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AbstractThis paper proposes a full adaptive technique for setting all overcurrent (OC) relays in HV substations. This technique
can be used online and there is no need to employ a telecommunication infrastructure. It is based on an appropriate equivalent circuit
of the power grid in the substation, online estimation of the equivalent circuit parameters, and application of the equivalent circuit
to estimate the required short-circuit currents. This full adaptive
technique is used in setting the OC relays of a typical 230/20-kV
substation connected to a sample 9-bus grid. Significant advantages of the proposed technique over the usual setting method are
shown by comparing the corresponding results. Furthermore, the
technique is improved to resolve problems due to penetration of
distributed generation. Developing this adaptive setting technique
is a step toward introducing self-adjustment OC relays.
Index TermsAdaptive setting, high-voltage (HV) substations,
overcurrent (OC) relays.
I. INTRODUCTION
VERCURRENT (OC) relays are utilized in power systems protection as economical protective devices. Usually, these relays are the main protection devices in distribution
grids and backups for distance relays in transmission and subtransmission lines [1], [2]. They are also used as backup protection devices for power transformers and generators. Regarding
the time delay operation, OC relays are categorized as the definite time (DT) and inverse time (IT) types [2]. IT relays are
widely used where a shorter delay in removing severe faults
near power supplies is essential. Nevertheless, coordinating the
IT relays is more complicated [2] and this is considered here.
OC relays are usually coordinated offline with the grid being
in the dominant utilization topology (DUT), because frequently
this is the topology for the power grid. Normally, in DUT, all
generators, power transformers, transmission lines, and other
grid equipment are active. Some events, such as planned or
emergency outage of the mentioned equipment or installation
of new equipment, change the topology of the grid, which usually changes the amplitudes of the short-circuit fault currents in
various parts of the grid. In this case, a smaller fault current at
Manuscript received January 15, 2012; revised May 12, 2012 and July 17,
2012; accepted September 23, 2012. Date of current version December 19, 2012.
Paper no. TPWRD-00057-2012.
M. Ojaghi is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of
Zanjan, Zanjan 4537138791, Iran (e-mail: mojaghi@znu.ac.ir).
Z. Sudi is with Zanjan Regional Electricity Company, Zanjan 33685-45137,
Iran (e-mail: z_sudi@yahoo.com).
J. Faiz is with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University
of Tehran, Tehran 14399-57131, Iran (e-mail: jfaiz@ut.ac.ir).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2012.2221483
any part of the grid causes longer delays in the OC relays operation. This results in the prolongation of the huge fault current
in the grid, which intensifies the damage on the faulty equipment, premature faults in other equipment, and shortens their
useful lifespan. On the other hand, higher fault current at any
part of the grid can break the coordination between OC relays.
Therefore, coordination based on the DUT is not necessarily the
optimal coordination in other grid topologies [3].
In order to take into account various grid topologies in the
coordination of OC relays, a new constraint corresponding to
each grid topology is added to the problem for every main/
backup pair of the relays [4], [5]. This greatly increases the
number of problem constraints. Some constraints may be infeasible, leading to an impossible solution of the problem. Otherwise, a large number of constraints results in longer computation
time. An attempt has been made to introduce an initial analysis
to reduce the number of constraints and speed up the solution
[6]. At this end, a preprocessing procedure has been introduced
which removes the infeasible and noneffective constraints [7].
A method based on the interval analysis has been suggested to
solve the OC relays optimal coordination [5] where possible
grid topologies have been considered. However, introducing
any valid constraint to the problem due to grid topology changes
may increase the minimum feasible limit for time dial setting
(TDS) of the related backup relay [7]. This may lead to a higher
TDS for the backup relay, which increases the time delay for
every fault at any topology. Therefore, the operation time interval between the related main/backup relays would be longer
than the minimum satisfactory limit in DUT. In addition, a time
delay increase of any relay leads to a similar increase in its
backup relays and then, in backups of the backup relays; so TDS
and the delay of many OC relays would be increased in the interconnected grid.
Fig. 1 shows a conventional power substation arrangement
transforming transmission to distribution voltage levels. The
substation has two high-voltage (HV) feeders, two parallel
transformers, and a number of low-voltage (LV) outgoing
feeders. The LV bus consists of two sections which may be
connected by a coupling feeder. Fig. 1 also presents the OC
protection scheme of the substation. The outgoing feeders
use OC relays as main protection (R1). Also, OC relays are
installed on the LV bus-coupling feeder as well as both sides
of the power transformers (R2 to R4). OC relays are also used
as backups for distance relays on the HV transmission lines
(R5 and R6). In the case of the HV grid being nonradial, latter
OC relays must be equipped with directional units [2]. With
short-circuit faults on the outgoing feeders, LV bus sections,
and LV sides of the power transformers, relays R1 to R4 must
236
Minimize
(1)
237
Fig. 3. Flowchart of the technique used for setting the OC relay of a power line
as backup for its distance relay.
238
(15)
Adding the corresponding sides of (14) and (15) results in
Fig. 4. Per-phase equivalent circuit of the power grid for a line led to a bus.
(16)
and
and
are the equivalent voltage sources of both sides
of the line.
shows the equivalent impedance of the load connected to the bus, is the line-to-neutral voltage phasor at the
bus,
is the load current phasor, and
is the current
phasor of the proposed power line. At the end of this section, it
will be shown that by this equivalent circuit, it is possible to estimate all required short-circuit currents for setting the OC relays
presented in Fig. 1. Meanwhile, the online method of estimating
parameters of the equivalent circuit is introduced. This, in fact,
is an extension to the method of estimating the parameters of
Thevenin equivalent circuit introduced in [16].
Applying KVL to the meshes of Fig. 4 gives the following
equation:
(9)
where
denotes
the
covariance
operator.
and
are equal to
zero, because
and
are independent of
; thus (16) can
be written as follows:
(17)
Applying KVL to the outer loop of the proposed equivalent
circuit results in
(18)
Considering the time variations of the various voltage and current phasors, (18) can be rewritten as follows:
(10)
Determining
from (10) and replacing it into (9) leads to
the following equation:
(19)
Subtracting both sides of (18) from (19) yields
(11)
Taking into account the variations of the various voltage and
current phasores with time, (11) is rewritten as follows:
(20)
Repeating the procedure from (14)(17) gives
(21)
(12)
will be as follows:
(22)
(14)
is the expected value operator. The last equation can
where
be rewritten as follows:
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Fig. 5. Per-phase equivalent circuit of the grid usable for fault current calculation at the beginning of the second zone of the distance relay.
Fig. 6. Flowchart of the adaptive online estimation technique for the needed
short-circuit currents.
240
TABLE I
ESTIMATION OF THE PARAMETERS OF EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT IN VARIOUS GRID TOPOLOGIES
TABLE II
RESULTS OF THE CALCULATION OF SHORT-CIRCUIT
CURRENTS AND SETTINGS OF OC RELAYS
out of use. Estimated and actual parameters of the equivalent circuit have been shown in Table I and calculated short-circuit currents and TDSs have been summarized in Table II. Table I indicates the high accuracy of the estimated parameters. Meanwhile,
Table II indicates that in this topology of the grid; short-circuit
currents decrease largely compared to the previous topology.
This results in the decrease of the TDS values. So in this grid
topology, if the OC relays TDS were not corrected, their operation delay becomes longer than the required delay. The adaptive
setting technique is capable of doing such setting corrections.
Case3: Adding New Equipment to Grid: Suppose new equipment (i.e., generator G4 and transformer T4) are added to the
grid and their effects on the relays setting are studied. Tables I
and II show the results in this new grid topology. The high accuracy of the adaptive technique in estimating the parameters
of the equivalent circuit is also obvious. Nevertheless, adding
the new equipment causes an increase of the amplitudes of the
short-circuit currents and, thus, increases TDSs largely.
Actually, it is common to estimate the settings for the OC
relays in the DUT (case1) and put them into effect over all operating topologies of the grid. The impacts of the grid topology
change on the operation of the OC relays of transmission lines,
adjusted using traditional and adaptive methods, are studied in
the following part. Suppose the topology of the grid changes
from DUT to the aforementioned cases 2 and case 3, respectively. Table III compares the operation conditions of the proposed OC relays for two critical faults
and . In Table III,
and
are obtained as follows:
(23)
and
must be zero. Usually, both
In the ideal situation,
constraints (6) and (7) may not reach equality form, so
and
cannot be zero simultaneously. The shorter
and
,
the better is the operation of the related OC relay. Negative
TABLE III
COMPARISON OF ADAPTIVE AND TRADITIONAL SETTING METHODS WITH
CHANGING TOPOLOGY TO CASES 2 AND 3
TABLE IV
SETTING OF OC RELAYS IN 230/20-kV SUBSTATION
UNDER DOMINANT UTILIZATION TOPOLOGY
TABLE V
SETTING OF OVER CURRENT RELAYS IN 230/20-kV SUBSTATION
WHEN ONE OF THE TRANSFORMERS IS OUT OF USE
or
is not desirable, because it shows a decreased time interval between the main and backup relays which may result
in coordination failure between them. Table III indicates that
with an adaptive setting technique,
and
have small
positive values, while with the traditional setting method, they
have large positive and sometimes negative values. Therefore,
the optimal coordinative operation of the OC relays is guaranteed under various topologies using the adaptive method; but
not the traditional method.
B. Coordinating Relays R1 to R4
Case1: Dominant Utilization Topology: The topology of the
grid in this case is similar to that of case1 in the previous subsection; so the equivalent circuit attained is also usable here.
Table IV shows the results of the setting calculations, where the
CT ratio,
, and are the CT ratio, three-phase short-circuit
current through the relay for a fault next to R1, current setting
of the relay in primary amps and relay operation time, respectively. In part , CTI is considered to be 0.3 s.
Case2: One Transformer of the Substation Being Out of Use:
Suppose all of the equipment of the 9-bus grid are in use but a
power transformer within the substation is out of use. The adaptive setting method uses the transformers connection status to
identify this topology. Excluding the transformer has no impact
on the equivalent circuit of a nine-bus grid viewed from bus 7.
Thus, the equivalent circuit for case1 in the previous subsection
can also be used in this case. Table V shows the results of setting
calculations for this case. As seen, the amplitude of the short-circuit current in the remaining transformer and, therefore, TDS of
the relays has been increased.
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TABLE VI
SETTINGS
TABLE VII
SETTINGS OF OC RELAYS IN THE 230/20-kV
SUBSTATION IN THE GRID TOPOLOGY OF CASE 4
Case3: One Grid Equipment Being Out of Use: Suppose generator G3 is chosen to be out of use while both power transformers are in use. Repeating the estimation procedure,
and
will be
and
while their
actual values are
and
, respectively. Also, estimated
and
are
kV
and
kV while their actual values are
kV and
kV, respectively. As seen, there
is good agreement between the estimated and actual parameters. Table VI shows the results of the setting calculations. It is
noted that by outing G3, short-circuit currents and, thus, TDSs
decrease significantly.
Case4: Adding New Equipment to Grid: Suppose generator
G4 is added to the grid through the transformer T4. This case
is similar to the case3 in the previous sub-section; so attained
equivalent circuit is also usable here. Table VII shows the settings calculation results. As seen, short-circuit currents and thus,
TDS of the relays have been increased.
Now the results of the adaptive and traditional setting
methods are compared. As stated before, contrary to the adaptive method, in the traditional method, OC relays settings are
calculated in DUT and the results are put constantly on the
relays regardless of the grid topology changes. Table VIII
shows the operation times of main/backup relay pairs for a
three-phase short-circuit fault in an outgoing feeder next to R1.
These operation times are delivered for the aforementioned
case 2, case 3, and case 4 topologies of the grid and for adaptive
and traditional setting methods separately. In this table, t is
obtained as follows:
(24)
is the operation time of the main relay and
is
where
that of the related backup relay. The ideal value of
is zero.
Otherwise, the smaller its value, the better. A large negative
value of
(compared to CTI) indicates possible coordination
failure between the related main/backup relays. Considering
columns in Table VIII, it is noted that in all three cases of
the grid with the adaptive setting method, the values of
are
small tending to zero. However, in cases 2 and 4,
has a large
negative value with the traditional setting method; this implies
242
TABLE VIII
COMPARISON OF THE ADAPTIVE AND USUAL SETTING ADJUSTMENT METHODS WITH CHANGE OF GRIDS TOPOLOGY TO CASES 2, 3, AND 4
TABLE IX
BUS BAR DATA FOR THE 9-BUS SYSTEM
TABLE X
BRANCH DATA FOR THE 9-BUS SYSTEM IN THE 100-MVA BASE
243
VI. CONCLUSION
Ring grids fed from two or more supplies have a simple
equivalent circuit. With sampling some voltage and current phasors, the parameters of the equivalent circuit can be estimated
online. Using this circuit, short-circuit current contributions in
grid lines and branches can be determined and used for setting
OC relays in a conventional HV substation. Thus, an adaptive
online method for setting is employed which can adjust the
necessary settings on the relays that are appropriate for the
current topology of the grid. This adaptive method does not
need any telecommunication infrastructure. Using this method,
the problems in the operation of the OC relays due to the
change in the topology of the grid are totally solved. Simple
improvements make the adaptive setting method robust against
challenges brought by DGs in the LV side grid.
REFERENCES
Miscoordination of Previously Coordinated Relays: Considering Fig. 8(d), assume that IT relays
and
are coordinated up to the maximum fault current without DG. The connection of DG increases the maximum fault current that both relays
may experience and pushes them out of the current coordinated
range. This problem is presented between relays R1 and R2 in
the proposed HV substation when DG is connected to any of its
LV bus sections. The proposed adaptive setting scheme can remove this problem by changing the relays setting appropriately.
To do so, the scheme needs the short-circuit model of DG as
well as its connection status, which can be provided easily.
Conflict Requirements on Coordination: As Fig. 8(e) shows,
during fault F1 with DG, relay
should operate before
;
while during fault F2, relay
should operate before . Therefore, two OC relays are facing conflict requirements on coordination. A similar problem threatens the substation relays R1 to
R4 for short-circuit faults in the HV (230-kV) grid. If necessary,
using directional OC relays for R1 to R4 is a definitive solution
of this problem. One must remember that the HV substations
typically incorporate unit differential protections to remove internal faults within the substation instantly.
Limited Short-Circuit Level: When the distribution network
is disconnected from the main source and is supplied from inverter-interfaced DGs, short-circuit levels of the network will be
limited to low magnitudes [17], [21]. Disconnecting both transformers of the HV substation superimposes the related distribution network into such a condition. OC relays R1 and R2 of
the substation remain effective in this condition and, if they do
not blind, their delay time may be so long that the fault could
damage DGs. Using a new predetermined setting group with
a definite-time characteristic and appropriate time and current
settings is a useful method to overcome this problem [21]. The
adaptive setting scheme uses the connection status of both transformers to activate this setting group. The current phase comparison scheme can also be useful in such conditions [19].
244
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Adv. Power Syst. Control, Oper. Manage., Hong Kong, China, 2003,
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[17] Y. Pan, W. Ren, S. Ray, R. Walling, and M. Reichard, Impact of inverter interfaced distributed generation on overcurrent protection in
distribution systems, in Proc. IEEE Power Eng. Autom. Conf., 2011,
pp. 371376.
[18] P. Mahat, Z. Chen, B. Bak-Jensen, and C. L. Bak, A simple adaptive
overcurrent protection of distribution systems with distributed generation, IEEE Trans. Smart Grid, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 428437, Sep. 2011.
[19] N. El Halabi, M. Garcia-Gracia, J. Borroy, and J. L. Vill, Current
phase comparison pilot scheme for distributed generation networks
protection, Appl. Energy, vol. 88, pp. 45634569, 2011.
[20] W. El-Khattam and T. S. Sidhu, Resolving the impact of distributed
renewable generation on directional overcurrent relay coordination: A
case study, Inst. Eng. Technol. Renew. Power Gen., vol. 3, no. 4, pp.
415425, 2009.
[21] M. Dewadasa, A. Ghosh, and G. Ledwich, Protection of distributed
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Jawad Faiz (M90SM97) received the M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering (Hons.) from the University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran, in 1975, and the Ph.D.
degree in electrical engineering from the University
of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.,
in 1988.
Early in his career, he served as a faculty member
with the University of Tabriz for 10 years. After obtaining the Ph.D. degree, he rejoined the University
of Tabriz, where he was Assistant Professor from
1988 to 1992, Associate Professor from 1992 to
1997, and has been a Professor since 1998. Since 1999, he has been a Professor
at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,
University of Tehran. Currently, he is the Director of the Center of Excellence
on Applied Electromagnetic systems. He has received a number of awards, including the first basic research award from the Kharazmi International Festival
in 2007, the silver Einstein medal for academic research from the UNESCO,
the first rank medal in Research from the University of Tehran in 2006, and
the Elite Professor Award from the Iran Ministry of Science, Research and
Technology in 2004. He is the author of 170 papers in international journals and
172 papers in international conference proceedings. His teaching and research
interests are switched reluctance and VR motors design, design and modeling
of electrical machines and drives, as well as transformer modeling and design
and fault diagnosis in electrical machinery.
Prof. Faiz is an IEEE Senior Member of Power and Energy, Industry Applications, Power Electronics, Industrial Electronics, Education and Magnetics
societies. He has also been a member of the Iran Academy of Science since
1999.