Saturday, October 22, 2011

Instrument transformers CT and VT

CT types : Bushing type, Bar type, window

VT Types: Electromagnetic VT, Capacitive VT

Directional relays

Types of directional relays:
  • Directional over current
  • Directional ground
  • Directional comparison
MTA - Maximum Torque angle

    Friday, October 21, 2011

    Over current protection

    We need relay coordination to minimize the disruption due to fault and operate the nearest relay first. We can not coordinate fuses because the melting time is fixed.

    For Fuse:
    total clearance time = pre arching time + arching time
    The time current characteristic of a fuse has two curves - minimum melt curve and total clearing time

    Sectionalizers  can not interrupt a fault. It counts the number of time it seen the fault and operate after preset number. Reclosers have limited fault interrupting capability.


    Types of over current protection:
    1.  Instantaneous relays - current only ( can not discriminate the fault currents If1 = If2)
    2.  Definite time relays - time only ( Faults near to the source has higher currents and it also show higher time)
    3. IDMT inverse definite minimum current relays - both current and time
    Consideration of  coordination:
    • Maximum and Minimum momentarily Short circuit current
    • Maximum and minimum ground fault current
    • Total time interval
    Coordination parameters
    • TAP value (pick up current in secondary CT) - Pick up current
    • Time Dial (TD) - Time multiplier setting (MTS) or time dial setting (TDS)
    • Instantaneous TAP (IT)
    • Extremely inverse characteristic
    We use extremely inverse relay characteristic in the industry. There should not be any crossing between fuse characteristics and relay characteristics ( we can adjust this using the correct TDS in the relay.when TD is increased it will become more inverse ). It means fuse characteristic always has to be lower than relay (0.20 s gap). If we coordinate two over current relays their characteristic should have 0.4 s gap.

    With CT ratio 500:5  and TAP value 5 means.
    Pick up current in CT secondary = 5A
    Pick up current in CT primary = 500 A

    Thursday, October 20, 2011

    Fault Calculation

    To obtain more accurate results calculation has to be carried out in different time ranges
    • Sub Transient- large current 50 ms
    • Transient - after 0.5 s
    • Steady state- after 1 s
    When we analyze large systems with different voltage levels we use base quantities and per unit values .Decaying DC component is considered using the asymmetric factor. Understanding the positive, negative and zero sequence components are required in unbalanced faults.

    • For transmission lines positive and negative impedance are same and equal to the per unit impedance of the line. Zero impedance depends on the grounding configuration. Therefor obtain it from manufacture data sheet. 
    • Balanced generator only generate positive sequence voltage.
    • For motors has same positive and negative impedance. Since most of the motors are ungrounded it doesn't has a zero impedance.
    L-L-L or L-L-L-G  => positive sequence
    L-G => positive, negative, zero in series
    L-L => positive, negative in parallel
    L-L-G => positive, negative, zero in parallel

    Line to ground voltage = line to line voltage / root(3)

      Aspects of Protection system

      Reliability
      • Dependability - protection should operate when it should operate
      • Security - protection should not operate when it should not operate
      Speed
      We need fast protection to minimize the damage

      Selectivity/Discrimination
      Zones of protections are determined by the CTs
      Understand the type of the fault and fault location

      Cost
      Cost/beneficial analysis
      fast operation and duplication require additional cost
      Back up protection

      ANSI reference numbers
      21 - Distance relay
      50 - Instantaneous over current
      51 - time delayed over current
      52 - circuit breaker
      67 - Directional over current
      87 - Differential

      Faults in power systems

      There are two categories of faults:

      • Active Faults : Current flow from one phase to another or phase to ground. Two sub categories solid faults(complete breakdown of insulation) and incipient faults(faults start from very small beginning).
      • Passive Faults : These are not real faults, but stressing the system to its maximum capacity, and ultimately active fault occurs. (Overloading, over voltage, under frequency and power swings)

      Transient Faults : do not damage the insulation permanently and allow the system to re energized after a short time period (lightning strike, momentary tree contact)
      Permanent faults : does not disappear when the power is disconnected. equipment has to be repaired.

      Symmetrical faults are balanced faults. Sinusoidal are equal about their axis. represent steady state operation.
      Asymmetrical faults displays a dc offset and become a symmetrical fault after some time

      Wednesday, October 19, 2011

      Availability of hardware in substations

      The software and hardware in the substation are designed in a way that they meet high availability requirements. The means high reliability ( Long mean-time-to fail MTTF) and short down time ( Short mean-time-to recover MTTR). MTTF means statistical time until component need a repair.Short down times can be achieved by extensive diagnostic functions, modular hardware designs, fast reconfiguration and automatic restart after a power supply failure.

      The redundancy recomended:
      • Repair faulty parts in process and bay level in less than two hours and less than 4 h for station level.
      • Standby hardware exist physically connected and per-configured.
      • Warm standby - standby HW constantly supervise active HW, automatically takes over in a failure. Time stamped events may be lost. commands are reusable after 10-30 sec
      • Host standby -  standby HW constantly supervise active HW, it takes over in a failure. No Time stamped events  lost. commands are reusable after 1-5 sec. at bay level switch over time is less than 100ms.
      Self supervision of IEDs
      • Insensitive against EMI
      • A/D conversion may subjected to aging should be supervised by a reference signal
      • Watchdog should supervise the response time from processing algorithms
      • Checksums are used detect failure in mamory
      • Loss of power should be checked
      Supervision of communication:
      • All communication devices ( Star couplers, routers, switches) are subjected to self supervision
      • Detection of errors, check the response time and counting lost messages