Lec-6: Power Swing Blocking in Distance Relay ||

Concepts of Power Swing Detection || PSB || OOS

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=8izEJAYofU4&list=PLTMjDkUVSoJZTvjJIlwabe3EjO57h87Y8&index=6

Power Swing and Distance Protection:

What is Power Swing:

In AC network there always a balance between active powers generated and consumed.
However, when there is a fault active power is suddenly reduced but the active power
generated will not reduce immediately. Then the generators will swing and settle at new
equilibrium point. If the generator can settle at new point it is called stable power swing.
However, if the fault is large and the generator cannot settle at new points it is called unstable
power swing.
When voltage reduces then the Impedance (V/I) also reduces. It may reduce so much that it could come
into protection zone and the distance protection relay may operate inadvertently.

That’s why distance protection relay must be blocked during power swing.

Which Zone would be blocked by power swing is generally decided by the Power Grid as a policy
decision.
Now a days the grid system are very complex. And all the grids are interconnected. So when there is a
disturbance at any part of the grid, other parts of the grid will be affected by this.

Generating stations are located at an end and the load centers are located at other end.

In case of large disturbances the generator may swing to other operating points from one operating
points. How much this will rotate/how much this will swing or which operating point it might settle, that
is completely done through power system stability. One of the criteria is equal area criteria that, the
degree of acceleration must be equal to the degree of deceleration of the system to be stable at new
operating points.

There are several approach against Power Swing for Distance relay operation:
1. Some utlity may block all zones.
2. Some may block all zones except Zone 1
3. Block all zones and trip some portion of the Grid by Out of Step protection and remaining portion of
the grid operating in the Islanding mode.
Above relay characteristic is an offset MHO characteristics.

The green point is the Impedance during stable load operation. When there is a fault, it will cause the
impedance to reduce and shifts towards protection zones. Depending on the reach the particular zone
may operate after time delay or instantaneously.

We know during a stable swing rotor will swing to a new equilibrium points and settle over there.

From the above characteristics we can see that due to Stable swing the impedance will first reduces and
enters into the protection zones and later the impedance increases and go out of the zones and settle at
new position.

For unstable swing the impedance also keeps on reducing and enters the protection zone and then later
go out of protection zones.

In both cases, there are few chances that, protection relay may operate inadvertently.
Power Swing Blocking (PSB): Used to block any trip during power swing. As we cannot afford any trip
during power swing.
We will look into the Rate of Change of Impedance approach.

As described above diagram, during fault/swing the impedance will start to decrease and could enter
the Protection zone.

During fault the impedance will decrease and comes into protection zones at very fast rate, almost
instantaneously.

During swing the impedance will decrease and goes inside protection zones slowly.
In the above characteristics when impedance started to decrease and cross the outer zone and
further enters Inner zone, the time is calculated by the relay. For example to cross the outer to
inner zone relay has taken 10msec and the time set is 5msec then, relay will block the distance
protection zones.
When impedance locust crosses the outer & inner zone very fast (less than setting time) then
the relay will consider it as fault and it will not bock the protection zones.
The challenge is the setting of boundary of the Outer & Inner Zone of the concentric
characteristic, it requires the complete study of the power system stability.
For setting the concentric boundary of the outer zone, it may happen that the outer zone
resistive reach may have load encroachment.
Due to these difficulties concentric characteristics are not in use so much now a days.
Blinder Scheme:

In case of the Impedance travelling time higher than the set point relay will consider it as a
Power Swing and it will block the distance protection Zones.
The blinders are drawn parallel with the impedance of the Line. The Blue line is the Impedance
of the system at some angle due to the ratio of Inductance & Resistance.
The blinders could be drawn inside or outside the zone, however, it should not crosses the load
encroachment area.
Suppose in some case during swing, the impedance travels and settle inside the Zone 3 but
does not cross the outer blind. In that case Zone-3 of the protection relay will pick up and relay
will trip inadvertently.
The outer blinder is normally set in coordination with the maximum load resistance coverage. If
the point R in above diagram is the maximum Resistive point then the outer blinder could be
set below the Maximum Load Resistance Coverage with some safety margin, like the indicated
point.
And the inner blinder set at outside the largest protection zone (Zone 3)
Now the time to travel the impedance locus to travel from Outer Blinder to Inner Blinder is
noted down and used to compare with the setting. If the time required is more than setting it
will consider it as load swing and block the protection zones.
To set the blinder it requires to have the complete study of the power system, the complete
understanding of different transient conditions.

Continuous Impedance Monitoring Scheme:

Monotony Test: Checking the sample and calculate the difference of resistance and reactance
between samples to know whether the impedance locus change the direction.
When the Delta-X and Delta-R both in either decreasing or increasing pattern then the
Monotony Test is considered to be passed.

Continuity Test: Relay algorithm always measures and compares the Delta-X & Delta-R value
with some threshold value and see whether the impedance locus is continuous moving or not.
For example if the Delta-X and Delta-R becomes zero or less than some threshold then it is
considered that Continuity test is failed.

Smoothness Test: In this algorithm relay will continuously measure the ratio of Delta-X/Delta-R
and compare with some threshold values. In case of power swing the ratio between samples
are smooth, however when there is a fault, the ratio changes abruptly.

If any of the test failed relay will consider it as power switch condition and blocks the
impedance protection zones.
In this method the current is continuously monitored and the difference of the current
magnitude between samples are continuously compared with the next sample.
In case of power swing, it will increasing slowly-slowly.
In case of power swing, the value of Delta-I will be rised from very low value to very high value
and settle down to a lower value later on.

In case of fault, the Delta-I will be raised to very and next few cycle will be small.

Swing Centre Voltage Method:

In this method the relay algorithm will calculate the voltage of the swing center will some
predefined threshold values and declare the detection of power swing.

The benefits of swing center voltage method is that it does not require any thorough study of
the power system to set the relay.

The below paper has greater insights on the topic:

Pow er sw ing and

out of step considerations on transmission lines.pdf