Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ESBI White Paper Delayed Zero Crossings Following Short Circuit
ESBI White Paper Delayed Zero Crossings Following Short Circuit
Stability
James Gallagher*, Neil McDonagh and William Phang
ESB International
Ireland
SUMMARY
Fundamental to a circuit breaker is that it can only
break a fault current when the alternating current
crosses the zero. A fault current is made up of a DC
and AC component. If the DC component is
sufficiently large, there will be a large delay before
the current crosses the zero and therefore a large
delay before the circuit breaker can break the fault
current. This delay can be of the order of hundreds of
milliseconds.
The issue of delayed zero crossings following a short
circuit has been well documented in various literature
[1-3], however is still not adequately legislated for in
IEEE or IEC standards. This paper adds to the
existing body of knowledge by assessing the effects
of delayed zero crossings on system stability. This
paper uses a generic generator model to test for the
possibility of delayed current zeros following a short
circuit. This delay will then be used to assess the
effect on system stability using a generic bus system.
Asymmetrical Current
I
DC Component
AC Component
L E max
L
i(t ) = e ( R / L )t
sin tan 1
sint + tan 1
+
2
2
2
2
2
2
R
R + L
R + L
R
Equation 1
Load
e ( R / L )t I 0
Equation 2
4500
[A]
326ms
3400
2300
1200
100
-1000
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
[s]
0.5
Region 3
Region 2
400
350
300
250
MW
Network
Amount on
Element
Test System
230kV bus
14
138kV bus
10
18kV bus
34
13.8kV bus
17
230kV Feeder
21
138kV Feeder
13
Generators
32
SVC
2
Table 2.1 Test System Elements
200
150
Limits
t<=100ms
100
100ms<t<=200ms
t>200ms
50
0
-150
-100
-50
0
MVAr
50
100
Region 1
150