CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 Page 1 Introduction

 INTRODUCTION
The objective of the Protective Relays: Principles and Applications Seminar is to
introduce the participants to the basic principles of using protective relays to protect
power system components.

The seminar starts by reviewing the phasor relationship between currents and
voltages in various system elements, and illustrates how this relationship is used by
protective relays to differentiate between faults and overloads. It then moves to
provide a review of the terminology used for performing short circuit calculations, and
then introduces the concept of the per-unit system, and uses this concept to perform
several short circuit calculations.

Grounding principles are covered under two chapters: the first discusses the various
types of grounding and the various schemes used to detect ground faults. This is
followed by a chapter on symmetrical components, where the concept of positive,
negative and zero sequence components is introduced and an example is given on
how to calculate line to ground faults using these components.

The next chapter discusses the pertinent articles of the National Electric Code (NEC)
related to cable protection and transformer protection. It then proceeds to review the
coordination time intervals between a protective relay and another protective relay,
and between a protective relay and other protective devices such as low voltage
breakers and fuses. Contrast is made to the difference in coordination time intervals
when using numerical relays, as opposed to classical electro-mechanical relays.

The following chapter describes the construction and ratings of current transformers
(CT's). It sheds some light on how the CT's should be connected and explains their
various accuracy ratings. It also shows how to properly select CT's in order to avoid
CT saturation problems

The seminar then proceeds to describe the various techniques used for protecting
feeders. The theory behind the operation of overcurrent relays, pilot wire relays and
distance relays is provided, and the seminar offers insight about how to set each of
these relays. Literature on several numerical relays used for feeder protection is
provided, and step-by-step procedures for determining settings for these relays are
provided.

The seminar then moves to transformer protection. It provides information on the

various transformer categories, and shows the withstand limit for each category.
Different transformer connections are discussed and various protection schemes are
shown and compared. The topic of transformer differential protection is then
discussed in detail, and the various issues to be taken into consideration when
setting such relays, such as inrush and over-excitation, are analyzed in some detail.
The seminar also provides literature about several numerical relays used for
transformer protection and shows how to develop the various settings for these
relays.

The final two chapters in the seminar discuss busbar protection and capacitor
protection. Various busbar protection schemes, such as high-impedance and low-

Chapter 1 Page 2 Introduction

impedance schemes are discussed, and a comparison between the advantages and
disadvantages of each is given. The seminar also contains product literature on an
ABB busbar protection system. Similarly, the chapter on capacitor protection
illustrates the various capacitor arrangement methods, and gives the various
schemes to be used for protecting capacitor installations.

Chapter 1 Page 3 Introduction