Application Note

Testing Line Charging Current Compensation in the

SEL-411L Relay

Author
Ahmed Abdelwahab | [email protected]

Date
March 12 , 2023

Related OMICRON Product

CMC – RelaySimTest

Application Area
Protection Testing

Keywords
SEL411L , RelaySimTest ,Charging current compensation , Line Differential , 87L

Version
v1.0

Document ID

Abstract
The effect of Series compensation logic has an effect on the distance protection Characteristics for both
Ground and Phase impedance, we will cover the effect of series compensation on the distance
characteristics .
Content

1 Safety introduction ................................................................................................................................3

1.1 Requirements to use this application note......................................................................................3
1.1.1 Safety Instructions ............................................................................................................................ 3
1.1.2 General Requirements ...................................................................................................................... 3
2 Charging current Phenomena: .............................................................................................................4
2.1 What is the charging current in transmission line? .........................................................................4
4
2.2 Background: ....................................................................................................................................5
2.3 Line Charging Current Compensation settings ..............................................................................7
2.4 Example System .............................................................................................................................8
3 Testing Line Charging current with RelaySimTest ......................................................................... 10

Please use this note only in combination with the related product manual which contains several important safety
instructions. The user is responsible for every application that makes use of an OMICRON product.

OMICRON electronics GmbH including all international branch offices is henceforth referred to as OMICRON.

© OMICRON 2011. All rights reserved. This application note is a publication of OMICRON.
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Reprinting, wholly or in part, is not permitted.
The product information, specifications, and technical data embodied in this application note represent the technical
status at the time of writing and are subject to change without prior notice.
We have done our best to ensure that the information given in this application note is useful, accurate and entirely
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translation of this document is done for local requirements, and in the event of a dispute between the English and a non-
English version, the English version of this note shall govern.

2
 1 Safety introduction

1.1 Requirements to use this application note

1.1.1 Safety Instructions

To use this application note it is very important to read and to understand the Safety Instructions of Test
Universe and of the electrical equipment that is controlled by Test Universe. They can be found in the
corresponding manuals.

DANGER – Life-hazardous voltages and currents!

 The OMICRON Test Universe software controls electrical equipment that

can output life-hazardous voltages and currents.
 Before operating any such electrical equipment, carefully read the Safety
Instructions section in the manual that was provided with the equipment.
 Do not use (or even turn on) any electrical equipment without
understanding the information in its manual.
 Existing national safety standards for accident prevention and
environmental protection may supplement the equipment’s manual.
 Only trained personal should operate RelaySimTest.

NOTICE – Equipment damage!

 The OMICRON Test Universe software controls electrical equipment that

can output voltages and currents which are able to damage equipment.
 Before operating any such electrical equipment, be sure that no equipment
will be damaged.

1.1.2 General Requirements

Prior to using this application note, read the “Getting started” manual [1] of Test Universe. The following
software tools are required to use this application note:

 Test Universe software with a Control Center Software and Advanced Differential software and
license. A license for this product is included with many Test Universe software packages. If you
have problems operating any of the advanced differential modules with your CMC, please contact
technical support at 1-800 OMICRON with your CMC serial number for more information, to obtain a
temporary license, or to purchase a license.

3
2 Charging current Phenomena:

2.1 What is the charging current in transmission line?

Two conductors with opposite charges separated by a dielectric medium are called
Capacitors and this phenomenon is known as capacitance. The same happens in
Transmission line. The capacitance forms between the conductors & between the
Conductor and the earth as well.

The charging current in a transmission line is caused by a pure capacitance effect

When there is a potential difference across the sending end of the transmission
Line, current starts flowing in the conductors as in the capacitor, The current leads
The applied voltage and this leading current in called “Charging current”

In a transmission line, air acts as a dielectric medium between the conductors, The
Capacitance of transmission line is constant for the length of the line and spacing
Among the conductors, one important thing is that the charging current flows in the
Transmission line draws a leading current to the applied voltage.

The charging current in quadrature with the applied voltage and is independent
Of load, the effect of charging current can be observed only on the transmission
Line having a length > 80 -100 Km. in other words the capacitance of the transmission
Line increases with an increase in the length of the transmission line.

The charging current drawn by the capacitance of the line depends on the parameters
Supplied voltage, Capacitance of the line , Operating frequency

4
 For larger charging current must be accounted for charging currents enters the
transmission line from each end and escapes through the distributed capacitance of the
line. This appears as standing differential current to the 87L Function and the settings
engineer must decide how to dress this issue to ensure proper operation

A common approach to mitigating the problem to set up the pickup level of the 87L high
enough that the 87L will not operate for this condition, but this method reduces sensitivity
A better approach is to subtract the line charging current from the measured differential
current to remove the standing differential. However, Line charging current is dynamic,
and changes based on the line voltage, so this approach is not accurate in the presence of
varying conditions, transients, and fault conditions.

In This Application note, we will ensure How SEL-411L Relay can dynamically
Compensate for the line charging current by calculating the charging current and removing
it from the differential calculation. The relay uses instantaneous values of the line voltage
and the settable line susceptance values, Both Positive and Zero sequence to calculate
the charging current in real time (more accurate as no need to raise the pickup value)
And also to compensate the charging currently during changing the system voltage.

2.2 Background:
The SEL-411 relays compensate for line charging current by calculating the total charging
current on per phase basis and subtracting it from the differential current, each relay in the
scheme that has access to the voltage calculates the total charging current of the line
through use of the local voltage measurement and settable susceptance

Each relay has access to the line voltage calculating the charging current, the charging
current calculation based on the Lumped “The entire shunt capacitance in the T-model
is assumed to be lumped in the middle of the line and half of line resistance and
reactance is on either side”

The relay will use the Zero, Positive sequence susceptance “Settable” 87CCB0 and
87CCB1 to calculate the Line Capacitance “Cline”

𝐼𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑒 = 𝐶𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒 ∗

Each relay subtracts a portion of the charging current from the measured Local phase
current, The measured local phase current is the sum of all currents entering the local
terminal and can consist of either a single breaker measurement or two breakers in case
Of “Breaker and half scheme”

5
We assumed a lumped parameters model, so the portion of the total current subtracted
from the local measured current is proportional to the number of the terminals

For two terminals line, each relay will subtract the half of total charging current from its
measured local current.

𝑑𝑣
𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑙1 = 𝐼 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑑1 − 0.5 ∗ 𝐶𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒 ∗
𝑑𝑡
𝑑𝑣
𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑙2 = 𝐼 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑑2 − 0.5 ∗ 𝐶𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒 ∗
𝑑𝑡
Each relay performs this subtraction before using its local current in the 87L function and
before transmitting to the remote relay

In actual transmission lines, it is rarely that the total charging current will be split equally
between the two terminals, however, compensating in each relay as though this current is
evenly split produces the same result in differential calculation as having unequal
contribution from each end.

𝑑 𝑣1 + 𝑣2
𝐼 𝑑𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙 = 𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑙1 + 𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑙2 = 𝐼 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑑1 + 𝐼𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑑2 − 𝐶𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒 ∗ ∗
𝑑𝑡 2

If the measured voltage doesn’t accurately represent the protected line voltage the relay
must suspend the compensation like in Breaker open position with bus side PT or a loss of
potential condition
87CCC word bit will be asserted in case of active compensation and shared to all other
relays, so every relay knows how many relays compensating at a given time

If any relay suspends the compensation, the other relays in the scheme continue
compensation, each subtracting a new portion of the total charging current based on the
number of actively participating relays

87CCB: All terminals are actively participating

87CCD: Compensation quality is degraded because not all terminals are participating
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2.3 Line Charging Current Compensation settings

7
2.4 Example System
The110 KV line in the example system shown is100 miles long and protected by two SEL-
411L Relays with 87L Scheme, both local and remote sides are single breaker
Terminals with identical CT ratio 600/1
Positive sequence Susceptance :10 mS, secondary
Zero sequence Susceptance : 10 mS, secondary

 First Step: is Line charging current Compensation necessary?

We need to calculate positive sequence line charging current and use this to determine if
enabling the compensation is necessary or not

𝑉𝐿𝐿 𝐶𝑇𝑅 87𝐶𝐶𝐵1

∗ ∗
𝑠𝑞𝑟𝑡(3) 𝑃𝑅𝑇 1000
𝐼𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 =
𝐶𝑇 𝐵𝑎𝑠𝑒

VLL: the Line-to-Line voltage of the transmission line in Primary volts

CTR: the CT Ratio of the local relay
PTR: the PT ratio of the local relay
87CCB1: Positive sequence susceptance of the line in secondary milliSiemens
CT Base: is the highest CT Primary rating among all CTs (Local and remote)

11000 600 10
∗ ∗
⎛ 𝑠𝑞𝑟𝑡(3) 1100 1000 ⎞
𝐼 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑃𝑈 = ⎜ ⎟ = 0.5773 𝑃𝑈
600
⎝ ⎠

This number represents the standing differential current that the relay will calculate
because of the charging current on the line.

8
Compare this current to the minimum pickup current 87LPP if the calculated is less than
50% of the 87LPP, charging current could be ignored but if this is not the case charging
current compensation must be enabled

Once enabled, the algorithm should remove at least 80% of the charging current from the
calculation, if we are conservative and assume that the algorithm removes 50% of the
charging current, Settings engineer can set 87LPP = I charging to enhance the sensitivity

Relay Settings:

9
3 Testing Line Charging current with RelaySimTest
 We need to understand the Line Modelling in RelaySimTest to have the correct
representation of the Line shunt capcitance.Based on the settings for line
impedance, set values for the following line capacitances:

 In RelaySimTest , We are using the T-Model with several RL- Segements with GC-
Segements lumped in between the RL-segements to result in T-Model
to Increase the accuracy of long line case the “C” segment is split into segements ,

𝑈𝑛
𝐼 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 = ∗ ∗ 2 ∗ 𝑃𝑖 ∗ 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 ∗ ( 3𝐶1 + 𝐶0) ∗ 𝐿𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑡ℎ
𝑠𝑞𝑟𝑡(3)

 We need to calculat the Line Capacitance from the “settable” Line susceptance
1
𝑋𝑐 =
2 ∗ 𝑃𝑖 ∗ 𝐹𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑛𝑐𝑦 ∗ 𝐶

1
𝐵𝑐 =
𝑋𝑐

For the entered line data we can calculate the “C1 &C0” as follow

C1 = C0 = = 0.2653 𝑀𝑖𝑐𝑟𝑜 𝐹𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑑

∗ ∗ ∗.

10
11
3.1. Charging current single side infeed:

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3.2. Charging current single side infeed with 1 phase voltage lost:

Red Phase in the Remote relay has voltage loss condition. So, it will not participate in
the line charging current compensation, only SEL411-1 Relay will participate

Charging
current
compensation
suspended for
the local relay
with LOP
Condition

13
 3.3. Charging current with Double side infeed:

In this case will simulate CB closing condition at the local end at 100 ms Absolute time
then the remote CB will be closed at 200 ms absolute time

Local CB
closed at 100
ms

Remote CB
Closed at 200
ms

14
3.4. Charging current with Double side infeed:

Double infeed with single Red Phase voltage lost

SEL411-2 Relay stops compnesation with loss of voltage of Red Phase

15
 3.5. Single Phase fault (Single infeed + Line charging current):

Time delay between the two tripping signals is due to the

activation of Disturbance Detector in SEL411L Relays

Fault Details

16
3.6. Single Phase fault (double infeed + Line charging current):

Both relays will trip at the same instant if the

current flows in both direction

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3.7. Effect of infeed voltage on the line charging current:

Infeed event – Voltage dropped from 100% to 70% of V nominal

Voltage / Current Wave form

18
Line Charging current at 100 % Voltage infeed

Line charging current at 70% Voltage infeed

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 Summary :

This Application note show to set / test Line Charging current in different seconarios

1- Charging current with single end infeed

2- Charging current with double end infeed
3- Fault line with charging current
4- Effect of infeed voltage on the line charging current

References:

1) SEL411L Instruction Manual – R123

2) Y, Xye , D finney , B,LE “ Charging current in long lines and High Voltage cables”
3) RelaySimTest help manaul

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