Essential Qualities of Protective Relaying

Protective Relaying (Part11)      

       A protective relaying scheme should have certain important qualities. Such an essential qualities of protective relaying are,

1. Reliability

2. Selectivity and Discrimination

3. Speed and Time

4. Sensitivity

5. Stability

6. Adequateness

7. Simplicity and Economy

1.1 Reliability

       A protective relaying should be reliable is its basic quality. It indicates the ability of the relay system to operate under the predetermined conditions. There are various components which go into the operation before a relay operates. Therefore every component and circuit which is involved in the operation of a relay plays an important role. The reliability of a protection system  depends on the reliability of various components like circuit breakers, relays, current transformers (C.T.s), potential transformers (P.T.s), cables, trip circuits etc. The proper maintenance also plays an important role in improving the reliable operation of the system. The reliability can not be expressed in the mathematical expressions but can be adjusted from the statistical data. The statistical survey and records give good idea about the reliability of the protective system. The inherent reliability is based on the design which is based on the long experience. This can be achieved by the factors like,

i) Simplicity                            ii) Robustness

iii) High contact pressure        iv) Dust free enclosure

iv) Good contact material        vi) Good workmanship and

vii) Careful Maintenance

1.2 Selectivity and Discrimination

       The selectivity id the ability of the protective system to identify the faulty part correctly and disconnect that part without affecting the rest of the healthy part of system. The discrimination means to distinguish between. The discrimination quality of the protective system is the ability to distinguish between normal condition and abnormal condition and also between abnormal condition within protective zone and elsewhere. The protective system should operate only at the time of  abnormal condition and not at the time of normal condition. Hence it must clearly discriminate between normal and abnormal condition. Thus the protective system should select the fault part and disconnect only the faulty part without disturbing the healthy part of the system.

       The protective system should not operate for the faults beyond its protective zone. For example, consider the portion of a typical power system shown in the Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

       It is clear from the Fig. 1 that if fault F₂ occurs on transmission line then the circuit breakers 2 and 3 should operate and disconnect the line from the remaining system. The protective system should be selective in selecting faulty transmission line only for the fault and it should isolate it without tripping the adjacent transmission line breakers or the transformer.

       If the protective system is not selective then it operates for the fault beyond its protective zones and unnecessary the large part of the system gets isolated. This causes a lot of inconvenience to the supplier and users.

1.3 Speed and Time

       a protective system must disconnect the faulty system as fast as possible. If the faulty system is not disconnect for a long time then,

1. The devices carrying fault currents may get damaged.

2. The failure leads to the reduction in system voltage. Such low voltage may affect the motors and generators running on the consumer sude.

3. If fault persists for long time, then subsequently other faults may get generated.
       The high speed protective system avoids the possibility of such undesirable effects.

       The total time required between the instant of fault and the instant of final arc interruption in the circuit breaker is called fault clearing time. It is the sum of relay time and circuit breaker time. The relay time is the time between the instant of fault occurrence and the instant of closure of relay contacts. The circuit breaker times is the time taken by the circuit breaker to operate to open the contacts and to extinguish the arc completely. The fault clearing time should be as small as possible to have high speed operation of the protective system.

       Though the small fault clearing time is preferred, in practice certain time lag is provided. This is because,
1. To have clear discrimination between primary and backup protection

2. To prevent unnecessary operation of relay under the conditions such as transient, starting inrush of current etc.

       Thus fast protective system is an important quality which minimises the damage and it improves the overall stability of the power system.

1.4 Sensitivity

       The protective system should be sufficiently sensitive so that it can operate reliably when required. The sensitivity of the system is the ability of the relay system to operate with low value of actuating quantity.

       It indicates the smallest value of the actuating quantity at which the protection starts operating in relation with the minimum value of the fault current in the protected zone.

       The relay sensitivity is the function of the volt-amperes input to the relay coil necessary to cause its operation. Smaller the value of volt-ampere input, more sensitive is the relay. Thus 1 VA input relay is more sensitive than the 5VA input relay.

       Mathematically the sensitivity is expressed by a factor called sensitivity factor . It is the ratio of minimum short circuit current in the protected zone to the minimum operating current required for the protection to start.

                     K_s = I_s/I_o
       where     K_s  = sensitivity factor
                      I_s = minimum short circuit current in the zone
                      I_o= minimum operating current for the protection

1.5 Stability

       The stability is the quality of the protective system due to which the system remains inoperative and stable under certain specified conditions such as transients, disturbance, through faults etc. For providing the stability, certain modifications are required in the system design. In most of the cases time delays, filter circuits, mechanical and electrical bias are provided to achieve stable operation during the disturbances.

1.6 Adequateness

       There are variety of faults and disturbance those may practically exists in a power system. It is impossible to provide protection against each and every abnormal condition which may exist in practice, due to economical reasons. But the protective system must provide adequate protection for any element of the system. The adequateness of the system can be assessed by considering following factors,

1. Ratings of various equipments
2. Cost of the equipments
3. Locations of the equipments
4. Probability of abnormal condition due to internal and external causes.
5. Discontinuity of supply due to the failure of the equipment

1.7 Simplicity and Economy

       In addition to all the important qualities, it is necessary that the cost of the system should be well within limits. In practice sometimes it is not necessary to use ideal protection scheme which is economically unjustified. In such cases compromise is done. As a rule, the protection cost should not be more than 5% of the total cost. But if the equipments to be protected are very important, the economic constrains can be relaxed.

       The protective system should be as simple as possible so that it can be easily maintained. The complex system are difficult from the maintenance point of view. The simplicity and reliability are closely related to each other. The simpler system are always more reliable.

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