimum values of TMS and the optimum time of operation of
relays.
A. Bounds on Operating Time –
ti,mind tid ti,max (2) ALGORITHM:
where 1. Start.
ti,min the minimum operating time of relay 2. Form the equations of minimization LPP.
at ‘i’ for fault at ‘i’
3. From constraints bring all the values to one side and add
ti,max maximum required time for operation of the
relay at ‘i’ for a fault at ‘i’ an artificial variable.
4. Write the standard form of objective function which is
B. Coordination Time Criteria – obtained after changing the given constraint with zero
Coordination time is the minimum time required between coefficients and non-negative artificial variables with
operation of primary and backup relays [7]. coefficient M (M-very large variable).
tb,i -- ti ≥ ∆t (3) 5. Assume artificial variable as basic variable and surplus as
where non basic and form the simplex table.
tb,i the operating time of the backup relay ‘i', for 6. Find Cj-∑(Ci*aij)
a fault at ‘i' 6.1 If for a column k, Ck-∑(Ck*aij) is most
∆t the coordination time interval (CTI) negative and all the elements in this column are negative,
then the optimum solution is unbounded. Go to step 13.
C. Relay Characteristics – 6.2 If all Cj-∑(Ci*aij) are positive, the optimal
Inverse definite minimum time (IDMT) characteristics are solution is reached. Go to step 12.(solution is obtained)
assumed to be same for all relays [6-7]. 6.3 If at least one Cj-∑(Ci*aij) element is negative,
(4) go to step 7.
where 7. The most negative Cj-∑(Ci*aij) column will be the pivot
λ and γ are 0.14 and 0.02 respectively for normal column.
IDMT relay. 8. Calculate the ratio by dividing right hand side (RHS) value
of each row by corresponding pivot column element.
(5) 9. Find the key row. The row having smallest positive value
is considered as pivot row.
where 10. Find pivot element and proceed with new simplex table
PSM Plug setting multiplier with the leaving and entering variable. The column
variable corresponding to pivot element will be the
entering variable and the row corresponding to the pivot
ti = α*TMS (6) element will be the leaving variable)
11. Go to step 6 and repeat the steps.
Substituting (6) in (1) gives 12. Result.
k 13. Stop.
Min y = ∑ αi(TMS)i (7)
i=1
V. REVISED SIMPLEX METHOD
which is the objective function. Revised simplex method is a modified version of simplex
method. Instead of maintaining a large number of tables and
calculations this method represents the constraints adjusted to a
IV. BIG-M METHOD set of basic variables. This consists of the representation based
on the matrix corresponding to the given constraints.
Big-M method is based on simplex method. From this Advantage of revised simplex method is clearly comprehended
we can solve linear programming problems by introducing an in case of large LPP’s. Revised simplex method is
artificial variable in constraint equations and high penalty computationally more efficient and accurate.

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 Proceedings of the IEEE 2017 International Conference on Computing Methodologies and Communication
(ICCMC)

backup protection comes into play. Both R1 and R2 are

directional relays.
ALGORITHM
R2 being the primary relay operates first when the
1. Start. fault occurs at F. Let R2 operate 0.2 s after the fault inception
2. Convert the problem into maximization problem. to ensure that it does not operate for current surges .Relay R1
should operate after the CTI, which equals to the sum of
3. Convert all the constraints into ≤ type. operating time of circuit breaker (CB) at bus 2, overshoot time
4. Write the standard form of objective function which is of relay R1 and 0.2 sec.
obtained after changing the given constraint with zero Let x1 and x2 be TMS values of relay R1 and R2
coefficients and adding surplus variables (Basic respectively.
Variables). The problem is stated as:
Min z = 3.21 x1 + 3.57 x2.
5. Form the Simplex table.
6. Find (Cb.B^(-1).Xj)-Cj (Where Cb is coefficient matrix of Subject to
basic variables, [B^(-1)]is the matrix formed from columns 7.38 x1 – 3.57 x2 ≥ 0.57
of non-zero variables) 3.21 x1 ≥ 0.2
6.1 If any (Cb.B^(-1).Xj)-Cj element becomes non- 3.57 x2 ≥ 0.2
negative, go to 10.
6.2 If all the elements in this row become non Here we assume the upper limit of the TMS of all relays
positive and if all the elements in the RHS as 1.0 and the lower limit as 0. The conditions given are
column are non negative, go to step 9. reconstructed as indicated below.
6.3 If at least one element in RHS is negative, go to
step 7. Min y=3.21x1+3.57x2+0s1+0s2+0s3+MA1+MA2+MA3
7. Find the entering and leaving basic variables. Calculate the 7.38x1-3.57x2-s1+A1=0.57
column of the entering basic variable, say xj, and then the
ratios bi/aij for the positive entries aij. The new column for
3.21x1-s2+A2=0.57
xj can be obtained by multiplying B^(-1) to the existing
column in A.
3.57x2-s3+A3=0.2
Identify the pivot column, key row and pivot element and
form next simplex table.
Relay
8. Go to step 6. Position of fault
9. Print.(Solution obtained) A B

10. Stop. Just Beyond Bus 7.38 3.57

1
VI. APPLICATION OF ALGORITHM Just Beyond Bus 3.21 -
2
TWO BUS RADIAL NETWORK
TABLE 1: α values
The optimum value of TMS for all the relays are found
with the help of Big M and Revised Simplex algorithms. The Table 2 indicates that Revised Simplex method gives
number of iteration increases as the number of bus increases. same optimal solution as Big-M method. But the total time
A two bus radial network is taken into account to verify the taken by Revised Simplex method to find the optimum
algorithm as well as to compare the two methods. solution is less than that of the Big-M method as calculation
time decreases.
Consider the 2 bus radial system shown in Fig.2. It
includes a 220 kV, 100 MVA source (also taken as the base
TMS OF RELAYS
kV and base MVA of the system). The CTI for the relay is
taken as 0.57 s. The maximum fault current (If max) just
X1 X2
beyond relay A is 2108A and beyond B is found to be 1703 A.
Using these values PMS and α are obtained using (3) and (2) Big M 0.105 0.056
respectively and is tabulated in Table I. The plug settings of
both the relays are assumed to be 1. Fault is considered just Revised Simplex 0.105 0.056
after R2 and just after R1. According to the fault location, the
primary and backup relays are selected. Primary protection TABLE 2: TMS values for relays in 2-bus radial system
always acts first and in case it fails to clear the fault, then the

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 Proceedings of the IEEE 2017 International Conference on Computing Methodologies and Communication
(ICCMC)

11. Manohar Singh, B. K. Panigrahi and A. R. Abhyankar, “Optimal

VII. CONCLUSION
Power is transmitted through distributed system and it is
very important to protect the distribution system from faults.
The most frequent faults are the overcurrent faults. Therefore
OC relays are used to prevent the huge loss. It is necessary for
a primary relay to function immediately and break the circuit
when a fault occurs. So different algorithms are used to find
the shortest time of operation of fault and decrease the loss.
This paper applies Big-M and Revised simplex techniques on
a 2-bus radial network. This helps in identifying the optimized
solutions for time multiplier setting and time of operation of
relays. It is inferred that Revised Simplex method
computationally is more efficient and accurate as it requires
less amount of data to be stored while doing iterations than
Big-M.
Overcurrent Relay Coordination in Distribution System”.
12. K. Deb.”Optimization for Engineering Design –Algorithms and
Examples”,Prentice Hall of India Private Limited, New Delhi, 2006.
13. P.P.Bedekar, and S.R. Bhide,” Optimization of multivariable
nonlinear functions using genetic algorithms”,IEEE International
Advance Computing Conference (IACC),Thapar University.
14. B. Chattopadhyay, M.S. Sachev, and T.S. Sidhu, “An Online
Relay Coordination algorithm for Adaptive Protection using Linear
Programming Technique”, IEEE Trans. On Power Delivery, Vol 11,
Jan 1996,pp. 165-173.
15. Chao-Rong Chen, Cheng-Hung Lee, Chi-Juin Chang, “Optimal
Overcurrent Relay Coordination in Power Distribution System Using
a New Approach”, Elsevier, October 2012

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