Performance Testing of Complete Digital Relays

Based on ATP-EMTP and IEC61850-9-2

Yiqing Liu, Houlei Gao Xin Wei, Peng Wei

School of Electrical Engineering Department of substation automation
Shandong University Integrated Electronic Systems
Jinan, China Lab Co., Ltd
[email protected] Jinan, China

Mingjiang Xiang Chunsheng Zhou

School of Electrical Engineering Electric Power Dispatching Centre
Shandong University Shandong Electric Power Corporation
Jinan, China Jinan, China

Abstract—The complete digital relays are used increasing widely sampled value (SV), works as the input signal for the digital
in recent years, where the traditional analog, hardwired and relays through process bus [1,2]. The sampled value is obtained
interface have been replaced by non-conventional instrument by merging units (MUs) synchronously and transmitted to
transformers and the digital communication link (process bus)
based on IEC 61850-9-2 standard. It is shown that these new
protective relays.
techniques will make a strong impact on relay performance Performance testing of protective relays plays a very
testing. General methods of testing protective relays will be important role in power system engineering, as it ensures that
reviewed, including static characteristics testing, dynamic the various protection functions are going to operate as
simulation and real time digital simulator (RTDS). Approaches designed in advance. Researchers also need a tool to compare
for testing IEC 61850 compatible relays based on RTDS offer the different relays, calibrate relay settings and perform relay
significant advantages when compared with other methods.
However, the RTDS simulator is designed with powerful software
troubleshooting. Different from conventional relays, the
and expensive hardware, which is not convenient enough to test complete digital relays rely on the modern Ethernet
complete digital relays. This paper presents the design of new communication and advanced transducer technology. These
relay performance testing scheme, especially for complete digital new developments bring challenges to all aspects of protective
relays. At first, power system model is established in ATP-EMTP relays as well as their testing technology [3, 4].
and fault transient data in accordance with COMTRADE will be The paper reviews general methods of relay testing,
obtained by offline simulation. Subsequently, transient data are
converted to IEC 61850-9-2 format through the static relay
including static characteristics testing, dynamic simulation and
testing instrument. Finally, the complete digital relays directly Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDS). Recently researches
receive the fault sampled value by process bus and Ethernet develop a lot of new testing systems in digital form of RTDS,
switcher, and relays will act or not. The new testing scheme will which do not require D/A conversion and current/voltage
be applied more efficiently to researching the complete digital amplifiers [5-8]. After outlining the potential challenges brought
relays, as the scale of testing is out of the limitation of simulator’s by the new testing requirements, a new approach will be
hardware. A brief example by the new testing system is presented
at the end of the paper.
discussed, which is based on Electromagnetic Transient
Program (EMTP) [9, 10], COMTRADE [11] standard and static
Keywords- Complete Digital Relays, Alternative Transient characteristics test instrument.
Program (ATP), Relay Performance Testing, IEC 61850 The paper is organized as follows. Section II reviews the
conventional testing methods of protective relay; Section III
I. INTRODUCTION discusses the new relay performance scheme; Section IV
presents a testing example and Section V conclusions.
To realize the goal of Unified Strong Smart Grid in China,
the demands of high performance Intelligent Electronic
II. REVIEW OF CONVENTIONAL PROTECTIVE RELAY
Devices (IEDs) are increasing rapidly. In Smart Substation,
TESTING METHOD
IEC 61850 offers significant advantages when compared with
other substation communication protocols. A. Static characteristics testing and off-Line Simulation
The next generation protective relays following IEC 61850 Conventional relays and complete digital relays can also be
will have complete digital input. The digital output signal of tested by means of static characteristics testing set provided by
non-conventional instrument transformers (NCITs), i.e. OMICRON, ONNLY, TESIENT or PONOVO. On the other

978-1-4577-0365-2/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE 83

hand, the behavior of protective relay can be verified using data
generated by the off-line simulation tools, such as ATP/EMTP,
PSCAD/EMTDC, MATLAB/Simulink and so on. The
transient data generated by simulation program describe the
voltage and current at the relay location both before and during
fault. Using the transient data during different faults and auto-
reclose, researchers can study the relay performance easily.

B. Power system physical simulation technologies

The physical simulation of power system (also known as
the dynamic simulation of power system) is one of the most
important ways to study and analyze power system's dynamic
character. The dynamic simulation laboratory provides the
physical equipment which models scaling primary equipment
according to analogous theory. So far, no tool can replace the
physical simulation in studying a new protective relay [12].
Figure 2. Diagram of RTDS based testing system following IEC 61850.

C. Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDS) In smart substation following IEC 61850, MU works as an
RTDS is a fully digital electromagnetic transient simulator access from the NCITs to the digital relays with IEC 61850-9-2
of power system, used to realize close-loop testing of format [7]. The simulation data generated by the RTDS can be
protection and control equipment. It is a cost-effective directly injected to the complete digital relays through NCITs
replacement of transient network analyzers and power system and MUs. Therefore the D/A interface unit and the
physical dynamic simulators [13]. current/voltage amplifiers no longer needed. As output signal,
trip messages and interlock messages are sent to intelligent
breaker or others IEDs with Generic Object Oriented
Substation Event (GOOSE). Fig.2 is a schematic diagram of
RTDS close-loop testing design following IEC 61850 [5, 14].

III. NEW RELAY PERFORMANCE TESTING SYSTEM

A. IEC 61850 substation architecture and information

transmission by process bus
In smart substation, the automation systems involve three
functional levels: station level, bay level and process level. In
substations, the information is exchanged among the IEDs
absolutely trough communication network. Especially, the
process level should be separated into two parts independently,
Figure 1. Typical RTDS based testing system. i.e. SV network and GOOSE network. The IEC 61850
substation architecture is shown in Fig.3 (GOOSE network is
The RTDS is a combination of comprehensive software and not included).
advanced hardware. As shown in Fig.1, the typical RTDS
based testing system involves three major components: (1) the
RTDS kernel; (2) the power amplifiers; (3) the protective
relays. The digital simulation software running in rack is taken
as the core of RTDS. Through the D/A converters and the
power amplifiers, the digital signal produced by rack is
converted to analog voltage and current in real time. The
amplifiers receive low level analog signals from RTDS and
enlarge them to a level compatible with the input module of
the traditional relays or microprocessor protections.
D. RTDS for IEC 61850 based IEDs
In traditional RTDS testing systems, the amplifiers are
made of analog models, which are not only large in size, but
also expensive to build, since they are required to carry high-
power currents and voltages. The amplifiers restrict the testing
capability of a RTDS system, as only a limited number of Figure 3. Substation architecture following IEC 61850.
relays can be connected through the amplifiers simultaneously.

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 The IEC 61850-9-2 standard is a protocol for the Transient Data
COMTRADE File
communication of sampled values. The sampled values
protocol can be used to transmit instantaneous measured values
Data Format
from MU to IED, using a multicast address over the high speed TESIENT
Conversion
Ethernet switcher. Different from IEC 60044-8, the Static Test Device
Program
information in Data Set shall be pre-defined by configuration Sampled Value Modifying
files and mapped to a Multicast Sampled Value Control Block Ethernet
IEC61850-9-2 .atp File Transient Data
.pl4 File
(MSVCB).
Switch
TRIP
GOOSE ATP-EMTP
Sampled Value
IEC61850-9-2
Program

Digital
Relay

Figure 5. The testing procedure of new system.

Based on the above discussion, the implementation of relay

testing is composed of three steps. At first, power system
model is established in ATP-EMTP and the fault transient data
with .pl4 format will be obtained by off-line simulation.
Subsequently, fault transient data are converted to IEC 61850-
9-2 format through the static relay testing instrument or PC
software with intermediary format (e.g. COMTRADE format).
Finally, the complete digital relays receive the fault sampled
value by process bus and Ethernet switcher, then relays will act
or not. In these steps, it is important to obtain transient data and
analyze the behavior of digital relays. The scheme of new
Figure 4. Frame format of IEC 61850-9-2 in ISO/IEC 8802-3. testing system is shown in Fig.5.
The static characteristics testing sets are very well adopted
In order to realize the communication among the isomeric in protective relays testing. In this paper, TESIENT testing
systems, ASN.1 is used on the Ethernet presentation layer to
device is a good choice to send out sampled value. It utilizes
unify the data type and values representation of the application
online software, which provides predefined cases to perform a
layer. The transmission grammar follows the basic encoding
series of tests. In addition, TESIENT testing device can
rules (BER). Referencing to the requests of output data format
playback transient data with COMTRADE files. The output of
of the MU in the IEC 61850-9-2, the Ethernet frame format
testing device is optional: analogue voltage/current or digital
(SV message format) is defined just like Fig.4 showing.
signal. Setting test parameter and network setup are all allowed
by a handy configuration model.
B. Design of a new relay performance testing system
At the beginning of study, researchers are usually interested The new relay testing system is founded by complete
in the relays’ performance, and ignore the errors of other software environment, which can perfectly accomplish relay
sections, such as NCITs and MUs. Now that the complete simulation mission. Compared with the testing system RTDS
digital relays receive the Ethernet message including sampled for IEC 61850 based IEDs mentioned in Section II, the new
value based on IEC 61850-9-2, the new testing system will be system has a lot of advantages, for example, the cheaper
designed without RTDS simulator and amplifiers. Therefore hardware, much more convenient to test and simpler hardwire
the basic thought of the new relay testing system is: we can connection. It is the most important advantage that software
obtain the fault transient data through off-line simulation testing means will break the hardware limits of tested system
software (e.g. ATP-EMTP), and send the instantaneous value scale.
immediately to complete digital relays through Ethernet
equipment. The output file of ATP should convert to IEC C. Data transmission and format transformation
61850-9-2 format by PC software or static characteristics In this section, we will focus on the transient data
testing set. The sampled value message enters digital relays, transmission and format transformation. As described in Fig.5,
and the protection elements use the sampled data to justify the key of testing data flow is format transformation. The
where the fault occurs. After complete digital relays send out output .pl4 file, which is ATP-EMTP private binary format,
trip GOOSE messages or has not act for period of time, the contains transient data. The .pl4 file can be read and plot by
open-loop testing is accomplished. Meanwhile modifying the special tools such as PlotXY.exe. The general static
original simulation system structure in ATP files, in characteristics testing sets are not identify .pl4 format, but are
accordance with the trip GOOSE messages of relays, the compatible with COMTRADE files.
closed-loop testing is accomplished.
Data Format Conversion Program is involved in the
testing system. Firstly, the output .pl4 file from ATP is
converted to .mat file with Pl42mat.exe tool. Then the transient

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data in .mat files are dealt with in MATLAB environment. 100
[kV]

Finally, the transient data are deposited in COMTRADE 75

compatible files. After the above transformation, TESIENT test

50

device receives the transient data from COMTRADE files, and

25

send sampled value massage through Ethernet switcher

0

-25

following IEC 61850-9-2 standard. -50

-75

D. Implementation of closed-loop test -100

0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 [s] 0.10

Realizing the closed-loop test is a little troublesome. The

(file single-phase-to-ground.pl4; x-var t) v:BUS NA v:BUS NB v:BUS NC

(a) Voltage waveform

power system often affords certain load in normal operation 4000
[A]

mode, and the breakers are fixed closed. When fault occurs and 3000

relay sends trip message to TESIENT device, the breakers 2000

should open to isolate the fault element in simulation model. 1000

The measure of changing the grid topology is to modify 0

the .atp file in ATP. Then the transient data of post-fault and -1000

post-tripping are acquired by running ATP simulation program -2000

again. The following steps implement in the same way as -3000

mentioned earlier. -4000

0.03 0.04 0.05
(file single-phase-to-ground.pl4; x-var t) c:KG MA -L MA
0.06
c:KG MB -L MB c:KG MC -L MC
0.07 0.08 0.09 [s] 0.10

(b) Current waveform

IV. TESTING EXAMPLE Figure 7. Simulation result of ATP-EMTP.
A typical simulation power system which is established in
line with paper [15] is used to demonstrate the features of the
new testing system. The power system and simulation model in
ATP are showed in Fig.6.

(a) Power system model for testing transmission line protective relay

Figure 8. Sampled value message captured from process bus.

(b) Simulation system model in ATP V. CONCLUSION

Figure 6. Testing example. The development and implementation of IEC 61850 based
devices and substation automation systems require a new
When single-phase-to-ground fault occurs at F3 with arc generation of specialized test devices and methods to test the
resistance, voltage on Bus1 and current of L1 are sampled at multifarious protective functional of digital relays. This paper
rate of 4kHz. The transient data during fault are stored in proposed a new protective relay testing system for complete
output .pl4 files, and converted to COMTRADE format. The digital relays based on ATP-EMTP and IEC 61850-9-2
voltage/current waveform of ATP-EMTP simulation result is standard.
described in Fig.7.
A typical simulation power system is established to
After TESIENT test device reads COMTRADE files, it demonstrate the features of new testing system. It is shown that
send sampled value message to tested relay through Ethernet the new relay testing system is significantly different from the
switcher. The Ethernet frames including IEC 61850-9-2 SV existing schemes. Not only is the cost of expensive hardware of
messages are captured as shown in Fig.8. RTDS saved, but also multiple relays and their associated
protection schemes can be tested at the same time. The new
testing system has some theoretical significance to evaluate the
performance of digital relay and other secondary equipments in

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