Power System

Protection (EE-523)
Abdullah Munir
Department of Electrical Engineering
NEDUET
• The core of an electric power system is the generation.
• With the exception of emerging fuel cell and solar-cell technology for power systems, the
conversion of the fundamental energy into its electrical equivalent normally requires a
'prime mover' to develop mechanical power as an intermediate stage.
• The nature of this machine depends upon the source of energy and in turn this has some
bearing on the design of the generator.
• Generators based on steam, gas, water or wind turbines, and reciprocating combustion
engines are all in use.
• Electrical ratings extend from a few hundred kVA (or even less) for reciprocating engine
and renewable energy sets, up to steam turbine sets exceeding 1200MVA.
• Small and medium sized sets may be directly connected to a power distribution system.
• A larger set may be associated with an individual transformer, through which it is
coupled to the EHV primary transmission system.
• A unit transformer may be tapped off the interconnection between generator and
transformer for the supply of power to auxiliary plant, as shown in Figure.

• The unit transformer could be of the order of 10% of the unit rating for a large fossil
fuelled steam set with additional flue-gas desulphurization plant, but it may only be of
the order of 1% of unit rating for a hydro set.
Generator Protection
The protection of the generator presents a very challenging problem because of its system
connections on three different sides.
Electrical Circuit of the Generator
• It is to be noted that the generator is never solidly grounded. If it were solidly grounded, the
single line-to-ground fault current would be dangerously high .

• Hence in order to limit the short circuit current, the neutral is grounded through a
resistance.

• If an earthing transformer is used, the continuous rating is usually in the range 5-250kVA

• An earthing transformer (neutral coupler) is a three-phase transformer connected to the

power system to provide a neutral connection for earthing, either directly or via impedance.
The earthing transformers may in addition supply a local auxiliary load.
Various Faults and Abnormal Operating
Conditions
Stator Faults
The three-phase armature winding on the stator can develop phase as well as ground

faults. Another possibility is inter-turn faults between turns of the same phase.

Stator Phase and Ground Faults

Phase and ground faults on the stator armature winding can be easily detected by a

conventional percentage differential protection scheme. This type of scheme is also

known as longitudinal differential scheme in order to differentiate it from another

differential scheme, known as transverse differential scheme which is used to detect

inter-turn faults.
 1-Earth Faults
The most probable mode of insulation failure is phase to earth.
Use of an earthing impedance limits the earth fault current and hence stator damage.
Replacement of the faulty conductor may not be a very serious matter but the damage to
the core cannot be ignored, since the welding of laminations may result in local
overheating.
A flashover is more likely to occur in the end-winding region, where electrical stresses
are highest.
Apart from burning the core, the greatest danger arising from failure to quickly deal with
a fault is fire.
A large portion of the insulating material is inflammable, and in the case of an air cooled
machine, the forced ventilation can quickly cause an arc flame to spread around the
winding. Fire will not occur in a hydrogen-cooled machine.
 2-Phase-Phase Faults
Phase-phase faults clear of earth are less common; they may occur on the end portion of
stator coils or in the slots if the winding involves two coil sides in the same slot.
To respond quickly to a phase fault with damaging heavy current, sensitive, high-speed
differential protection is normally applied to generators rated in excess of 1MVA.
For large generating units, fast fault clearance will also maintain stability of the main power
system.
The zone of differential protection can be extended to include an associated step-up
transformer.
For smaller generators, IDMT/instantaneous overcurrent protection is usually the only phase
fault protection applied.
3-Interturn Faults
Interturn faults are rare, but a significant fault-loop current can arise where such a fault
does occur.
Conventional generator protection systems would be blind to an interturn fault, but the extra
cost and complication of providing detection of a purely interturn fault is not usually
justified.
Differential Protection of Alternators
• It is general practice to use neutral earthing resistance in order to limit the destructive
effects of earth fault current.

• In such a situation, It is impossible to protect whole of the stator windings of a star

connected alternator during earth fault.

• When an earth fault occurs near the neutral point, there may be insufficient voltage
across the short circuited portion to drive the necessary current round the fault circuit
to operate the relay.

• The magnitude of unprotected zone depends upon the value of earthing resistance and
relay settings.

• For example protecting 80 % of the winding means that faults in the 20% of the winding
near the neutral point cannot cause tripping i.e. the portion is unprotected.

• Restricted Earth fault protection is used.

• Numerical:

• 1) A star connected, 3 phase, 10-MVA,6.6 KV alternator has a per-phase

reactance of 10%. It is protected by Merz-price circulating current principle
which is set to operate for fault currents not less than 175 A. Calculate the
value of earthing resistance to be provided in order to ensure that only 10% of
the alternator winding remains unprotected.

• 2) A generator is protected by restricted earth fault protection. The generator

ratings are 13.2 KV, 10 MVA. The percentage of winding protected against
phase to ground fault is 85%. The relay setting is such that it trips for 20 % out
of balance. Calculate the resistance to be added in the neutral to ground
connection.
 Percentage Differential Relay
The simple differential relay can be made more stable, if somehow, a restraining torque
proportional to the 'through fault' current could be developed-the operating torque still being
proportional to the spill current.

The relay trips if the operating torque is greater than the restraining torque.

K=Nr/No
The differential relaying scheme should also remain stable for any fault which is outside
its protective zone. Such faults are called external faults or through faults.

The difference between these two currents of CTs, ends up as spill current.
Since both the ratio and phase angle errors aggravate as primary current increases, the
spill current builds up as the 'through fault' current goes on increasing.
• As the 'through fault' current goes on increasing, various imperfections of the CTs
get magnified.

• This causes the spill current to build up. Therefore, as the 'through fault‘ current
goes on increasing, there comes a stage when the spill current, due to the difference
between the secondary currents of the two CTs, exceeds the pick-up value of the
over-current relay in the spill path.

• This causes the relay to operate, disconnecting the equipment under protection from
rest of the system.

• This is clearly a case of maloperation, since the relay has tripped on external fault.

• In such instances, the differential scheme is said to have lost stability.

• Thus, the spill current must be greater than a definite percentage of the
'through fault' current for the relay to operate. Hence, the name
percentage differential relay. The slope of the relay is customarily
expressed as a percentage. Thus, a slope of 0.4 is expressed as 40% slope.

• The percentage bias setting for the generator differential relay is quite small
compared to that for the power transformer.
This gives rise to a larger spill current, during normal load and external faults, in case

of the transformer differential protection than in case of the generator differential

protection. Normally, the percentage bias setting of 5-10% is adequate for longitudinal

differential protection of the generator stator winding whereas a setting of 20-40%

may be required in case of power transformers.

Transverse Differential Protection
The half of the winding in which there is an inter-turn fault is shown to carry
3000 A whereas the healthy half carries 3500 A. As seen from the figure, the
current entering the phase c winding, as a whole, is 6500 A which is the same
as that leaving it. Therefore, a longitudinal differential relay would be
incapable of detecting such faults.

However, because of the splitting of the winding and transverse connection of

the CTs, there is a spill current of 0.72 A in the transverse differential relay

Thus, a setting of, say, 0.5 A will be enough to detect such an inter-turn fault.
Rotor Faults
The rotor carries the field winding which is kept isolated from the ground. Neither the
positive nor the negative terminal of the dc supply is grounded.

Thus, any ground fault on the rotor field winding does not affect the working of the
alternator.

However, a subsequent fault would cause a section of the rotor winding to be short circuited,
giving rise to a secondary flux which opposes the main flux in the proximity of the shorted
turns, causing distortion in the distribution of main flux.

The flux will get concentrated on one pole but dispersed over the other and intervening
surfaces.

The resulting asymmetry in the electromagnetic forces will cause severe vibrations of the
rotor. In a modern turbo alternator, the inertia of rotation is very large and the rotor-to-
stator clearances are very small, therefore, there is a likelihood of permanent damage to the
turbo-alternator.

Instances have been reported where, during rotor faults, because of severe mechanical
stresses structural damage was caused.
• In the light of the above, the very first fault on the field winding must be detected and the
set tripped in a controlled manner. An arrangement for rotor earth fault detection and
protection is shown in Figure 8.7, wherein an external voltage source is superimposed on
the rotor circuit. This external voltage source is grounded so that the very first rotor
earth fault causes a dc fault current to flow which is easily detected by an OC relay.