Protection of Power System Components

 The modern electric power system consists of several elements. e.g. alternators, transformers,
station bus-bars, transmission lines and other equipment.

 It is desirable and necessary to protect each element from a variety of fault conditions which
may occur sooner or later.

 The most serious faults on alternators which require immediate attention are the stator winding
faults.

 The major faults on transformers occur due to short-circuits in the transformers or their
connections.

 The basic system used for protection against these faults is the differential relay scheme
because the differential nature of measurements makes this system much more sensitive than
other protective systems.
 Protection of Alternators (Generators)
 A generator is the heart of an electrical power system, as it converts mechanical energy into
its electrical equivalent, which is further distributed at various voltages.

 It therefore requires a‘primemover’ to develop this mechanical power.

Fig.2.1
 The generating units, especially the larger ones, are relatively few in number and
higher in individual cost than most other equipments.

 Therefore, it is desirable and necessary to provide protection to cover the wide

range of faults which may occur in the modern generating plant.

 Some of the important faults which may occur on an alternator are :

 failure of prime-mover
 failure of field
 Overcurrent
 Overspeed
 Overvoltage
 Unbalanced loading
 Stator winding faults
(i)Failure of prime-mover.

• When input to the prime-mover fails, the alternator runs as asynchronous

motor and draws some current from the supply system.

• This motoring conditions is known as “inverted running”.

• In case of hydro-generator sets, protection against inverted running is

achieved by providing mechanical devices on the water-wheel.

• When the water flow drops to an insufficient rate to maintain the

electrical output, the alternator is disconnected from the system.

• Therefore, in this case also electrical protection is not necessary.

(ii) Failure of field.

 The chances of field failure of alternators are certainly very rare.

 Even if it does occur, no immediate damage will be caused by

permitting the alternator to run without a field for a short-period.

 It is sufficient to rely on the control room attendant to disconnect

the faulty alternator manually from the system bus-bars.
(iii) Overcurrent.

• It occurs mainly due to partial breakdown of winding insulation or due to overload on

the supply system. Overcurrent protection for alternators is considered unnecessary
because of the following reasons :

(a)The modern tendency is to design alternators with very high values of internal
impedance so that they will stand a complete short-circuit at their terminals for sufficient
time without serious overheating. On the occurrence of an overload, the alternators can
be disconnected manually.

b) The disadvantage of using overload protection for alternators is that such a protection
might disconnect the alternators from the power plant bus on account of some momentary
troubles outside the plant and, therefore, interfere with the continuity of electric service.
(iv) Overspeed.

 The chief cause of Overspeed is the sudden loss of all or the major part of load on the
alternator.

 Modern alternators are usually provided with mechanical centrifugal devices mounted on
their driving shafts to trip the main valve of the prime-mover when a dangerous overspeed
occurs.

(v) Over-voltage.
 The field excitation system of modern alternators is so designed that overvoltage
conditions at normal running speeds cannot occur.

 However, overvoltage in an alternator occurs when speed of the prime-mover increases

due to sudden loss of the alternator load.
 In case of hydro-generator, the control governors are much less sensitive and an appreciable
time may elapse before the rise in speed due to loss of load is checked.

 The over-voltage during this time may reach a value which would over-stress the stator
windings and insulation breakdown may occur.

 It is, therefore, a usual practice to provide over-voltage protection on hydro-generator units.

 The over-voltage relays are operated from a voltage supply derived from the generator
terminals.

 The relays are so arranged that when the generated voltage rises 20% above the normal value,
they operate to:

(a) Trip the main circuit breaker to disconnect the faulty alternator from the system

(b) Disconnect the alternator field circuit

(vi) Unbalanced loading.
 Unbalanced loading means that there are different phase currents in the alternator.
 Unbalanced loading arises from faults to earth or faults between phases on the circuit
external to the alternator.
 The unbalanced currents, if allowed to persist, may either severely burn the mechanical
fixings of the rotor core or damage the field winding.

Fig. 2.2 shows the schematic arrangement for the protection of alternator against unbalanced
 Under normal operating conditions, equal currents flow through the
different phases of the alternator and their algebraic sum is zero.

 Therefore, the sum of the currents flowing in the secondaries is also zero
and no current flows through the operating coil of the relay.

 However, if unbalancing occurs, the currents induced in the secondaries

will be different and the resultant of these currents will flow through the
relay.

 The operation of the relay will trip the circuit breaker to disconnect the
alternator from the system
(vii) Stator winding faults.

• These faults occur mainly due to the insulation failure of the stator windings.

• The main types of stator winding faults, in order of importance are:

(a)Fault between phase and ground

(b)Fault between phases
(c)Inter-turn fault involving turns of the same phase winding
• The stator winding faults are the most dangerous and are likely to cause
considerable damage to the expensive machinery.
• Therefore, automatic protection is absolutely necessary to clear such faults in the
quickest possible time in order to minimize the extent of damage.
• For protection of alternators against such faults, differential method of protection
(also knows as Merz-Price system) is most commonly employed due to its greater
sensitivity and reliability.
 If the stator winding fault is not cleared quickly, it may lead to

(i) burning of stator coils

(ii) burning and welding-up of stator laminations

Differential Protection of Alternators
 In this scheme of protection, currents at the two ends of the protected section are
compared.

 Under normal operating conditions, these currents are equal but may become unequal on
the occurrence of a fault in the protected section.

 The difference of the currents under fault conditions is arranged to pass through the
operating coil of the relay.

 The relay then closes its contacts to isolate protected section from the system. This form
of protection is also known as Merz-Price circulating currents scheme.
Fig. 2.3 shows the schematic arrangement of current differential protection for a 3-phase
alternator.
Operation:

 Under normal operating conditions, the current at both ends of each winding will be
equal and hence the currents in the secondaries of two CTs connected in any phase
will also be equal.

 Therefore, there is balanced circulating current in the pilot wires and no current flows
through the operating coils (R1,R2 and R3)of the relays.

 When an earth-fault or phase-to-phase fault occurs, this condition no longer holds

good and the differential current flowing through the relay circuit operates the relay to
trip the circuit breaker.
Limitations

The circuit for alternator protection shown above has its own limitations.

 It is a general practice to use neutral earthing resistance in order to limit the destructive
effects of earth-fault currents.

 In such a situation, it is impossible to protect whole of the stator windings of a star-

connected alternator during earth-faults.

 When an earth-fault occurs near the neutral point, there may be insufficient voltage
across the short-circuited portion to drive the necessary current round the fault circuit
to operate the relay. The magnitude of unprotected zone depends upon the value of
earthing resistance and relay setting.
Modified Differential Protection for Alternators
 If the neutral point of a star-connected alternator is earthed through a high resistance,
protection schemes shown in Fig. 2.3 will not provide sufficient sensitivity for earth-
faults.
 It is because the high earthing resistance will limit the earth-fault currents to a low
value, necessitating relays with low current settings if adequate portion of the generator
winding is to be protected.
 However, too low a relay setting is undesirable for reliable stability on heavy through
phase-faults.
 In order to overcome this difficulty, a modified form of differential protection is used in
which the setting of earth faults is reduced without impairing stability.
 The modified arrangement is shown in Fig. 2.4. The modifications affect only the relay
connections and consist in connecting two relays for phase-fault protection and the third
for earth-fault protection only.
 The two phase elements (PC and PA) and balancing resistance (BR) are connected in star
and the earth relay (ER) is connected between this star point and the fourth wire of
circulating current pilot-circuit.
Fig.2.4 Modified Deferential Protection Alternators
Operation.

 Under normal operating conditions, currents at the two ends of each stator winding will
be equal. Therefore, there is a balanced circulating current in the phase pilot wires and no
current flows through the operating coils of the relays. Consequently, the relays remain
inoperative.

 If an earth-fault occurs on any one phase, the out-of-balance secondary current in CTs in
that phase will flow through the earth relay ER and via pilot S or S to the neutral of the
1 2

current transformers. This will cause the operation of earth relay only.

 If a fault occurs between two phases, the out of-balance current will circulate round the
two transformer secondaries via any two of the coils PA, BR, PC (the pair being decided
by the two phases that are faulty) without passing through the earth relay ER. Therefore,
only the phase-fault relays will operate.
Balanced Earth-fault Protection

 In small-size alternators, the neutral ends of the three-phase windings are often
connected internally to a single terminal.

 Therefore, it is not possible to use Merz-Price circulating current principle described

above because there are no facilities for accommodating the necessary current
transformers in the neutral connection of each phase winding.

 Under these circumstances, it is considered sufficient to provide protection against

earth-faults only by the use of balanced earth-fault protection scheme. This scheme
provides no protection against phase-to-phase faults, unless and until they develop
into earth-faults, as most of them will.
Fig.2.6 Schematic arrangement of balanced earth fault protection
Operation.

• Under normal operating conditions, the currents flowing in the alternator leads and hence the
currents flowing in secondaries of the line current transformers add to zero and no current
flows through the relay.

• Also under these conditions, the current in the neutral wire is zero and the secondary of neutral
current transformer supplies no current to the relay.

• If an earth-fault develops at F external to the protected zone, the sum of the currents at the
2

terminals of the alternator is exactly equal to the current in the neutral connection and hence no
current flows through the relay.

• When an earth-fault occurs at F or within the protected zone, these currents are no longer equal
1

and the differential current flows through the operating coil of the relay. The relay then closes
its contacts to disconnect the alternator from the system.
Stator Inter-turn Protection

 Merz-price circulating-current system protects against phase-to-ground and phase-to-phase

faults. It does not protect against turn-to-turn fault on the same phase winding of the stator.

 It is because the current that this type of fault produces flows in a local circuit between the turns
involved and does not create a difference between the currents entering and leaving the winding
at its two ends where current transformers are applied.

 However, it is usually considered unnecessary to provide protection for inter-turn faults because
they invariably develop into earth-faults.

 In single turn generator (e.g. large steam-turbine generators), there is no necessity of protection
against inter-turn faults. However, inter-turn protection is provided for multi-turn generators such
as hydro-electric generators. These generators have double-winding armatures (i.e. each phase
winding is divided into two halves) owing to the very heavy currents which they have to carry.
 The relays R provide protection against phase-to-ground
C

and phase-to-phase faults whereas relays R provide protection

1

against inter-turn faults.

 Two current transformers are connected
on the circulating-current principle. Under normal
conditions, the currents in the stator windings S and
1

S are equal and so will be the currents in the secondaries

2

of the two CTs.

 The secondary current round the loop
then is the same at all points and no current flows
through the relay R . 1

 If a short-circuit develops between

adjacent turns, say on S , the currents in the stator
1

windings S and S will no longer be equal.

1 2

 Therefore, unequal currents will be induced in the secondaries of CTs

and the difference of these two currents flows through the relay R . The relay then closes its contacts to
1

clear the generator from the system.

Example 2.1. A star-connected, 3-phase, 10-MVA, 6·6 kV alternator has a per phase reactance of 10%. It is
protected by Merz-Price circulating-current principle which is set to operate for fault currents not less than
175 A. Calculate the value of earthing resistance to be provided in order to ensure that only 10% of the
alternator winding remains unprotected.