Modelling & Simulation of Transmission Line

Auto-reclose Scheme Using Matlab/Simulink

MUHD HAFIZI IDRIS

1SURYA HARDI
2MOHD ZAMRI HASAN
1SYAFRUDDIN HASAN
1INDRA NISJA
1NOR HANISAH BAHARUDIN
1

School of Electrical System Engineering

& 2Faculty of Engineering Technology
Universiti Malaysia Perlis

Introduction

Auto-reclose (A/R) relay is one of important protection relays

installed at the transmission line.
It is used to re-energize the line back to operation after been
tripped by main protection relay.
Most of fault occurrences at transmission line are transient in
nature and only small percentage was due to permanent fault.
Some of transient fault causes are lightning strike on phase
line, momentary contact between foreign object and phase
line, momentary clashing of phase conductors etc.
Auto-reclose relay can be classified into two categories which
are single-shot and multi-shot schemes.
In single-shot auto-reclose, only one reclose attempt will be
made for any fault occurrence. In this category, the breaker will
be tripped and locked out for the case of permanent fault or
evolving fault during reclaim time.

Introduction

The application of auto-reclose relay along with main

protection relay is different for different level of voltage at
transmission line.
All three phases of the line might be tripped and reclosed
together at the same time even though fault occurred at
only one phase of the line.
In this research, SimPowerSystems toolbox inside
Matlab/Simulink package was used to model and simulate
transmission line, equivalent sources, load, over-current
relay and auto-reclose relay.
The model can be used to increase the understanding on
auto-reclose scheme especially in transmission line network
system.
MATLAB is a software which is suitable for technical
computation. It can compute, visualizes, and program the
mathematical equations in an easy way and easy to be
understood. It also has many ready built block-sets for

Project Scopes

Auto-reclose scheme is one of protection scheme which is

complex and difficult to be understood because it requires
many parameters and conditions to be fulfilled before any
decision can be made.
In this research, several limitations were applied to ease the
process of modelling and simulation. The scopes are as
follows:
Single Line-to-ground Fault
Definite Time Over-current Relay
Faults in the Line Length
Single-shot Auto-reclose
Three-pole Auto-reclose
Synchronism Checking all conditions of synchronism are

assumed fulfilled.
Breaker status and breaker ready conditions are assumed
fulfilled.

Modeling & Simulation

Modeling Parameters & Relay
Settings

Modeling & Simulation

Modeling Parameters & Relay
Settings

Modeling & Simulation

Substations, transmission line, load and measurements
subsystem

Remote
Breaker

Modeling & Simulation

Definite time over-current
relay

Modeling & Simulation

Auto-reclose relay subsystem

Modeling & Simulation

Overall model of auto-reclose
scheme

Simulation Results

A fault was initiated from 0.06 s until 0.12 s at 10 km from

local substation.

Local red
phase current
(A)

Local rms red

phase current
(A)

Simulation Results
Local red
phase-toground voltage
(V)

Local rms red

phase-toground voltage
(V)

Simulation Results

From all Figures, after normal condition, fault was detected at around
0.071 s when fault current higher than pickup current (Ipickup = 345.6
A) but breaker was not trip yet.
It can be seen that current became very high from nominal current while
voltage dropped from nominal voltage during fault condition.
After fault was detected, timer of 0.5 s of local definite time over-current
relay was started and trip signal was sent to local circuit breaker at
around 0.582 s and line current became zero due to open circuit.
Voltage became zero as circuit breakers at both substations were
tripped at the same time.
At the same time of trip signal sent, a signal was sent to auto-reclose
relay to initiate/start auto-reclose relay.
The dead time of 1.0 s for local auto-reclose relay was started and
running until around 1.58 s and local circuit breaker was reclosed.
The current still zero because remote circuit breaker didnt reclosed yet.

Simulation Results

After local breaker reclosed, voltage at local substation

back to normal but slightly higher than nominal voltage
(equal to busbar voltage).
At around 2.076 s, remote breaker was reclosed after
remote auto-reclose relay dead time of 1.5 s had been
elapsed.
Remote breaker successfully reclosed after all conditions
for remote auto-reclose relay such as breaker in open
condition, closing coil ready, initiate/start signal from overcurrent relay received and synchronism between line and
busbar voltage were achieved.
It can be seen that after both breakers from local and
remote substations successfully reclosed, current and
voltage back to nominal value.

Conclusions

Auto-reclose scheme was successfully modelled and simulated

using Matlab/Simulink software.
From the result, the waveforms produced show the capability of
Matlab/Simulink software in modelling and simulating power
system protection scheme even for complex protection scheme
such as auto-reclose scheme.
In the designed Simulink model, some limitations and
assumptions were applied to ease the modelling because the
aim of this research is for educational purpose and the
important thing is the waveforms produced are as expected
and similar to results produced by dedicated protection system
software.
However, the limitations and project scopes can be further
modelled in the future to simulate actual scheme applied in
transmission substations.

References
[1] Paul M. Anderson. 1998. Power System Protection. Wiley.
[2] Bhavesh Bhalja, R. P. Maheshwari, Nilesh G. Chothani. 2011 Protection and Swithgear, Oxford
University Press.
[3] Abdul Halim Abu Bakar & Shinichi Imai. 2002. Auto-reclose Performance on 275 kV and 132 kV
Transmission Line in Malaysia. Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exhibition. Page(s): 603 608 vol.1
[4] M. Jannati, B. Vahidi, S.H. Hosseinian, S.M. Ahadi. 2011. A novel approach to adaptive single phase
auto-reclosing scheme for EHV transmission lines. Electrical Power and Energy Systems. Vol. 33. Pp.
639646.
[5] Yeshwant G. Paithankar. 1997. Transmission Network Protection: Theory and Practice. Power
Engineering (Willis), CRC Press.
[6] Network Protection and Automation Guide. Protective Relays, Measurement and Control. Alstom Grid.
2011.
[7] Viktor Perelmuter. 2012. Electrotechnical Systems: Simulation with Simulink and SimPowerSystems.
CRC Press.
[8] Matlab Getting Started Guide. R2011b. MathWorks. 2011.

Thank You