CASE STUDY

TRIPPED MAIN CIRCUIT BREAKER CAUSED BY

ENERGIZING TRANSFORMER

ABSTRACT
AN OFFICE BUILDING WHICH RECEIVED POWER
FROM 24KV UNDERGROUND CABLE HAD PROBLEMS
WITH MAIN CIRCUIT BREAKER ON A HIGH VOLTAGE
SIDE WHICH TRIPPED WHEN TRANSFORMER WAS RE-
ENERGIZED AFTER MAINTENANCES. THIS SITUATION
EFFECTED MOMENTARY INTERRUPTION IN THE
BUILDING LEADING TO LOSSES OF IMPORTANT DATA
STORED IN COMPUTERS. THE MAIN CIRCUIT
BREAKER ON HIGH VOLTAGE SIDE WAS
UNDESIRABLY TRIPPED BECAUSE AFTER RE-
ENERGIZING THE TRANSFORMER, THERE WAS HIGH
MAGNETIZING INRUSH CURRENT (5 TIMES OF THE
TRANSFORMER’ RATED CURRENT) FLOWING
THROUGH THE CIRCUIT FOR A SHORT PERIOD OF
TIME. WITH THE SATURATION OF CURRENT
TRANSFORMER IN THE PROTECTION SYSTEM,
MAGNETIZING INRUSH CURRENT WOULD CAUSE
INCORRECTLY OPERATION OF EARTH FAULT
PROTECTION SYSTEM. CONSEQUENTLY, THE MAIN
CIRCUIT BREAKER WAS TRIPPED. THE MITIGATION
METHOD WAS TO PROLONG THE DELAY TIME OF THE
EARTH FAULT PROTECTION SYSTEM TO AVOID THE
INTERFERENCE OF MAGNETIZING INRUSH CURRENT
FROM TRANSFORMERS.

1. Introduction
An office building connected to the Metropolitan
Electricity Authority of Thailand (MEA) underground feeders.
Each feeders supply 24 kV to four 2,000 kVA transformers.
See Figure 1 for more details. A high voltage circuit breaker
trips immediately when the system is turned back on
(energizing transformer) after shutdown for maintenance.
Consequently, the whole building looses power.
 Figure 1: A single line diagram of the building

2. Problem statement and consequences

From Figure 1, when the high voltage circuit breaker
trips, another transformer on the same feeder will see an
effect and make lighting, air-conditioning, and computer
systems in the building stop working. Moreover, important
financial information of a bank located in the building is
damaged.
This high voltage circuit breaker is installed in a
controlled area of the building requiring MEA staff to turn it
back on. Consequently thirty to forty minutes no power is
unavoidable.
3. Monetary loss
An estimated monetary loss is difficult to calculate.
However, reputation of the building is jeopardized. Moreover,
important financial information of a bank located in the
building is loss. This is a direct impact to the bank reputation.

4. Root cause of the problem

The MEA has installed a power quality meter at each
watt-hour meter (see Figure 1) to record current waveform
during the transformer energizing period (no load condition).
The waveforms recorded from the transformer 1S and 1F
are shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3, respectively.

Figure 2: Current waveform during the transformer

energizing period to transformer 1S
 Figure 3: Current waveform during the transformer
energizing period to transformer 1F
From Figures 2 and 3, it can be seen that during the
energizing period at no load condition, an inrush current is
high (400 – 800 A peak) for several cycles before it dies
down to normal situation. Theoretically, this inrush current is
normal circumstance and depends on several factors as
follows:
1. Transformer capacity (kVA).
2. Transformer coil resistance and loss.
3. Transformer saturation curve.
4. Residual flux.
5. Phase angle when the transformer is energized.
 On the high voltage side of transformer, a current
transformer (CT) is used for checking current through the
transformer and is connected to earth fault relay. Due to a
high inrush current saturates the CT, the earth fault relay
misinterpret the situation and send a trip signal to trip the
high voltage circuit breaker.

5. Problem analysis
The earth fault relay is set at 62 A with 100 millisecond
time delay. An over-current relay is set at 200 A with its
tripping curve as shown in Figure 4.
All transformers in this building use Delta-Yye Ground
configuration. At no load, if there is no shortage to ground,
all three phase current will cancel each other to get the net
current equals to zero, although the magnetic inrush currents
are high for all phases. After checking for the short to
ground scenario, there is no lead to the problem. However,
the CT, which supplies signal to the earth fault relay, has
only 200 A primary-coil rated current. This CT when it sees
high inrush current (see Figure 2 and 3) of 400 – 800 A peak,
will be saturated and sends a wrong signal out to the earth
fault relay. The earth fault relay may see different output
signals from each CT installed in each phase (see Figure 5).
If these CT combined output signals is greater than 62 A
(earth fault relay setting) and sustain for more than 100
millisecond (time delay setting), the earth fault relay will trip
the high voltage breaker.

Figure 4: Tripping Curve of Overcurrent Relay.

 Sensor check
total current of
Earth Fault

Output from
primary coil Input signal
of current of Earth

Figure 5: Earth Fault Relay sensor to check total current.

6. Solution
The earth fault relay time delay is changed from 100
milliseconds to 500 milliseconds to cover the inrush current
period and the problem is solved.

7. Expenditure
No expenditure.

8. Conclusion
The high voltage circuit breaker trips at no load when
the transformer is energized because the magnetic inrush
current in the transformer primary coil is as high as 400 –
800 A peak and sustains for more than 200 milliseconds.
This high inrush current saturates the CT (200 A primary
rated current) that uses with an earth fault relay.
Consequently, a combined current, which the earth fault
relay sees, is higher than its setting. Then the earth fault
relay misinterprets the situation. New time delay setting to
cover the period of the inrush current is used to solve the
problem.

-------------------------------------