High Impedance Differential This is a simple yet fast scheme with a low relaying cost, but it requires good

CT inputs with well matched ratios with high CT kneepoints. This is most easily obtained by utilizing CT's from one manufacturer only which is usually possible with a new installation. All incoming busbar CT's are paralleled and connected in opposite polarity to the paralleled outgoing busbar CT's. The differential relay is then connected across the paralleled CT's. The relays used most often in this scheme are simple attracted armature relays which have fast operating times. This scheme can thus easily provide 20ms operating times including the trip relay time. The main application consideration with this scheme is stability for heavy through faults. The stability is determined by the CT's and relay settings which in turn affect the sensitivity of the scheme. Consider a simple two CT differential circuit shown in Figure 3. If the right hand side CT saturates, which means it appears as a load as previously described, then it will cause a voltage to develop across the relay which will be If(2Rl + Rct). If this voltage is greater than the setting voltage, the relay will operate. This is undesirable. Therefore, this becomes the setting criterion; the relay should be set to a voltage > If(2Rl + Rct). Once the setting is determined, the scheme sensitivity can be calculated by considering the relay operating current reflected to the primary plus the magnetizing current of the CTs connected in parallel. Recall that the CT primary provides the magnetizing current not reflected in the secondary. The primary operating current for the scheme can be found from the formula: Ip= N (Ir + nIu) where N= CT ratio Ir= relay operating current at setting Iu= magnetizing current at setting voltage (obtained off CT magnetizing curve) n= number of CT set connected

in parallel If the relay setting voltage is high, the CT magnetizing current at the setting voltage totaled up for all the CT's can be significant. For an internal fault, the CT's will attempt to force all the secondary current through the relay. With a high impedance differential relay, this would require very high secondary voltages, beyond the CT's capabilities, again causing saturation. However, reliable operation of the relay does take place if there is a significant time before saturation occurs. This is because, if the kneepoint is well above the setting voltage, the relay will receive sufficient voltage to operate before saturation occurs. Manufacturers thus recommend a voltage of at >