TRANSFORMER PROTECTION

CONTENTS

Introduction to Transformer Protection

Faults and Abnormal Conditions

Transformer Mechanical Protections

Transformer Electrical Protections

Conclusion
Transformer Protection
Introduction
 Transformers in Power System
400 kV AC Transmission

132 kV Sub transmission

Generation

MV Distribution

LV
M
 Introduction
• A Power Transformer is a very valuable and vital
link in a Power Transmission system

• Many sizes and types of power transformer

• Transformer faults may cause substantial losses

• The repair time may be long

 Introduction
• A fast protection system for transformer is
essential to minimize the damage in case of an
internal fault with suitable back-up protection
scheme to take care of un-cleared system faults

• Faults in a Transformer occur due to insulation

breakdown, ageing of insulation, overheating
due to over excitation, oil contamination and
leakage or reduced cooling
 Introduction

• Transformer is one of the most important equipment

in power system
Protection employed depends on
1. Size and rating of transformer
2. Vector configuration
3. Source and neutral earthing
4. Type of transformer (2 winding /3 winding/Auto transformer etc.)
5. Infeed conditions (radial, parallel, interconnecting)
6. OLTC Range
Transformer Faults and
Abnormal Conditions
 Transformer Faults
Transformer Faults can be classified in six
categories
• Winding and terminal faults
• Core faults
• Tank and transformer accessory faults
• On-load tap changer faults
• Abnormal operating conditions
• Sustained or un-cleared external faults
 Transformer Faults
Fault on a transformer winding is controlled in magnitude
by the following factors
•Source impedance
•Neutral earthing impedance
•Transformer leakage reactance
•Fault voltage
•Winding connections
 Transformer Faults
External Faults
• Short Circuits or Earth faults on supply network
outside the transformer
• Excessive fault current may cause enormous
electromechanical forces causing displacement/
damage to the winding and overheating/hot spot
generation inside the transformer
 Transformer Faults
Internal Faults
• Short circuits (phase to phase and phase to earth faults), inter-
turn faults due to insulation deterioration
– Serious nature causing immediate damage, but generally detectable due
to unbalance / over current at the transformer terminals
• Incipient faults
– Minor faults causing slowly developing damage
– Limited arcing in oil due to failure of interlamination or core bolt
insulation or accidental damage or poor electrical connection causing
hot spots in winding/connections due to eddy current flow
– Cooling system failure
• Regulation faults
– Associated with tap changer / tap changer control
– Operation of unequal taps for parallel transformers may cause
overheating due to circulating currents
 Abnormal Operating Conditions
• Abnormal operating conditions
• Overload, Over voltage, Under frequency and Over
fluxing of transformer
• Abnormal mechanical conditions
• High temperature, Vibration, Oil Leakage etc
• Abnormal conditions due to External sources
• Transmission line faults
• Switching and lightening surges
 Transformer Protection
CLASSIFICATION

1. Protection against Electrical Faults

• Unit Protection (against Internal Faults)‫‏‬
– Differential Protection
– REF Protection
• Non-Unit Protection (against un-cleared external
faults)‫‏‬
– IDMT O/C, E/F Relays
– Definite Time O/C, E/F Relays
2. Protection against Abnormal Conditions
• Over Load protection
• Over Fluxing Protection
• Over Voltage Protection
 Transformer Protection
CLASSIFICATION

3. Protective Devices (Non-electrical)‫‏‬

• Buchholz (Main Tank / OLTC)‫‏‬
• Oil / Winding Temperature Indicators / Relays
• Pressure Release Valve
• Oil Level Gauges / Indicators
• Fire Protection
4. If the connections on any side is through cable,
preferably a cable differential protection is added
 Transformer Protection

All type of liquid insulated transformers are more or less

amenable to same or similar type of protection scheme
The choice of protection scheme is based on factors like
capacity, voltage class, criticality of application etc.
The transformer protection logic fall into the following
two major categories, based on fault sensing method
Mechanical protections
Electrical protection
Transformer Mechanical
Protections
 Transformer Protection-Mechanical
• Liquid insulation transformers offer many option of gas/pressure
operated mechanical protections against electrical faults
• The insulating oil when subjected to high temperatures,
associated with arcing , decomposes to generate a number of
organic gases and hydrogen
• The cellulose material if involved, results in production of oxides
of carbon
• Depending upon the type, rating and volume of liquid insulation
of the transformer , this basic fact can be utilized in different
devices to achieve very fast and useful protection
• Protection against excessive temperature of the transformer
winding also need to be incorporated as a protection against
overloads and hot spots inside the transformer
 Transformer Protection-Mechanical
1. Buchholz protection
• This is essentially a gas operated protection with capability of
detecting and warning early about an incipient fault
• The relay has two elements 1st stage and 2nd stage
• The 1st stage for alarm and the 2nd stage for trip
• The 1st stage work on the accumulation of sufficient gas in the
relay chamber and the 2nd stage work on the high velocity of oil
caused due to evolution of gases as a result of high energy
faults
• The setting of 1st stage is done at collected gas volume of 300
to 500ml
• The setting of 2nd stage is done at oil flow velocity of 100cm/s
• The protection is most useful for winding inter-turn faults
 Buchholz relay

A - Gas Collection Chamber B - Upper Float

C - Lower Float
D - Oil Surge Detector
ALARM FLOAT TRIP FLOAT
Buchholz relay Mounting
 Transformer Protection-Mechanical
2. Sudden pressure relay (Rapid pressure rise) protection
• This protection performs better and faster than Buchholz 2nd
stage protection
• This protection also replaces Buchholz protection in the
transformer without oil conservator
• The relay detects a sudden rise in pressure and has inverse
time characteristics
• The alarm is set at 0.32kg/sqcm and trip at 0.6 kg/sqcm per
second
SPR
 Transformer Protection-Mechanical
3. Pressure relief valve protection
• This is used to evacuate any over pressure inside the
transformer to avoid explosion of the transformer tank
• When transformer experiences excessive pressure due to
extreme heating on account of faulty operation or conditions
then this valve saves the transformer by releasing the excessive
pressure and simultaneously disconnecting the transformer
from the lines
• This equipment is of spring loaded type
• It operates instantaneously and trip the transformer if the
pressure inside the tank reaches the set value (0.5-0.8 kg/
sqcm)
• The no of devices and the diameter depends on the size of the
transformer
 Transformer Protection-Mechanical
Pressure Relief Valve

Failure of PRV
Transformer Protection-Mechanical

Figure –14 Pressure relief valve

 Transformer Protection-Mechanical
4. Temperature protection
• The thermal inertia of transformer results in slow reflection of
thermal over loadings in oil temperature (OTI)
• Hence the temperature protection is also provided on winding
temperature (WTI)
• The winding hot spot temperature is measured indirectly using
replica resistance and the CT secondary currents
• The temperature switch , employing mercury contacts, are
susceptible to un-wanted operation during jerks on
transformer like earthquakes or vibration due to severe faults
• Therefore, a time delay of 5 sec is introduced in the trip
 WTI/OTI Typical Settings

• Winding temp alarm • 90 deg

• Winding temp trip • 110 deg
• Oil temp alarm • 85 deg
• Oil temp trip • 105 deg
WTI/OTI

30
Transformer Electrical
Protections
 Transformer Protection-Electrical
The Electrical protections is further classified as:

• Unit protection

Which are operated only for , fault in the protected transformer

• Non-Unit protection
Which are operated for a fault outside the transformer also and
are known as back up protection
 Differential Protection
• Differential protection is a complete phase and earth fault
protection operating on Merz Price circulating current principle
• Differential relay compares the currents on the primary and
secondary side of the transformer using CTs of matched ratio,
such that the secondary currents are balanced in magnitude and
phase for an external fault on load
• Interposing current transformers for phase shift and
transformation ratio correction
– Magnitude balance is achieved by a proper selection of CT
ratio on primary and secondary side or by using interposing
current transformers (ICTs)
– Phase balance is achieved by appropriate vector connections
of the associated CT/ICTs (e.g. star side CTs connected in
delta and vice versa)
• Influence from OLTC
• Harmonic restrained differential protections
Differential Protection

87
Differential Protection
Differential Protection
 Differential Protection
DIFFERENTIAL RELAY – OPERATING PRINCIPLE
Current Distribution (External Fault)‫‏‬

Battery Analogy (External Fault)‫‏‬

 Differential Protection
DIFFERENTIAL RELAY – OPERATING PRINCIPLE
Current Distribution (Internal Fault)‫‏‬

Battery Analogy (Internal Fault)‫‏‬

 Differential Protection
Biased ( percentage) differential protection
• A normal circulating current differential protection can
not be applied to a transformer due to the factors like
ratio mismatch, tap position and magnetizing inrush
etc
• Hence, it is necessary to incorporate the percentage
bias in the differential circuit
• The protection becomes sensitive to the most
commonly expected, inter turn fault but to a limited
extent, sufficiently , a large no of turns have to be
shorted for the protection to actuate
 Differential Protection
DIFFERENTIAL RELAY – Need for Bias

Current Distribution on Load on Normal Tap

 Differential Protection
DIFFERENTIAL RELAY – Need for Bias

Current Distribution on Load on +10% Tap

 Differential Protection
DIFFERENTIAL RELAY – Need for Bias

Current Distribution on Through Fault on +10% Tap

Differential Protection
Differential Protection
 Differential Protection
DIFFERENTIAL RELAY – Need for Bias

Diff. Pick-up = 15% (0.15A), Bias = 30% (Assumed)‫‏‬

Modified Diff. Pick-up due to Restraining Effect of Bias
Id mod = 0.30 x (10+9)/2 + 0.15 = 2.85 + 0.15 = 3.0A
Actual Diff. Current = 1.0A
 Differential Protection
DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION – Bias Characteristics
 Differential Protection
• There are two additional necessary feature for this protection
applied to the transformer
• Stability during switching in (magnetic inrush)
• Stability during abnormal voltage/frequency conditions
(over fluxing)
• A biased differential relay operates for a differential current
more than preset bias percentage of average through current,
This value is considerably small in comparison to the through
fault current and the relay become quite sensitive
• Two versions of biased differential relays are normally
employed
 Differential Protection
1. The relay has minimum operating current setting fixed at 15% of
rated current and bias setting in variable steps from 10% to 60%
2. The relay has a fixed non linear bias, which itself changes
upward with the through current magnitude. Such relay offers a
variable minimum operating current setting
• Both alternatives are generally considered equivalent from
application point of view
• The magnetizing in rush current contains a large no of 2nd
harmonics which is filtered out and used as a restraint to
prevent the relay from operating during energization
 Differential Protection
DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION – Magnetizing Inrush

STEADY STATE
At zero volts, flux is “(-) ɸm” since flux in quadrature with voltage
Total flux change in half the voltage cycle is “2ɸm” (-ɸm to +ɸm)
SWITCHING AT VOLTAGE ZERO
Initial flux zero as against (-) ɸm corresponding to steady state
Total flux changes from zero to 2ɸm
Flux doubling causes extreme saturation of core
 Differential Protection
DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION – Magnetizing Inrush

Magnetising Impedance drastically reduces due to core saturation

causing heavy inrush current.
Inrush appears on excited winding (primary) without any
balancing current on secondary and unstabilises differential
protection.
 Differential Protection
DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION – Inrush Stability

Inrush current has predominant 2nd harmonic content (typical

value, up to 60% max. of fundamental depending upon instant of
switching)
Dominant 2nd harmonic component is used to restrain the
protection on inrush condition
 Differential Protection
• Under conditions of transformer saturation a high 5th harmonic
content is present which can be used as restraint to prevent mal-
operation
• Some relays simply filtered out 5th harmonic from operating
current, therefore, tend to operate for heavy saturation
conditions
• However, the harmonic restraint feature can delay the tripping
considerably for high current internal faults, due to possible CT
saturation and consequent harmonics
• Hence, it is necessary to incorporate a high set tripping feature;
set at over 10 times of rated current
 Differential Protection
BIASED DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION – Internal Circuit
 Differential Protection
• Some new generation relays do not incorporate
harmonic restraint features. They recognize magnetic
in rush and over-fluxing by technique of current wave
shape identification.
• Now-a-days, the trend is to use numerical relays . The
basic principle more or less remain same with added
advantage of versatility, man/machine interface, event
logging and remote communication capability.
Wave Shape Identification
 REF Protection
Restricted Earth fault protection
• This protection is applied to single winding of the transformer and
quite sensitive and straight forward
• The relay is high impedance differential relay and remains stable
for all out of zone faults. The protection is insensitive to the inter-
turn faults.
• The gain in protection performance is obtained by
• Low instantaneous setting
• The whole fault current is measured
• Therefore, although the prospective current level decreases as
the fault position progress nearer to the neutral end of the
winding, the square law which controls the primary current is not
applicable.
 REF Protection
• Simple Over current and Differential Protection for a
star connected HV winding, as the transformed current
and not the actual current is measured on the LV side
• Because of the square law, faults in the lower third of
the winding produce very little current
 REF Protection
• For a resistance earthed,
star connected winding, a
winding to earth fault will
give rise to a current
dependent on value of
earthing resistor and the
distance of fault from the
neutral end of winding
• Current flowing through
transformer terminals is
proportional to the square
of the percentage of the
winding short circuited
 REF Protection
• Fault current is mainly
limited by leakage reactance
of the winding
• For a solidly earthed star
winding, fault current bears
no simple relationship to the
distance of the fault from
the neutral end since the
effective reactance of the
fault path changes with fault
position
• Minimum value of fault
current occurs for a fault 30
to 40% from the neutral end
 REF Protection
• The protection is applied often to transformers with neutral
solidly earthed, the fault current remains at high value even to
the last turn of the winding and complete cover of winding is
achieved
• Earth fault protection applied to a delta connected or
unearthed star winding is inherently restricted, since no zero
sequence component can be transmitted through the
transformer to the other winding
• Both windings of transformer can be protected separately with
REF protection
• A high impedance relay can be used giving fast operation and
phase-fault stability
REF Protection
REF Protection
 REF Protection

Current Distribution on Internal Fault

REF Protection
 REF Protection
STABILISING RESISTOR
SETTING CRIETERIA

• If B-ɸ CT fully active while

NCT fully saturates,
maximum voltage across
Relay Branch
(Vs) = If/n (Rct + 2Rl)

• If Relay current setting is “Is”

and Ohmic burden is “Zr”,
Stab. Resistor Setting
(Rs)‫ =‏‬Vs/Is – Zr Ohms
Transformer Protection
 Over Load Protection
1. Definite Time Over Load Relay

• Definite Time O/C relay used for Alarm

• Set above permissible over load with small time delay (say 5
seconds)‫‏‬

• Relay should have adjustable current setting, time delay (built-in

or external) and high reset ratio

• Some times, extended tripping is provided with additional time

delay
 Over Voltage Protection
Over voltage conditions of two types
• Transient surge voltages
– Transient over voltages arises from faults, switching and
lightening disturbances and are liable to cause inter turn
faults
– Usually limited by using LAs
• Power frequency over voltages
– Power frequency over voltages causes both an increase in
stress on the insulation and a proportionate increase in the
working flux
 Over Fluxing Protection
Over-fluxing protection
• Over-fluxing withstand characteristic of the transformer is
invariably inverse time. The protection should match this
characteristic. The protection against over-fluxing is provided
either by definite time or by IDMT characteristic relay which
senses V/f threshold . Separate alarm and trip elements are
provided. The alarm function is a definite time delayed and the
trip function is an IDMT characteristic.
 Over Fluxing Protection
INDEX OF OVER FLUXING

V α Φ.f, Hence Φα V/f

• Tandem variations in voltage & frequency most likely to occur in

case of Generator Transformer during start-up or coasting down
(due to AVR malfunction or manual control) requiring Over Fluxing
Protection

• It is necessary for Grid TFRs as well, under certain conditions (e.g.

TFR fed by long transmission line subjected to high voltage due to
Ferranti Effect when off-loaded)
 Over Fluxing Protection
1. Definite Time Over fluxing relay

• Adjustable V/f setting (typically 1 – 1.5 of 110V / 50Hz)

• Adjustable trip time delay (typically 10 – 120S)‫‏‬
• Pre-trip Alarm (fixed or variable delay)‫‏‬

2. IDMT Over Fluxing Relay

• Adjustable V/f setting

• Inverse time characteristic to match with TFR with-stand
characteristic
• Pre-trip Alarm and accelerated trip for severe over fluxing
condition
 Over Fluxing Protection
VT Ratio: 765kV/110 volt
Relay type: System A - P632
Relay Designation - 99
Over Fluxing protection:
Continuous over flux withstand capability : 110%
Withstand capability at 120% : 1 minute
Withstand capability at 130% : 30 sec
Withstand capability at 140% : 5 sec
Recommended settings are as below
Alarms
Alarms will be generated if V/f value is 1.12 the nominal value after
a time delay of 10 sec
Tripping characteristic
Over-fluxing tripping IDMT characteristics has to be made as per
the transformer withstand specifications
 Over Fluxing Protection
10,000

1000

100
time
s

10

1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4

U/UN
f/fn
 Back Up Protection
Back up Earth fault protection
• The back up earth fault protection (51N) take current signal from
the neutral CT of the Transformer
• This is the last back up protection for un-cleared ground faults

Back up over current protection

• The most common form of back up protection is the inverse
time over current protections
• This protection is a back up protection against short circuits un-
cleared faults by the primary protection and is nothing to do
with protecting transformer against overloads as misunderstood
sometimes
• The setting is done at 300% of the rated current and no case
shall be less than 175%
 Transformer Protection

BACKUP EARTH FAULT PROTECTION

– NCT operated Standby E/F Relay responds to internal
earth faults as well, besides providing backup against
external faults
 Back Up Protection
CTR HV: 500/1
BACK UP E/F SETTING
Threshold can be more sensitive to take care of faults near to star
point. Normal recommended value is 30% of the rated Full load
current

Pick up setting = Full load current x 30 %

= 452.83 / 500 *0.3= 0.27 A
Time setting fixed to more than zone 3 time of distance relays to
provide back up protection for the line protections

Recommended DT of 2Sec
Operating time setting of the relay should be more than the
operating time of distance zones in line protection relay
 Inter Turn Fault Protection
Inter-turn fault and protection
• Statistically, approximately 70-80% of all transformer faults
originate as inter-turn faults and finally develop into earth fault
and/or phase faults
• Short circuit of a few turns of a winding will cause a significantly
heavy current in the short circuited portion of the winding, while
the terminal currents will be very small because of large turns
ratio between the main winding and the short circuited turns
• Most probable reasons for inter-turn faults are :
1. Mechanical forces on the winding due to external short circuits
2. Excessive moisture in the paper insulation of the winding
3. Structural failure of paper insulation due to aging
Inter Turn Fault Protection
 Inter Turn Fault Protection
• The transformers may be subjected to steep fronted impulse
voltage originated form lightning and switching having very high
equivalent frequency and tend to concentrate on the end
windings
• This has led to reinforced design of end winding insulation
• However, the reinforced end winding insulation is not
comparable to the insulation to the ground and hence a higher
probability of part winding flash over exists as against that for
flashover to ground
• Inter-turn faults involving very few turns are not detectable,
Inter-turn faults involving fairly large number of turns either may
be cleared by transformer differential or rate of gas pressure rise
in transformer liquid insulation protections