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Verification of Utility Requirements on Modern Numerical Busbar Protection by

Dynamic Simulation
Z. Gajić (ABB, Sweden)
JP Wang / PW Gong / YS Xu (ABB China)
ZX Zhou (CERPI, China)

Summary
Power utilities are aware of the specific characteristics and requirements for their network. For this
reason, they may require additional functionalities from the protective devices and secondary systems
included in their power network. Therefore State Grid Cooperation of China (SG) requires a number of
specific tests to be conducted on the protection system proposed for a particular application to prove
the suitability of the proposed protection system for the specific application. Only when all of these
tests are successfully passed, the protection system is certified for use in State Grid’s network which
has 70% of total installed capacity of China. China Electric Power Research Institute (CEPRI) is given
the tasks for carrying on this type of dynamic tests to check if the protection system can fulfil SG’s
requirement by using the power system dynamic simulator in CEPRI’s test centre.

Keywords
Relay Protection, Busbar Protection, Differential Protection

1 Introduction
The 500kV busbars are extremely important nodes in State Grid’s transmission network. Thus, busbar
protections for these stations have to fulfil very strict requirements, which are set down by the China
national testing standards. Two typical station layouts are used in the busbar protection tests, mainly
one-and-a-half breaker station and double-bus single-breaker station with a bus coupler bay [1].

The numerical busbar protection has been tested on an analogue power system simulator in order to
verify that it can handle both station configurations. Different operating conditions for the busbar
protections have been tested as listed below:

ƒ Internal and external metallic faults (i.e. without fault resistance)

ƒ Internal faults with fault resistance
ƒ Evolving faults
ƒ Circuit Breaker Failure
ƒ Faults during a power swing in a network
ƒ Internal and external faults during active load-transfer for double-bus single-breaker station
layout
ƒ CT saturation for external faults
ƒ Open CT secondary circuits
ƒ Line and power transformer energization
ƒ Internal and external faults during off-nominal power system frequency condition

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 ƒ Special test for one-and-a-half breaker station (internal faults with out-feed currents)
ƒ DC power switching (off/on) while relay is in service and busbar is loaded

Altogether 1528 test cases on an analogue power system simulator were performed [1]. The
behaviour of the numerical busbar differential protection IED [2] during these operating conditions will
be presented. Some of the results will be presented by using the captured disturbance files.

2 Relay Operating Principles

The basic concept for any bus differential relay is practically a direct use of Kirchoff’s first law that the
sum of all currents connected to one differential protection zone shall be zero. If that is not the case,
an internal fault has occurred.

In other words, as seen by the busbar differential protection the sum of all currents which flow into the
protection zone (i.e. currents with positive value) must be equal to the sum of all currents that flow out
of the protection zone (i.e. currents with negative value), at any instant of time. Such interpretation
enables quite efficient implementation of a numerical bus differential relay algorithm, because any
differential zone can be represented by just three quantities, as shown in Figure 1, regardless the
number of actually connected feeders.

Figure 1: Representation of the bus differential protection zone

Here:

ƒ iin is total instantaneous incoming current flowing into the bus

ƒ iout is total instantaneous outgoing current flowing from the bus
ƒ id is instantaneous differential current

By looking into the property of only three quantities it is possible to make a numerical busbar
differential protection relay which can:

ƒ Operate quickly for internal faults due to the fact that iin becomes much larger than iout during
an internal fault (i.e. current flows into the faulty bus but it doesn’t flow out from the faulty
bus)
ƒ Remain stable for external faults followed by CT saturation due to a fact that for short period
of time, immediately after the fault current zero crossing, iin will be equal to iout (i.e. before any
CT goes into saturation)
ƒ Detect an open CT secondary circuit in any one of the connected feeder CTs when one of iin
or iout remain unchanged while the other experiences a sudden drop in magnitude

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These are actually the very similar methods used by analogue, moderate impedance bus differential
relay which has been successfully used in practice for many years [3]. For more information regarding
numerical implementation please refer to [2].

3 Relay Test Setup

3.1 Double-bus single-breaker station layout
For the double-bus single-breaker station layout four feeder bays and one bus-coupler bay were used
during the testing. Only the disconectors auxiliary contacts and CT input (three of them with ratio
2500/1 and one with ratio 1250/1) were available from each feeder bay. From the bus-coupler bay
only one CT set (with ratio 2500/1) and auxiliary contacts of the CB were available to the busbar
protection during the testing. The five fault positions were used:

ƒ Internal fault on Busbar I

ƒ Internal fault on Busbar II
ƒ Internal fault in Dead-zone between bus-coupler CB and between bus-coupler CT
ƒ External fault on Feeder 1
ƒ External fault on Feeder 3

3.2 One-and-a-half breaker station layout

For the one-and-a-half breaker station layout two full diameters (e.g. altogether four feeders) were
used during the testing. Only four CT inputs, all with ratio 2500/1 A, were connected to the busbar
protection. The four fault positions were available as follows:

ƒ Internal fault on Busbar I

ƒ Internal fault on Busbar II
ƒ External fault on Feeder 1 (locates as upper feeder in the first diameter)
ƒ External fault on Feeder 3 (locates as upper feeder in the second diameter)

Additional fifth feeder, with CT ratio 2500/1 was connected to the lower busbars in order to test
internal faults with out-feed conditions. During all tests busbar differential protection operated as
required. Table 1 provides overview about all test results.

3.3 Busbar Protection Settings

Only the most important setting parameters will be presented here. During all tests the differential
protection minimum pickup level was set to 800A primary. The differential protection slope is fixed to
0.53 and can not be changed by the end user. The built-in open CT detection feature was set to 200A
primary. Same settings were used for both differential zones. Pickup for built in breaker failure
protection was set to 250A primary with time delay t2=0,15s.

4 Testing Results
During all tests busbar differential protection operated as required. Table 1 provides short overview
about all tests:

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 TABLE I: Summary of test results
Test Point Test Description Relay Performance
Internal and external All types of internal and external Protection remained stable for all external
metallic faults faults without fault resistance were faults. Protection operated selectively for all
simulated. internal faults. Operating time was from
11.2ms to 19.0ms*
Internal resistive faults Internal single-phase-to-ground fault Protection operated correctly for all fault
with fault resistance of 100Ω and types. For single-phase-to-ground faults
phase-to-phase fault with fault operating time was from 15ms to 27.5ms
resistance of 25Ω. and for phase-to-phase fault operating time
was from 12ms to 20ms*
Evolving faults External fault evolves into internal Protection remained stable for all external
fault with different evolving time (i.e. faults. Protection operated selectively when
10-200ms). fault evolves into internal.
Internal fault in one section evolves
into internal fault on the other section
with different evolving time (i.e. 10-
200ms).
Simultaneous double internal faults in
both busbar sections.
External faults with CT Simulate all types of external faults Protection remained stable for all test
saturation followed by a CT saturation in the cases. Fastest time to saturation achieved
faulty feeder. during testing was 2.8ms
Faults during active load- Internal and external faults were Protection correctly tripped both busbar
transfer applied while one feeder bay was sections for all internal faults. Protection
simultaneously connected to both remained stable for all external faults.
busbar sections
Power swing and faults Cause dynamic power system Protection remained stable for all external
during power swing instability in the tested system with faults. Protection operated selectively for all
the centre of a power swing close to internal faults.
the protected busbar. Apply internal
and external faults during the swing.
Open secondary CT Open one phase of a loaded CT on Protection could detect the open CT circuit
circuits its secondary side. Apply internal and in all test cases. Behaviour for consecutive
external faults after that. internal/external faults was in accordance
with the relay setting.
Energising of a bus- Energise a healthy bus-section via Protection behaved as expected during
section, line and bus-section CB. these tests (e.g. remained stable and only
transformer Energise a line. tripped when energising a faulty bus-
Energise a transformer. Energise a section)
fault bus-section via bus-section CB.
Faults during off-nominal Apply internal and external faults Protection remained stable for all external
frequency conditions during off-nominal frequency faults. Protection operated selectively for all
conditions internal faults.
(e.g. 48Hz & 52Hz)
Special test for one-and- Internal fault situation in which current Protection operated selectively for such
a-half breaker station flow out from the faulty busbar. special internal faults.
layout
Circuit breaker failure Bus-coupler CB failed to trip for Protection correctly tripped all adjacent
internal busbar fault. breakers for all CB failure test cases.
Feeder CB failed to trip for external
fault.
DC supply power off/on During normal through-load condition Protection behaved as expected during
test DC power supply to the relay was these tests (e.g. remained stable)
switched off and on.
* Operating time measured by external recorder (include relay trip output contact time)

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Three selected test cases are presented. Disturbance files captured by busbar protection relay are
used in the following figures. In Figure 2 external fault followed by faulty feeder CT saturation is
presented. The relay remained fully stable for this external fault. In Figure 3 internal fault is presented.
The relay operated quickly in less then half-a-cycle. In Figure 4 evolving fault is presented. The relay
operated quickly once the fault becomes internal.
Feeder #3 Current Waveforms

40 IL1
IL2
20 IL3
Current [kA]

− 20

− 40

4 4.5 5 5.5 6

Time [Cycles]
Figure 2: Faulty feeder CT saturation for external fault

Feeder #4 Current Waveforms

40 IL1
IL2
20 IL3
Current [kA]

BBP_TRIP
0

− 20

− 40

0 2 4 6 8 10

Time [Cycles]

Figure 3: Internal L3-to-ground fault

Feeder #4 Current Waveforms

50 IL1
IL2
IL3
Current [kA]

BBP_TRIP
0

− 50
0 2 4 6 8 10

Time [Cycles]

Figure 4: External L3-to-ground fault evolves into internal L2-to-ground fault

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5 Conclusion
After all these tests, the protection relay [2] was officially approved by CEPRI to be used for busbar
protection applications in China for all voltage levels up to and including 500kV.

References
[1] CEPRI “Inspection and Test Report”, Document No: 2006008
[2] ABB Document 1MRK 505 178-UEN, "Technical reference manual, Busbar Protection IED REB
670", Product version: 1.1, ABB Power Technologies AB, Västerås, Sweden, Issued: March 2007
[3] T. Forford and J.R. Linders, “A Half Cycle Bus Differential Relay and its Application”, IEEE
Transaction on Power Apparatus and Systems, Vol.PAS-93, July/Aug. 1974.

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