Basic Protection

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Fundamentals of Protection Practice

Why power system need the protection system ?

• Severe disruption to normal routine
of modern society is likely if power
outages are frequent or prolonged.
• Many items of equipment are very
expensive, and the complete power
system represent a very large
capital investment.
• Fault may represent a risk to life
and/or property.

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Why power system need the protection system ?

Type of equipment % of faults

Overhead line 45
Underground Cable 10
Busbar 15
Transformer 12

Instrument transformer 10

Control equipment 3
Other 5

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Why power system need the protection system ?

Type of faults % of faults

One Phase to Earth 60

Two Phase to Earth 18

Two Phase Short Circuit 5

Three Phase Short Circuit 10

Series Fault 5

Other 2

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What can the protection system do ?

• Increase emphasis on reliability

and security of supply.

• Prevent the diverse items of

equipment from the severe
damage by detect and disconnect
elements of the power system.

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More Fundamental

However, is the power system should operate in a safe

manner at all times. No matter how well designed, faults
will always occur on a power system.

The provision of adequate protection is therefore on

integral part of power system design.

As requirements of reliability and economic are largely

opposed, power system design is inevitable a compromise

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Protection System
• Protection system is a complete arrangement of protection
equipment and other devices required to achieve a specified
function based on a protection principal.
• Protection equipment is a collection of protection device
( relay, fuse, etc.) excluded are device such as CT’s, CB’s,
contactor, etc.
• Protection scheme is a collection of protection equipment
providing a defined function and including all equipment
required to make the scheme work (i.e. relays, CT’s, CB’s
Batteries, etc.)

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Protective Relay
• Relay maybe classified according to the technology used
• Electromechanical
• Static
• Digital
• Numerical
The different type have some what different capabilities due
to limitations of technology used.
• Type of protective relay
• a relay that responds to single quantity
• a relay that responds to several quantities
• a single relay containing several elements, each
responding independently to a different
quantity
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Zones of Protection

• To limit the extent of power system that is disconnected

when a fault occur.

Zone 1 Zone 2 Zone 3 Zone 4

Zone 4

G Zone 5

Zone 6

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Zones of Protection

Ideally the zones of protection should overlap. So that no part

of the power system is left un protected.
The point of connection of the protection with the power
system usually defines the zone and corresponds to the
location of CT’s.

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Zones of Protection

Unit protection will result in the boundary being a clearly

define close loop.
Zone maybe un restricted, the extent or reach will depend on
measurement of the system quantities.

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Principal of Protection
Reliability
Operate under all required condition, and refrain from
operating when so required.
Incorrect operation can be attributed to one of
• Incorrect design / setting
 Design: Due consideration must be given to the nature, frequency and
duration of fault, all relevant parameters of the power system and type
of protection equipment used.
 Setting: The setting are chosen for protection relays and system which
take in to account the primary system, fault, load levels etc. The
characteristic of power system changes with time change in load etc.
Therefore, setting value of relay may need to be checked at suitable
intervals to ensure that are still appropriate.

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Principal of Protection
• Incorrect installation / testing
Installation: The complexity of interconnections of many systems and
their relationship to the remainder of the installation may make checking
difficult.

• Deterioration in service

The time between operations of protection relays maybe years rather

than days. During this period defects may have developed unnoticed until
revealed by the failure of the protection to respond to a power system
fault. For this reason, relays should be regularly tested in order to check
for correct functioning.

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Principal of Protection
Selectivity
To trip only those circuit breakers whose operation is required to
isolate the fault. The property of selectivity tripping is also called
‘discrimination’ and is achieved by two general methods.
• Time Grading

Protection systems in successive zones are arranged to operate in times

that are graded through the sequence of equipments so that upon the
occurrence of a fault although a number of protection equipments respond,
only those relevant to the faulty zone complete the tripping function. The
others make incomplete operations and then reset.

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Principal of Protection
• Unit Systems
The protection systems that respond only fault conditions occurring with
in a clearly defined zone, it does not involve time grading, is relatively fast
in operation. The speed of response is substantially independent of fault
severity.

Stability
The ability of protection system to remain unaffected by
conditions external to the protected zone, for example
through load current and external fault conditions.

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Principal of Protection
Speed
The function of protection systems is to isolate faults on the
power system as rapidly as possible.
• The main objective is to safeguard continuity of supply by removing each
disturbance before it lead to widespread loss of synchronism and
consequent collapse of power system. As the loading on a power system
increase the phase shift between voltages and different busbars on the
system also increases, and therefore so does the probability that
synchronism will be lost when system is disturbed by a fault, protection
must thus operate as quickly as possible.
• However speed of operation must be weighed against economy.
Distribution circuits which do not normally require a fast fault clearance,
are usually protected by time-graded systems. Generating plant and EHV
systems require protection gear of highest attainable speed.

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Principal of Protection
Sensitivity
This is a term frequently used when referring to the
minimum operating level ( current, voltage, power etc.) of
relays or complete protection scheme.

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Primary and Back-up Protection
The reliability of a power system has been discussed earlier,
including the use of more than primary ( or main ) protection
system operating in parallel.
In the event of failure or non-availability of the primary
protection some other means of ensuring that the fault is
isolated must be provided. These secondary systems are
referred to as ‘back-up protection’.

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Back-up Protection
Local back-up protection
This is achieved by protection which detect an un-cleared
primary system fault at its own location and which then trip its
own circuit breakers, e.g. time-graded over current relay.

A
D

B
E
R1 R2
+
+

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Back-up Protection

A
D

B
E
R1 R2
+
+

Local back-up protection ( Breaker failure relay )

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Back-up Protection
Remote back-up protection
This is provided by protection that detects an un-cleared primary system fault
at a remote location and then issue a local trip command e.g. the second or
third zones of distance relay.

3 2 1

R3 R2 R1 F

T3 R3
T2 R2
T1 R1

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Back-up Protection

The extent and type of back-up protection applied will naturally

be related to the failure risks and relative economic importance
of the system.
• For distribution systems where fault clearance times are not critical,
time delayed remote back-up protection maybe adequate.
• For EHV systems, where system stability is at risk unless a fault is cleared
quickly, multiple primary protection systems, operating in parallel and
possibly of different type ( e.g. distance and unit protection ) will be
used to ensure fast and reliable tripping.

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