What is Percentage Impedance & Calculate Percentage

Impedance?

“The percentage impedance is nothing but a measure of the volt

drops when the transformer in on full load due to the
winding resistance and leakage reactance expressed as a percentage
of the rated voltage.” Also in other words it is a percentage of the ratio
between the full load short circuit terminal voltage to nominal
voltage of the transformer. It is denoted by %Z. Z is called Impedance.

Secondly, it defines the voltage regulation of the transformer because

of maximum voltage regulation is directly proportional to the p.u
impedance of the transformer. So a high p.u impedance will reduce
the short circuit level and on the other it will result in poor voltage
regulation. And a low p.u impedance will result in higher short circuit
level and good voltage regulation.

Percentage Impedance Calculation:

Percentage Impedance
Take a single transformer. The primary of the transformer will be
connected with the variable AC voltage source (variac) and the
secondary terminal of the transformer will be shorted as shown in the
figure. The primary of the transformer will be energized from
low voltage level. Upon increasing the voltage across the primary, the
secondary current starts increasing. Rise the voltage in primary until
to reach rated secondary current in secondary winding. Now measure
the voltage across the secondary terminal. This is the voltage drop
due to the internal resistance and reactance of the transformer.

Percentage Impedance Formula:

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Significance of percentage impedance:

 Increasing % Z or percentage impedance reduces the short

circuit current and
 High Value of %Z percentage impedance causes more
voltage drop and poor voltage regulation. Finally, transformer
delivers less efficiency.
 The %Z is used to design a protection switchgear. Typically, it
is used to calculate maximum level of fault current. So that,
we can design a switch gear to withstand that maximum level
of fault current.
Let see an example.

The short circuit current can be calculated from the ratio of full load
current to the percentage impedance value. Thus, the formula of short
circuit current using percentage impedance,

Transformer rating

 75 kVA
 240 V secondary
 5% impedance

Calculate the full load secondary current

Therefore, the short circuit current Isc is

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Therefore, the maximum short circuit current is almost 20 times of its
full load current.
So that you can design or choose your switchgear to withstand at 20
times of its full load current for the transformer of 5% percentage
Impedance. The rating is called kAIC. i.e if you have less than 5% i.e
2.5 % means the short circuit current still increase and again you have
to go for high rating of kAIC i.e 40 times for 2.5 %Z.