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Application of numerical relays for HV shunt reactor protection

Conference Paper · May 2004

DOI: 10.1049/cp:20040088 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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 APPLICATION OF NUMERICAL RELAYS FOR HV SHUNT REACTOR PROTECTION

S Lidström Z Gajić L Koppari

ABB Automation Technologies Products Svenska Kraftnät
Sweden Sweden

1. Introduction The constants A, B, C and D represent the transmission

line constants when the line is represented as a 4-pole
Shunt reactors are used in high voltages systems to
equivalent. B represents the mutual coupling between
compensate capacitive generation from long overhead
the sending and receiving end and A=D gives the
lines or extended cable systems.
condition between the sending and receiving voltage for
Let us look at the equivalent circuit of the transmission
an unloaded line. The voltage for an unloaded line at
line and see shunt reactor effect on the line parameters.
receiving end can hereby be calculated as
In Figure 1, Vs and Is are the sending-end voltage and
current, and Vr and Ir are the receiving-end voltage and Vs
Vr = (7)
current. A
Depending of the line length or the extent of cables, the
Is Z Ir receiving voltage can be very high and cause insulation
breakdown or re-ignitions in the breaker chamber.
When reactors are implemented at both ends, the total
shunt
r
succeptance at each side can be defined as:
Ytot Y (8)
Vr = j(ωLr − )
Vs 2 2
Y/2 Y/2 where ωLr is the reactor reactance. The introduction of
the reactor will reduce the succeptance and thereby
reduce the overvoltage caused by the line capacitance.
It is quite common that the reactive load on the line
varies considerable during the day. Therefore it is
Figure1: Transmission line equivalent circuit common to switch the reactor in and out depending on
(uncompensated line) load conditions.
It is common to have shunt reactors installed at both
Using the common Telegraph Equations [1] the sending sending and receiving end of the line, and designed to
voltage Vs and sending current Is in Figure1 can be prevent the voltage to exceed the design value when
drawn as: energized from one end. This especially when there is
uncertainty from which end of the line the energizing
sinh ZY will take place.
Vs = Vr ⋅ cosh ZY + Ir ⋅ Z ⋅ (1)
ZY
sinh ZY 2. General Design Aspects
Is = Ir ⋅ cosh ZY + Vr ⋅ Y ⋅ (2)
ZY Mainly two different principals for designing the core
Series development of the hyperbolic functions and are on the market, namely “coreless” and “gapped
introducing the line constants gives that the equations core”.
above can be drawn as: “Gapped Core” type is favorable when the loss
evaluation rate increases and particularly at higher
Vs  A B Vr 
Is  = C D  Ir  (3) system voltages. This is due to the higher energy density
     that can be achieved in a gapped core reactor compare
where to a coreless reactor.
ZY Z 2 Y 2 The basic building block in “Gapped Core” type is a
A = D = cosh ZY = 1 + + + .... (4) cylindrical segment of radial laminated core steel sheets
2 24
arranged in a wedge shaped pattern. The laminated
sinh ZY  ZY Z 2 Y 2 
B= Z⋅ = Z ⋅ 1 + + + .... (5) blocks are moulded in epoxy resin to a solid piece. Each
ZY  6 120  core module, a core steel block with its stiff ceramic
spacers, is planed on a spacer side to the same height all
sinh ZY  ZY Z 2 Y 2 
C=Y⋅ = Y ⋅ 1 + + + .... (6) across the module to give a plane and horizontal surface
ZY  6 120  to the adjacent modules.
Reactors with rated power < 30 MVAr are often
 ZY Z 2 Y 2  designed with three limbs while reactors with higher
sinh ZY rated power are mostly designed with five limbs.
C=Y⋅ = Y ⋅ 1 + + + .... (6)
ZY  6 120 
If we have a three limbs reactor, the returning flux at
unbalance conditions will be through the reactor tank.
This gives low zero sequence reactance for the reactor.
In some applications it is a distinct advantage if the
reactor has high zero sequence reactance. This is the
case when zero sequence auto reclosing is used. To
achieve this the five-limb core is used. In this case the
return of the flux will go through the unwound outer
limbs (see figure 2).

φA φB φC
Figure 3. Typical inrush current for HV reactor

It can be noted that the peak value of the phase L1

current for the first peak is only 3.9 pu of the reactor
rated current or 2.8 pu of the CT rated current.
In the Figure 4 below the fundamental current in phase
L1 in pu of reactor rated current is shown. A clear,
sudden current magnitude drop can be seen around 9th
cycle after energizing of the reactor.
Figure 2. Return path of the flux at unsymmetrical
conditions for a five-limb reactor

3. Inrush phenomena

3.1 General
The energizing of a shunt reactor will, to some degree,
behave in the same way as energizing of a power
transformer. We will have a transient inrush current.
Figure 4. Phase L1 current at an unsymmetrical
Due to the air gap, the reactor core keeps no remanence.
energizing of 150 MVAr, 400 kV reactor
This makes the inrush phenomena smoother. However,
the damping of the inrush current is slow due to the low
Restricted earth fault protection typically only uses the
losses in the shunt reactor. Therefore the primary
zero sequence currents for its operation. However, due
current might have, long lasting dc component.
to the phase CT saturation the calculated zero sequence
The presence of dc component with long time constant
current on the reactor HV side (i.e. 3Io) will be
might lead to saturation of the CT some periods after
corrupted. As a consequence there will be a
energizing of the reactor. This consecutively might lead
considerable amount of differential current when this
to maloperation of different types of protections. It is
summated current is compared with the neutral point
therefore necessary to consider this phenomenon when
current (see Figure 5 below).
designing the relay protection system for shunt reactors.
Inrush currents in phase L1 and L2 recorded from an
un-synchronized energizing of a 150 MVAr, 400 kV
shunt reactor are shown in Figure 3. From the figure we
can observe that phase L1 have a considerable current
drop around 9th cycle, while phase L2 current drop
occurs around 24th cycle.
The sudden drop of the inrush current in phase L1 and
L2 do not correspond to a similar drop in the phase L1
and L2 voltage, which leads to the conclusion that we Figure 5. 3I0 and IN as function of number of cycles
have a saturation phenomenon of the CT. The reason to
the saturation is the long primary DC time constant. The
saturation of the CT will be different in the different 3.2 Harmonics
phases and it might lead to maloperation of differential The saturation of the CT creates a lot of harmonics that
protection, restricted earth fault protection and the protection must be able to handle. From figure 6
directional and nondirectional earth fault protection. below, it can be shown that the predominant harmonics
are 2:nd and third harmonics, but also the 4:th
harmonics have high magnitudes.
Figure 6. Harmonic content from energizing of a 150
MVAr, 400 kV reactor in percentage of rated reactor
current.
4 Typical Reactor Protection Schemes
Reactor protections have in the past been dedicated
protections with a few functions. We can distinguish
between two traditionally used types of protections:
Type1:
• restricted earth fault protection
• instantaneous and time delayed phase
overcurrent (constant and/or inverse time
delayed)
• earth fault overcurrent protection measured at
neutral point of reactor (constant and/or
inverse time delayed)
Type2:
• differential protection
• instantaneous and time delayed phase
overcurrents (constant and/or inverse time
delayed)
• earth fault protection measured at HV side of
the reactor (constant and/or inverse time
delayed)
The restricted earth fault protection and the differential
protection are considered as the main protection for
internal fault in the reactor and shall trip the reactor
immediately without any time delay.
The phase overcurrent protection is used as main
protection in the type1 scheme and as backup
protection in scheme 2.
The earth fault protection is used as backup protection
in the type 1 scheme and as back up protection in the
type 2 scheme. In both types of schemes, the earth fault
protection acts as main protection for circuit breaker
pole disagreement.
Modern IEDs (Intelligent Electronic Device) give
benefit of realizing several protection functions within
the same hardware box and consequently give better
possibilities to adopt the protection design to system
requirements and customer philosophies. An example of
rector protection scheme utilized by a modern IED is
shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7. Typical shunt reactor protection possibilities
with modern IEDs
The survey of the philosophy for the different protection
functions can be summarized as follows:
Phase differential function detects all types of shunt
faults but has no possibility to detect turn-turn faults. It
can be set quite sensitive due to a fact that there is no
need for biasing. The need for phase differential
protection for a given reactor depends on reactor size
and importance of the unit
Restricted earth fault protection operates for all types of
faults that give zero sequence current. It is used in
applications where the star connection is done internally
in the reactor. It can be set very low, but consideration
of the error in the comparison of the summarized phase
currents and the neutral current should be considered.
Phase overcurrent protection is used as backup for the
phase differential protection or as main protection for
phase-phase faults when restricted earth fault protection
is only used.
Phase overvoltage protection is sometimes used to
detect line overvoltage conditions that may cause
damage to the reactor when it operates at higher voltage
levels than the reactor rated voltage. Consultation with
reactor manufacturer is needed. A more common use is
to monitor the voltage on the system and to energize the
reactor at a pre-defined “overvoltage level”. If the
reactor is already energized at the same time as the
overvoltage level is activated, the overvoltage function
can be used to protect the system from dangerous
overvoltage i.e. disconnect the line and reactor.
Phase undervoltage protection can be used for
monitoring of the system voltage and de-energize the
reactor when the system voltage drops below a certain
level.
Zero sequence overvoltage protection operates for all
types of external and internal faults with earth involved.
By using logical elements in the IED and combining
information from measuring the neutral point current, it
is possible to create a simple and sensitive earth fault
 protection that is selective to external earth faults. As
well it is possible to detect turn-turn faults with this
scheme when the primary system is well balanced
Directional zero sequence overcurrent protection gives
possibilities to have a instantaneous high set stage and a
time delayed low set stage which gives good backup for
the phase differential protection or restricted earth fault
protection
Zero sequence overcurrent protection that measures the
neutral point current can be used as a system backup
protection with low setting and long time delay. If the
current is combined with measuring the zero sequence
voltage, a sensitive backup protection for internal faults
can be achieved.
Thermal overload protection is a protection that
calculates the reactor thermal content by using a heat
content model. This gives a better adaptation to the real
thermal capability of the reactor compare to using
simple overcurrent protections. However, the overload
of reactor will only occur when the system voltage is
high and during those conditions there is a need for the
shunt reactor to be energized. Therefore this function
shall be carefully used. Winding contact thermometer
can be used instead.
5. Capabilities of modern IEDs in reactor
The modern numerical technique makes it possible to
handle the highlighted issues that occur in reactor
applications due to very good filtering technique,
possibility to perform current input signal harmonic
analyses, use adaptive logic etc. Figure 7 below shows
the difference in magnitude for the fundamental current
IL1 obtained after digital Fourier filtering and the
corresponding phase current obtained as the true RMS
filtering. As can be seen, the RMS (true RMS) current
has much higher magnitude due to a presence of a lot of
harmonics. Therefore the phase overcurrent that uses
Digital Fourier Filtered (DFF) quantities can be set
more sensitive than relays that use RMS filter for its
operation. Similar results can be obtained if similar
analysis is performed for the neutral point current as
well.
Figure 7. Phase L1 current after DFF and RMS
filtering
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6. Conclusions
The paper has highlighted some important issues of the
application of shunt reactors and their influence on the
reactor protection scheme. Field recordings from
unsynchronized energizing of a 150 MVAr, 400 kV
reactor have been highlighted and commented. Even
though synchronized energizing is used, the protection
must be stable against the phenomenon that occurs
when unsynchronized energizing occurs due to an
eventual failure in the synchronizing equipment.
References:
1. T Gönen “Electric Power Transmission System
Engineering, Analysis and Design”
2. Z Gajic, B Hillström, ABB Sweden, F Mekic ABB
USA “HV Shunt Reactor Secrets for Protection
Engineers” 30th Western Relaying Conference
Wasington October 21-23 2003
3. Carlson, Å., “Shunt Reactor Manual”, ABB Power
Technology Products/Transformers, Ludvika-
Sweden, 2002-08-20
4. ABB Transformatori, “Pamphlet Shunt Reactors”,
Roma-Italy
5. Switchgear Committee of the IEEE Power
Engineering Society, “IEEE Application Guide for
Shunt Reactor Switching”, IEEE Std C37.015-1993
6. IEEE Power Systems Relaying Committee, “IEEE
Guide for the Protection of Shunt Reactors”,
ANSI/IEEE C37.109-1988
7. Nylen, R., “Shunt Reactor and SVC Protection
Application Guide”, ABB Relays, Västerås-
Sweden, 1988-11-17
8. Elmore, W. A., editor, Protective Relaying: Theory
and Applications, Marcel Dekker, Inc., 1994.
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Systems, Vol PAS-103, No 8, August 1984 “Shunt
Reactor Protection Practices”