A Course Material on

EE8602 PROTECTION AND SWITCHGEAR

BY,

[Link]

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING

[Link] COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

EE8602 PROTECTION AND SWITCHGEAR LTPC
3003
OBJECTIVES:
To impart knowledge on the following Topics
 Causes of abnormal operating conditions (faults, lightning and switching surges) of the
apparatus and system.
 Characteristics and functions of relays and protection schemes.
 Apparatus protection, static and numerical relays
 Functioning of circuit breaker
UNIT I PROTECTION SCHEMES 9
Principles and need for protective schemes – nature and causes of faults – types of faults – Methods of
Grounding - Zones of protection and essential qualities of protection – Protection scheme
UNIT II ELECTROMAGNETIC RELAYS 9
Operating principles of relays - the Universal relay – Torque equation – R-X diagram –
Electromagnetic Relays – Over current, Directional, Distance, Differential, Negative sequence and
Under frequency relays.
UNIT III APPARATUS PROTECTION 9
Current transformers and Potential transformers and their applications in protection schemes -
Protection of transformer, generator, motor, bus bars and transmission line.
UNIT IV STATIC RELAYS AND NUMERICAL PROTECTION 9
Static relays – Phase, Amplitude Comparators – Synthesis of various relays using Static comparators –
Block diagram of Numerical relays – Over current protection, transformer differential protection,
distant protection of transmission lines.
UNIT V CIRCUIT BREAKERS 9
Physics of arcing phenomenon and arc interruption - DC and AC circuit breaking – re-striking voltage
and recovery voltage - rate of rise of recovery voltage - resistance switching – current chopping -
interruption of capacitive current - Types of circuit breakers – air blast, air break, oil, SF6, MCBs,
MCCBs and vacuum circuit breakers – comparison of different circuit breakers – Rating and selection
of Circuit breakers.
TOTAL: 45 PERIODS
OUTCOMES:
Ability to understand and analyze Electromagnetic and Static Relays.
Ability to suggest suitability circuit breaker.
Ability to find the causes of abnormal operating conditions of the apparatus and system.
Ability to analyze the characteristics and functions of relays and protection schemes.
Ability to study about the apparatus protection, static and numerical relays.
Ability to acquire knowledge on functioning of circuit breaker.
TEXT BOOKS:
1. Sunil [Link], ‘Switchgear and Protection’, Khanna Publishers, New Delhi, 2008.
2. [Link] and [Link], ‘Power System Protection and Switchgear’, New Age International
(P) Ltd., First Edition 2011.
3. Arun Ingole, ‘Switch Gear and Protection’ Pearson Education, 2017.
REFERENCES
1. BadriRam ,B.H. Vishwakarma, ‘Power System Protection and Switchgear’, New Age International
Pvt Ltd Publishers, Second Edition 2011.
2. [Link] and [Link], ‘Fundamentals of power system protection’, Second
Edition,Prentice Hall of India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 2010.
3. [Link], ‘Electrical Power Systems’, 6th Edition, New Age International (P) Ltd., 2010
4. [Link], ‘Switchgear and Power System Protection’, PHI Learning Private Ltd.,
NewDelhi, 2009.
5. VK Metha,” Principles of Power Systems” S. Chand, 2005.
6. Bhavesh Bhalja, R.P. Maheshwari, Nilesh G. Chotani,’Protection and Switchgear’ Oxford
University Press, 2011.
 UNIT I
PROTECTION SCHEMES

1.1 INTRODUCTION:
Protective relaying is one of the several features of the power system design. Every part
of the power system is protected. The factors affecting the choice of protection are type and rating
of equipment, location of the equipment, types of faults abnormal conditions and cost.
The protective relaying is used to give an alarm or to cause prompt removal of any
element of power system from service when that element behaves abnormally. The abnormal
behavior of an element might cause damage or interference within effective operation of rest of the
system. The protective relaying minimizes the damage to the equipment and interruptions to the
service when electrical failure occurs. Along with some equipment the relays help to minimize
damage and improve the service.
The relays are compact and self-contained devices which can sense the abnormal
conditions. Whenever an abnormal condition exists, the relay contacts get closed. This in turn
closes the trip circuit of a circuit breaker. The circuit breakers are capable of disconnecting a faulty
element, when they are called upon to do so by the relays. Thus entire process includes the
operations like occurrence of fault, operation of relay, opening of a circuit breaker and removal of
faulty element. This entire process is automatic and fast, which is possible due to effective
protective relaying scheme.
The protective relaying scheme includes protective current transformers, voltage
transformers, protective relays, time delay relays, auxiliary relays, secondary circuits, trip circuits,
etc. Each component plays its own role, which is very important in the overall operation of the
scheme. The protective relaying also provides the indication of location and type of the fault.
1.2 PRINCIPLES AND NEED FOR PROTECTIVE SCHEMES:
The objective of power system protection is to isolate a faulty section of electrical
power system from rest of the live system so that the rest portion can function satisfactorily
without any severer damage due to fault current. Actually circuit breaker isolates the faulty
system from rest of the healthy system and this circuit breakers automatically open during fault
condition due to its trip signal comes from protection relay.
The main philosophy about protection is that no protection of power system can
prevent the flow of fault current through the system, it only can prevent the continuation of
flowing of fault current by quickly disconnect the short circuit path from the system.
1.3 NATURE AND CAUSES OF FAULTS:
Causes:
1. Weather conditions: It includes lighting strikes, heavy rains, heavy winds, salt deposition on
overhead lines and conductors, snow and ice accumulation on transmission lines, etc. These
environmental conditions interrupt the power supply and also damage electrical installations.
2. Equipment failures: Various electrical equipment's like generators, motors, transformers,
reactors, switching devices, etc. causes short circuit faults due to malfunctioning, ageing,
 insulation failure of cables and winding. These failures result in high current to flow through
the devices or equipment which further damages it.
3. Human errors: Electrical faults are also caused due to human errors such as selecting
improper rating of equipment or devices, forgetting metallic or electrical conducting parts
after servicing or maintenance, switching the circuit while it is under servicing, etc.
4. Smoke of fires: Ionization of air, due to smoke particles, surrounding the overhead lines
results in spark between the lines or between conductors to insulator. This flashover causes
insulators to lose their insulting capacity due to high voltages.
Fault Statistics:

Types of faults Percentage of occurrence

3 – phase faults 5%

LLG faults 10%

LL faults 15%

LG faults 70%

Consequences of faults:
• Damage to the equipment due to abnormally large and unbalanced currents and low
voltages produced by the short circuits.
• Explosions may occur in the equipment's which have insulating oil, particularly during
short circuits. This may result in fire and hazardous conditions to personnel and
equipment's.
• Individual generators with reduced voltage in a power station or a group of generators
operating at low voltage may lead to loss of synchronism, subsequently resulting in
islanding.
• Risk of synchronous motors in large industrial premises falling out of step and tripping
out.

1.4 TYPES OF FAULTS:

• Under normal conditions, a power system operates under balanced conditions with all
equipment’s carrying normal load currents and the bus voltages within the prescribed
limits. This condition can be disrupted due to a fault in the system.
• A fault in a circuit is a failure that interferes with the normal flow of current. A short circuit
fault occurs when the insulation of the system fails resulting in low impedance path either
between phases or phase(s) to ground.
 • This causes excessively high currents to flow in the circuit, requiring the operation of
protective equipment’s to prevent damage to equipment. The short circuit faults can be
classified as:
a) Symmetrical faults
b) Unsymmetrical faults
a) Symmetrical faults:
All 3 phases are shorted to each other and to ground also.
• Occurrence is rare.
• Severest of all the types of faults.
• Fault current is maximum.
b) Unsymmetrical faults:
Only one phase or two phases are involved.
• Line to Ground fault (LG fault)
• Line to Line fault (LL fault)
• Line to Line to Ground fault (LLG fault)
1.5 NEUTRAL GROUNDING:
• Connecting neutral point to earth (i.e. soil) either directly or some circuit element. (e.g.,
resistance, reactance, Peterson coil etc.) is called neutral grounding.
• Neutral grounding provides protection to equipment. (During earth fault, the current
path is completely neutral).
Advantages of Neutral Grounding:
• Voltages of the healthy phases do not exceed line to ground voltages i.e. they remain
nearly constant.
• The high voltages due to arcing grounds are eliminated.
• Life of insulation is long.
• The over voltages is reduced.
• It provides greater safety to personnel and equipment.
• It provides improved service reliability.
• Operating and maintenance expenditures are reduced.
Methods of Neutral Grounding:
• Solid or effective grounding
• Resistance grounding
• Reactance grounding
• Peterson-coil grounding
• Voltage transformer earthing
(i) Solid or effective grounding:
 When the neutral point of a 3-phase system is directly connected to earth (i.e. soil) is
called solid grounding or effective grounding. When an earth fault occurs between earth and
any one phase, the voltage to earth of the faulty phase become zero, but the healthy phases
remains at normal phase values. Fault current (IF) completely nullified by capacitive current
(IC).
(ii) Resistance grounding:

When the neutral point of a 3-phase system (e.g., 3-phase generator, 3-phase
transformer, etc) is connected to earth (i.e. soil) through a resistor, it is called resistance
grounding.
Advantages:
• By adjusting the value of R, the arcing grounds can be minimized.
• It improves the stability.
• Less interference.
• Minimize hazards.
Disadvantages:
• By adjusting the value of R, the arcing grounds can be minimized.
 • It improves the stability.
• Less interference.
• Minimize hazards.
(iii) Reactance grounding:

• In this system, a reactance is inserted between the neutral and ground.

• The purpose of reactance is to limit the earth fault current.
Disadvantages:
(i) In this system, the fault current required to operate the protective device is
higher than that of resistance grounding for the same fault conditions.
(ii) High transient voltages appear under fault conditions.
(iv) Resonant grounding (or) Peterson coil (or) Arc Suppression coil grounding:
If inductance L of appropriate value is connected in parallel with the capacitance
of the system, the fault current IF flowing through L will be in phase opposition to the
capacitive current IL of the system. If L so adjusted that
IL = IC
then resultant current in the fault will be zero. This condition is known as Resonant
Grounding.
When the value of L of arc suppression coil is such that the fault current IF exactly
balances the capacitive current IC, it is called resonant grounding. An arc suppression coil
(also Peterson coil) is an iron-cored coil connected between the neutral and earth.
The reactor is provided with tapping’s to change the inductance of the coil.
By adjusting the tapping’s on the coil, the coil can be tuned with the capacitance of the
system i.e resonant grounding can be achieved.
Suppose line to ground fault occurs in the line B at point F. The fault current IF
and capacitive currents IR and IY will flow as shown in fig. Note that IF flows through the
Peterson coil (or Arc Suppression coil) to neutral and back through the fault. The total
capacitive current IC is the phasor sum of IR and IY as shown in phasor diagram in fig.
The voltage of the faulty phase is applied across the arc suppression coil.
Therefore, fault current IF lags the faulty phase voltage by 90°. The current IF is in
opposition to capacitive current IC. By adjusting the tapping’s on the Peterson coil, the
resultant current in the fault can be reduced. If inductance of the coil is so adjusted that
 IL = IC.
Value of L for resonant grounding:
For resonant grounding, the system behaves as an ungrounded neutral system.
Therefore, full line voltage appears across capacitors CR and CY.

3V ph
I R  IY 
XC
3V ph 3V ph
I C  3I R  3  
XC XC
Here X C is the line to ground capacitive reactance.
V ph
Fault current I F 
XL
Here X L is the inductive reactance of the arc suppression coil.
For resonant grounding, I L  I C .
V ph 3V ph
Or 
XL XC
XC
Or XL 
3
1 1
Or L  L
3C 3 2 C
This expression gives the value of inductance of the arc suppression coil.
Advantages:
• It is completely effective in preventing any damage by an arcing ground.
• It has the advantages of ungrounded neutral system.
Disadvantages:
• Due to varying operational conditions, the capacitance of the network changes from time
to time. Therefore inductance L of Peterson coil requires readjustment.
• The lines should be transposed.
V) Voltage Transformer Earthing:
• In this method of neutral earthing, the primary of a single-phase voltage transformer
is connected between the neutral and the earth as shown in Fig.
• A low resistor in series with a relay is connected across the secondary of the voltage
transformer. The voltage transformer provides a high reactance in the neutral
earthing circuit and operates virtually as an ungrounded neutral system.
Advantages:
• Transient over voltages on the system due to switching and arcing grounds are reduced.
It is because voltage transformer provides high reactance to the earth path.
• This type of earthing has all the advantages of ungrounded neutral system.
• Arcing grounds are eliminated.
Disadvantages:
• When earth fault occurs on any phase, the line voltage appears across the earth to line
capacitances. The system insulation will be overstressed.
• The earthed neutral acts as a reflection point for the travelling waves through the
machine winding. This may result in high voltage build up.
Applications:
It is normally confined to generator equipment’s which are directly connected to step-up
power transformers.
1.5 ZONES OF PROTECTION:
• A protective zone is the separate zone which is established around each system element. The
significance of such a protective zone is that any fault occurring within that zone causes
tripping of relays which cause opening of all the circuit breakers.

• The circuit breakers are placed at the appropriate points such that any element of the entire
power system can be disconnected for repairing work, usual operation and maintenance
requirements and also under abnormal conditions like short circuits. Thus a protective covering
is provided around rich element of the system.
• The various components which are provided with the protective zone are generators,
transformers, transmission lines, bus bars, cables, capacitors etc. No part of the system is left
unprotected. The figure below shows the various protective zones used in a system.
• The extent of overlapping of protective zones is relatively small. The probability of the failures
in the overlapped regions is very low; consequently the tripping of the too many circuit
breakers will be frequent. The figure shows the overlapping of protective zones in primary
relaying.
• It can be seen from the figure that the circuit breakers are located in the connections to each
power system element. This provision makes it possible to disconnect only the faulty element
from the system.
• Occasionally for economy in the number of circuit breakers, a breaker between the two
adjacent sections may be omitted but in that case both the power system are required to be
disconnected for the failure in either of the two. Each protective zone has certain protective
scheme and each scheme has number of protective systems.
Primary Protection
The primary protection scheme ensures fast and selective clearing of any fault within the
boundaries of the circuit element, that the zone is required to protect. Primary Protection as a rule
is provided for each section of an electrical installation. However, the primary protection may fail
sometime. The primary causes of failure of the Primary Protection system are enumerated below.
• Current or voltage supply to the relay.
• D.C. tripping voltage supply
• Protective relays
• Tripping circuit
• Circuit Breaker
 Back-up Protection
• Back-up protection is the name given to a protection which backs the primary protection
whenever the later fails in operation. The back-up protection by definition is slower than the
primary protection system.
• The design of the back-up protection needs to be coordinated with the design of the primary
protection and essentially it is the second line of defence after the primary protection system.
1.6 ESSENTIAL QUALITIES OF PROTECTION:
• Reliability
• Selectivity and Discrimination
• Speed and Time
• Sensitivity
• Stability
• Adequateness
• Simplicity and Economy
Reliability:
• A protective relaying should be reliable in its basic quality. It indicates the ability of the
relay system to operate under the predetermined conditions.
• There are various components which go into the operation before a relay operates.
Therefore every component and circuit which is involved in the operation of a relay plays
an important role.
• The reliability of a protection system depends on the reliability of various components like
circuit breakers, relays, current transformers (C.T.s), potential transformers (P.T.s), cables,
trip circuits etc.
• The proper maintenance also plays an important role in improving the reliable operation of
the system.
Selectivity and discrimination:
• The selectivity is the ability of the protective system to identify the faulty part correctly and
disconnect that part without affecting the rest of the healthy part of system. The
discrimination means to distinguish between.
• The discrimination quality of the protective system is the ability to distinguish between
normal condition and abnormal condition and also between abnormal condition within
protective zone and elsewhere.
• The protective system should operate only at the time of abnormal condition and not at the
time of normal condition. Hence it must clearly discriminate between normal and abnormal
condition.
• Thus the protective system should select the fault part and disconnect only the faulty part
without disturbing the healthy part of the system.
 • It is clear from the Fig. 1 that if fault F2 occurs on transmission line then the circuit breakers 2
and 3 should operate and disconnect the line from the remaining system. The protective system
should be selective in selecting faulty transmission line only for the fault and it should isolate it
without tripping the adjacent transmission line breakers or the transformer.
• If the protective system is not selective then it operates for the fault beyond its protective zones
and unnecessary the large part of the system gets isolated. This causes a lot of inconvenience to
the supplier and users.
Speed and Time:
• A protective system must disconnect the faulty system as fast as possible. If the faulty system
is not disconnect for a long time then,
a) The devices carrying fault currents may get damaged.
b) The failure leads to the reduction in system voltage. Such low voltage may affect the
motors and generators running on the consumer sude.
c) If fault persists for long time, then subsequently other faults may get generated.
• The total time required between the instant of fault and the instant of final arc interruption in
the circuit breaker is called fault clearing time. It is the sum of relay time and circuit breaker
time. The relay time is the time between the instant of fault occurrence and the instant of
closure of relay contacts.
• The circuit breaker times is the time taken by the circuit breaker to operate to open the contacts
and to extinguish the arc completely. The fault clearing time should be as small as possible to
have high speed operation of the protective system.
Sensitivity:
• The protective system should be sufficiently sensitive so that it can operate reliably when
required. The sensitivity of the system is the ability of the relay system to operate with low
value of actuating quantity.
• It indicates the smallest value of the actuating quantity at which the protection starts operating
in relation with the minimum value of the fault current in the protected zone.
• The relay sensitivity is the function of the volt-amperes input to the relay coil necessary to
cause its operation. Smaller the value of volt-ampere input, more sensitive is the relay. Thus 1
VA input relay is more sensitive than the 5VA input relay.
Mathematically the sensitivity is expressed by a factor called sensitivity factor. It is the ratio of
minimum short circuit current in the protected zone to the minimum operating current required
for the protection to start.
Stability:
• The stability is the quality of the protective system due to which the system remains
inoperative and stable under certain specified conditions such as transients, disturbance,
through faults etc.
• For providing the stability, certain modifications are required in the system design. In most of
the cases time delays, filter circuits, mechanical and electrical bias are provided to achieve
stable operation during the disturbances.
Adequateness:
• There are variety of faults and disturbance those may practically exists in a power system. It is
impossible to provide protection against each and every abnormal condition which may exist in
practice, due to economical reasons. But the protective system must provide adequate
protection for any element of the system. The adequateness of the system can be assessed by
considering following factors,
1) Ratings of various equipments.
2) Cost of the equipments.
3) Locations of the equipments.
4) Probability of abnormal condition due to internal and external causes.
5) Discontinuity of supply due to the failure of the equipment.
Simplicity and Economy:
• In addition to all the important qualities, it is necessary that the cost of the system should be
well within limits. In practice sometimes it is not necessary to use ideal protection scheme
which is economically unjustified. In such cases compromise is done. As a rule, the protection
cost should not be more than 5% of the total cost. But if the equipments to be protected are
very important, the economic constrains can be relaxed.
• The protective system should be as simple as possible so that it can be easily maintained. The
complex systems are difficult from the maintenance point of view. The simplicity and
reliability are closely related to each other. The simpler system are always more reliable.
1.7 PROTECTION SCHEMES:
• The various protection schemes are (i) Over Current Protection (ii) Distance Protection (iii)
Carrier current Protection (iv) Differential protection
Over Current Protection:
• An overcurrent exists when current exceeds the rating of conductors or equipment. It can result
from overload, short circuit, or ground fault.
• An overload is a condition in which equipment or conductors carry current exceeding their
rated capacity. An example is plugging two 12.5A (1,500W) hair dryers into a 20A branch
circuit.
• A short circuit is the unintentional electrical connection between any two normally current-
carrying conductors of a circuit (line-to-line or line-to-neutral).
• A ground fault is an unintentional, electrically conducting connection between an ungrounded
conductor of a circuit and the equipment grounding conductor, metallic enclosures, metallic
 raceways, metallic equipment, or earth. During a ground fault, dangerous voltages and
abnormally large currents exist.
Distance Protection:
• Distance protection relay is the name given to the protection, whose action depends on the
distance of the feeding point to the fault. The time of operation of such protection is a function
of the ratio of voltage and current, i.e., impedance.
• This impedance between the relay and the fault depends on the electrical distance between
them. The principal type of distance relays is impedance relays, reactance relays, and the
reactance relays.
• Distance protection relay principle differs from other forms of protection because their
performance does not depend on the magnitude of the current or voltage in the protective
circuit but it depends on the ratio of these two quantities.
• It is a double actuating quantity relay with one of their coil is energized by voltage and the
other coil is energized by the current. The current element produces a positive or pick-up
torque while the voltages element has caused a negative and reset torque.
• The relay operates only when the ratio of voltage and current falls below a set value. During
the fault the magnitude of current increases and the voltage at the fault point decreases. The
ratio of the current and voltage is measured at the point of the current and potential
transformer. The voltage at potential transformer region depends on the distance between the
PT and the fault.
• If the fault is nearer, measured voltage is lesser, and if the fault is farther, measured voltage is
more. Hence, assuming constant fault impedance each value of the ratio of voltage and current
measured from relay location comparable to the distance between the relaying point and fault
point along the line. Hence such protection is called the distance protection or impedance
protection.
• Distance zone is non-unit protection, i.e., the protection zone is not exact. The distance
protection is high-speed protection and is simply to apply. It can be employed as a primary as
well as backup protection. It is very commonly used in the protection of transmission lines.
• Distance relays are used for both phase fault and ground fault protection, and they provide
higher speed for clearing the fault. It is also independent of changes in the magnitude of the
short circuits, current and hence they are not much affected by the change in the generation
capacity and the system configuration. Thus, they eliminate long clearing times for the fault
near the power sources required by overcurrent relay if used for the purpose.
Carrier Current Protection:
• Carrier current protection scheme is mainly used for the protection of the long transmission
line. In the carrier current protection schemes, the phase angle of the current at the two phases
of the line are compared instead of the actual current. And then the phase angle of the line
decides whether the fault is internal and external.
• The main elements of the carrier channel are a transmitter, receiver, coupling equipment, and
line trap. The carrier current receiver receives the carrier current from the transmitter at the
distant end of the line.
 • The receiver converts the received carrier current into a DC voltage that can be used in a relay
or other circuit that performs any desired function. The voltage is zero when the carrier current,
is not being received.
• Line trap is inserted between the bus-bar and connection of coupling capacitor to the line. It is
a parallel LC network tuned to resonance at the high frequency.
• The traps restrict the carrier current to the unprotected section so as to avoid interference from
the with or the other adjacent carrier current channels. It also avoids the loss of the carrier
current signal to the adjoining power circuit.
• The coupling capacitor connects the high-frequency equipment to one of the line conductors
and simultaneously separate the power equipment from the high power line voltage. The
normal current will be able to flow only through the line conductor, while the high current
carrier current will circulate over the line conductor fitted with the high- frequency traps,
through the trap capacitor and the ground.
Differential Protection:
• Principle of Differential Protection scheme is one simple conceptual technique. The differential
actually compares between primary current and secondary current of power transformer, if any
unbalance found in between primary and secondary currents the relay will actuate and inter trip
both the primary and secondary circuit breaker of the transformer.
• Suppose you have one transformer which has primary rated current I p and secondary current Is.
If you install CT of ratio Ip/1A at the primary side and similarly, CT of ratio I s/1A at the
secondary side of the transformer. The secondary's of these both CTs are connected together in
such a manner that secondary currents of both CTs will oppose each other.
• In other words, the secondary's of both CTs should be connected to the same current coil of a
differential relay in such an opposite manner that there will be no resultant current in that coil
in a normal working condition of the transformer.
• But if any major fault occurs inside the transformer due to which the normal ratio of the
transformer disturbed then the secondary current of both transformers will not remain the same
and one resultant current will flow through the current coil of the differential relay, which will
actuate the relay and inter trip both the primary and secondary circuit breakers.
• To correct phase shift of current because of star-delta connection of transformer winding in the
case of three-phase transformer, the current transformer secondary‘s should be connected in
delta and star.