2016 Second International Conference On Science Technology Engineering and Management(ICONSTEM)
Relay Coordination for Distribution System
Anupreyaa K
Power system,
St.Joseph’s college of engineering,
Chennai, India.
preyaaanu@gmail.com
Abstract— In power system protection relay and circuit
breakers is the major instrument for large interconnected
power system. We need proper protection to isolate the faulted
region from healthier network. When two protective apparatus
installed in series have certain characteristics, which provide a
specified operating sequence, they are said to be coordinated or
selective. The objective of protective relay coordination is to
achieve selectivity without loosening sensitivity and quick fault
clearance time. Relay coordination is an important aspect in
the protection system design as coordination schemes must
guarantee fast, selective, and reliable relay operation to isolate
the power system faulted sections. Thus the relay coordination
problem is formulated, for a real time distribution system is
simulated using ETAP.
Keywords—plug multiplier setting; time setting; relay
coordination;short circuit analysis.
I. INTRODUCTION
In modern era, the demand for electrical power
generally is increasing at a faster rate in economically
emerging countries. The networks of the electricity
companies become most complicated. A Power System
consists of various electrical components such as Generating
units, transformers (Power and Distribution), circuit
breakers, bus bars, cables, relays, instrument transformers,
transmission lines, isolators, distribution feeders, and
various types of loads.
Moreover faults may occur in any part of power
system such as short circuit or earth fault. Faults may be of
the following types-Single Line to Ground, Double Line to
Ground, Line to Line, three phase short circuit etc. This
results in the flow of heavy fault current through the system.
The fault level also depends on the fault impedance which it
depends on the location of fault referred from the source
side. Then to calculate the fault level at various points in the
power system, fault analysis is necessary.
In any power system network, protection should be
designed such that protective relays isolate the faulted
portion of the network at the earliest, to prevent equipment
damage, injury to operators and by that to ensure minimum
system disruption enabling continuity of service to healthy
portion of the network. The operation of the protection
system should be as fast as and the selective i.e. it must
isolate only the faulty section in the shortest possible time
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Sabari karthiga T C
Dept. of electrical sciences,
St.Joseph’s college of engineering,
Chennai, India.
causing a minimum disturbance to the system. The
protective relay should be able to discriminate between
normal, abnormal and fault conditions. The term called
relay coordination covers the concept of discrimination,
selectivity and backup protection. In case of failure of
primary protection, there should be a backup protection for
which proper relay co-ordination is necessary. Relay
coordination is essential to obtain continuous of system, to
obtain maximum returns, to provide best service to the
consumer and earn the most revenue. Absolute freedom
from the failure of the plant cannot be guaranteed, even
though the risk of failure of the each item may be small; but
the risk factors of such items, if multiplied together go high.
Larger system has more chances for the fault occurrence and
cause disturbances due to the fault.
ETAP performs the numerical calculations with
tremendous in speed, it can automatically applies industry
accepted standards, and provides easy to follow output
reports. ETAP, while capable of handling 1000 buses,
contains a load schedule program which tracks more than
10,000,000 load items, and reports the voltage flow and
short circuit current at the terminals of each load item. The
100% of the Top 10 electrical design firms relays on ETAP
(ECM Magazine). This capability makes ETAP suitable for
large industrial facilities, as well as utility systems [1]
This paper proposes a novel method to determine the
optimal settings of the Relays for the distribution network
system. To have a proper protection on the distribution side
even if they are any changes in the power system. And to
develop a relay setting considering future generator
planning scenarios. The relays in the power system are to be
coordinated properly and to provide the primary as well as
the backup protection, and at the same time it has to avoid
mal function in power system.
II. OPERATION OF POWER SYSTEM
Power system protection performs the function of
fault detection and clearing it as soon as possible, and
isolating whenever possible but only the faulted component
or a minimal set of the components in any other case. Since
the main protection system may fail (relay fault or breaker
fault), protections should act as backup either in the same
station or in the neighbouring lines with time delay
 2016 Second International Conference On Science Technology Engineering and Management(ICONSTEM)
according to the selectivity requirement. The determination
of the time delays for all the backup relays is known as
coordination of the protection system.
Coordination of protective relays is mainly
necessary to obtain selective tripping in the relays. The first
rule of protective relaying is that the relay should trip for a
fault in its zone. And the second rule is that the relays
should not trip for a fault outside its zone, except to back up
a failed relay or circuit breaker. To coordinate this backup
Protection with the primary relay characteristic will ensure
that the backup relay must have sufficient time delay to
allow the primary relay (and its breaker) to clear the fault.
2.2 Working of Power System
In Normal Condition the power is generated by generator,
acting as a source. This voltage is stepped-up with the help
of step-up transformer up or higher to reduce transmission
losses. Then that power is transmitted over the transmission
lines. Again the voltage is stepped down to a level, as it is
desired by the loads, with the help of step-down
transformer. In Abnormal Condition or fault is nothing but a
defect in electrical circuit of the electrical equipment due to
which current is diverted from intended path. If the fault
impedance is low, then the fault currents are relatively high.
During the time of faults, the power flow is diverted towards
the fault and so the supply to the neighboring zone is
affected. Therefore to isolate the faulty section from the
healthy part and by this we can maintain the continuity of
supply, circuit breakers are employed in power system.
2.3 Need for Protection of Power System
The Modern power systems are growing with more
equipments such as generators, transformers and large
network in the systems. For the system protection, a high
degree of reliability is required. In order to protect the
system from damage, due to fault currents and/or abnormal
voltages caused by the faults, needed for reliable protective
devices, such as relays and circuit breakers arises. The most
common electrical hazard is the short circuit for which
protection is needed. Also the protection is required against
the overloads, over-voltage, under-voltage, open-phase,
power swings, under and over-frequency, instability etc.
2.4 Primary and Back-up Protection
For attaining higher reliability, quick action and
improvements in the operating flexibility of the protection
schemes, and separate the elements of a power system, in
addition to main or primary protection, are provided with a
back-up and auxiliary protection. First in line of defense is
the main protection which ensures quick action and it is
selectively clearing of faults within the boundary of the
circuit section or the element it protects. Main protection is
the essential one it is provided as a rule. Back up protection
which provides back up to the main protection, and when
the main protection fails to operate or is cut out for repairs
etc.
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Failure in the main protection may be due to any of the
following reasons:
1) D.C supply to the tripping circuit fails
2) Current or voltage supply to the relay fails
3) Tripping mechanism of the circuit breaker fails
4) Circuit breaker fails to operate
The Backup protection may be provided either by
the same circuit breakers which will be opened by the main
protection or may use different circuit breakers. Usually,
more than the faulty section is isolated when the backup
protection operates. Mostly the main protection of a circuit
acts as back up protection for the adjacent circuit. The
backup protection is provided where the main protection of
the adjacent circuit fails to back up the given circuit. For the
simplification, back up protection can have the lower
sensitivity factor and be operative over a limited back up
zone i.e. be operative only for the part of the protected
circuit. Relay coordination is done by doing load flow
analysis, short circuit analysis and CT analysis. CT’s are
selected according to the full load amper.
III. SHORT CIRCUIT ANALYSIS
In short circuit analysis we consider three phase
short circuit as it is the most severe fault amongst all the
faults. We are going to assume three phase short circuit on
various locations from 11kV to 415V level it is shown in
Fig.1.and the impedances of certain generators,
transformers, cables and motors are contributing to the
change in fault level at different locations.
3.1 Formulae of Short Circuit Analysis
base MVA
Z pu = % Z ×
transformer rating
base MVA
Fault MVA =
Z pu
Fault MVA
Fault current =
3 × voltage
For relay coordination
voltage between healthy and fault phase
FPC =
normal phase voltage
desired pick _ up current
plug setting =
CTR
primary operation current = CTR × ps
FI
plug setting multiplier =
actual POC
Were FCL = First pole clear
POC = primary operation current
 2016 Second International Conference On Science Technology Engineering and Management(ICONSTEM)
CTR = current transformer ratio
ps = plug setting
Fig.1. Online Diagram of Short Circuit Analysis
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Fig.2. Short Circuit Analysis Report
IV. RELAY COORDINATION
Relay co-ordination plays an important role
in the protection of power system. For the proper
protection, we must have proper co-ordination of
relays with appropriate relay setting is to be done.
Relay settings is done in such a way that the proper co-
ordination is achieved along various series network.
Coordination of relays in a modern power system is a
challenging task for the protection engineers. However the
review of Co-ordination is always essential since various
additions / deletion of feeders and equipments will occur
after the initial commissioning of plants. As the power can
be received from the generators of captive power plant, the
analysis becomes complex. Lager the systems, more will be
the chances of the fault occurrence and disturbances due to
the fault.
Stages for fault clearance:
1) Occurrence of fault
2) Measurement by instrument transformer
3) Analysis by protection relay for initiating selective
tripping
4) Switchgear to clear the fault
5) Relays are installed not to prevent the faults but to isolate
the faults and to minimize the damage.
Relay co-ordination it can be done by selecting a
proper plug setting and the time multiplication setting of the
relay, considering maximum fault current at the relay
locations. After the selection of plug setting and time
multiplier setting, the co-ordination can be checked
graphically. When plotting co-ordination curves, certain
time intervals must be maintained between the curves of the
various protective device in order to ensure the correct
 2016 Second International Conference On Science Technology Engineering and Management(ICONSTEM)

sequential operation of the device when co-coordinating

inverse time over current relays. For a given fault current,
the operating time of relay is jointly determined by its plug
and time multiplier settings. Thus theses type of relay which
is mostly suitable for proper coordination. Operating
characteristics of this relay are usually given in the form of a
curve with the operating current of plug setting multiplier
along the X axis and operating time along Y axis during
representation.
Calculation of the relay operating time:
To calculate the actual relay operating time, the following
parameters is needed
1) Time / PSM Curve
2) Plug Setting
3) Time Setting
4) Fault Current
5) Current Transformer Ratio Fig.3. Sequences of Operation of the Relay and Circuit
The process for calculating the actual relay operating time is Breaker
as the follows:
1) Convert the fault current into the relay coil current by
using the current transformer ratio.
2) Express the relay current as a multiple of current setting,
i.e. calculate the PSM
3) From the Time/PSM curve of the relay, with the
calculated PSM the corresponding time of operation can be
obtained.
4) Determine the actual time of operation by multiplying the
above time of the relay by time-setting multiplier in use.

V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Fig.4. Relay Operating Time
Let us consider a real time system which is consisting of
more than 30 bus systems for relay coordination using
ETAP software. In ETAP we have to design the circuit by
calculation for certain values in the system and some will be
taken from the IEC standards. In the designed system we
need to run the following analysis for relay coordination.
They are
1) Load flow analysis
2) Short circuit analysis
3) CT Selection
4) Relay coordination
By this we can have proper sequential operation of the relay
by this we can isolate the fault position for the healthier
network.

Fig.5. Relay Coordination

VI. CONCLUSION
The fault current it is inversely proportional to the fault
impedance up to the location of fault and the voltage level.
In low voltage side of distribution transformers the voltage
level is significantly lower than high voltage side as the

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transformation ratio is high. The effect of low voltage level

is more than the effect of increase in fault impedance which
causes the fault level to rise. We can coordinate the relay by
injecting fault at various bus of the system. Even though the
fault level is maximum that fault will be cleared without any
damage. The relays (phase and earth fault) are the major
protection devices in distribution system. The relay
coordination in radial network is highly constrained
optimization problem. The relays in the power system are to
be coordinated properly so as to provide primary protection
as well as back up protection, and the same time avoid mal
function and hence avoid the unnecessary outage of healthy
part of system.

VII. REFERENCES
[1] Hima a. Patel, vaibhav m. Sharma, anuradha
deshpande “relay coordination using etap”
international journal of scientific &engineering
research, volume 6, issue 5, may-2015.
[2] H.h.zeineldin, y.r.mohamed, v.khadkikar, and
v.pandi, “a protection coordination index for
evaluation distributed generation impacts on
protection for meshed distribution systems,” ieee
trans.smart grid,[1] vol.4, no.3, pp. 1523-1532,
sep:2013.
[3] Dharmendra Kumar Singh, Dr. S. Gupta
“Protection Of Power System By Optimal Co-
ordination of Directional Overcurrent Relays Using
Genetic Algorithm” International Journal of
Modern Engineering Research (IJMER) Vol. 2,
Issue.1, pp. 326-331, Jan-Feb 2012.

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