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Unit Protection For Industrial Plants
Unit Protection For Industrial Plants
ARVIND MEHTA
(CEO)
ELCON ENGINEERS
Private Limited
www.elconengineers.com
amehta@elconengineers.com
1. Abstract
The major electrical equipments in an Industrial Plant are Generators, Transformers, Motors,
etc. The common protections provided for these equipments are Phase Over‐Current and
Earth Faults. The Phase and Earth Over‐current protections are pre‐set with either Inverse
Definite Time Delay (IDMT) or Definite Time Delay (DT). These protection relays are co‐
ordinated with other downward relays for a pre‐set time delay. This graded over‐current
system being a conventional practice, it is widely used to meet all the protection
requirements of the power system.
This paper gives an understanding as to how do one reduce the time delay of the phase and
earth over‐current protective relays so that the fault gets cleared in a minimum duration of
time and to save the equipments from damage. The basic idea of the paper is to provide
protection so as to limit the damage to the equipments and in turn limit the repair costs.
2. Introduction
Various studies have done in the past to analyse if the time grading margin of the relays can
be reduced according to the settings carried out. Use of numerical relays has helped reducing
the time margin upto some extent as compared to single functional electromechanical relays
where the range of the plug setting and time multiplier setting is limited. As compared to
electromechanical relays, numerical relays have higher setting ranges and varied functions in
it.
As a common practice, the time grading margin for electromechanical relays is considered to
be 300ms which is now reduced to 200ms for numerical relays as the same are fast in
operation. Though the graded over‐current margin systems appear simple in principle and in
understanding, various difficulties are encountered till today in many industrial plants for
three major reasons. First reason being, for complex networks, satisfactory time grading is
not always arranged which causes delayed action of the relays and hence the fault gets
cleared after a long time. The clearance of fault after a long time shall damage the
equipments namely transformer windings, generator/motor windings, cables, etc.
Second reason being, the settings may lead to maximum tripping times at points in the
system that are too long to prevent excessive disturbances taking place in the system. Thirdly,
for any internal fault taking place in the equipment, the phase and earth over‐current relay
would operate after a certain time lag, which will cause the fault current to flow in the system
till the relay sends a tripping command to the breaker to isolate the fault. These are the major
problems taking place in all the industrial plants which sometimes causes the black out in the
plants in worst case. The question arises how to tackle the internal faults taking place in the
equipments and how to safeguard our equipments from withstand fault current for a longer
duration?
One of the key answers to the problem is the concept of “Unit Protection” where the entire
power system is divided into sections which are treated and protected individually as a unit.
No reference of the other sections is taken into account while carrying out the settings for
these relays. Moreover, the unit protection relays operate almost instantaneously within
100ms considering the breaker ON & OFF time. As these relays are operating within 100ms,
the fault gets cleared immediately, thereby protecting the power system and its components
from damage.
Unit Protection is a form of a Differential Protection whose main principle is to sense the
difference in currents between the incoming and outgoing terminals of the equipment being
protected. Differential protection operates on the principle that current entering and leaving
a zone of protection will be equal. Any difference between these currents is indicative of a
fault being present in the zone. If CTs are connected as shown in Figure, it can be seen that
current flowing through the zone of protection will cause current to circulate around the
secondary wiring. If the CTs are of the same ratio and have identical magnetizing
characteristics they will produce identical secondary currents and hence zero current will flow
through the relay. If a fault exists within the zone of protection there will be a difference
between the outputs from each CT; this difference flowing through the relay causing it to
operate.
The unit protections scheme can be used for protection of all the equipments i.e. generators,
transformers, cables, transmission lines and motors. The different unit protections used in the
industrial plants are as follows:
1) Generator Differential Protection
2) Transformer Differential Protection
3) Distance Protection
4) Line Current Differential Protection
5) Motor Protection
6) Capacitor Bank Protection
7) Grid Islanding Protection
8) Busbar Differential Protection
GENERATOR DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION:
On occurrence of the fault inside the generator
windings or nearby, the fault current will flow
through the stator windings. Due to improper grading
of the relays and due to the time delayed action, the
fault current shall circulate in the windings for a
higher period of time which shall result in severe
damage to the windings and the stator core. The
extent of the damage will depend upon the fault
current level and the duration of the fault.
For a generating plant or plants running in
parallel with Grid, high‐speed disconnection of
the plant from the rest of the power system
may also be necessary to maintain system
stability. The generator differential protection
is best suited in this case as any internal fault
within its zone gets isolated from the rest of
the power system almost instantaneously.
3‐Phase segregated generator differential
protection is provided to detect stator phase
faults. This can be set as either a percentage
bias scheme with a dual slope characteristic or
as a high impedance scheme. This form of unit
protection allows discriminative detection of
winding faults, with no intentional time delay,
where a significant fault current arises. The
zone of protection, defined by the location of
the CTs, should be arranged to overlap
protection for other items of plant, such as a
busbar or a step‐up transformer.
TRANSFORMER DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION:
In applying the principles of differential protection to transformers, a variety of
considerations have to be taken into account. These include compensation for any phase shift
across the transformer, possible unbalance of signals from current transformers either side of
windings and the effects of the variety of earthing and winding arrangements. In addition to
these factors, which can be compensated for by correct application of the relay, the effects of
normal system conditions on relay operation must also be considered.
The differential element must be blocked for system conditions which could result in mal‐
operation of the relay, such as high levels of magnetizing current during inrush conditions or
during transient overfluxing. The considerations for a transformer protection package vary
with the application and importance of the transformer. Small distribution transformers can
be protected satisfactorily, from both technical and economic considerations, by the use of
restricted earth fault relays. Any internal fault in small distribution transformers shall be
detected by restricted earth fault relay which is also a type of unit protection.
DISTANCE PROTECTION:
For faults in the long transmission lines, a fault in any
section of the line shall trip the breakers on both the
sides instantaneously. Providing simple phase and earth
over‐current protection relay shall lead to delayed action
on the other side of the transmission line.
Differential based unit protection shall isolate the faulty
section of the transmission line from the rest of the
power system almost instantaneously so as to limit the
damage to the other equipments feeding the fault for a
long time.
LINE CURRENT DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION:
In a normally over‐current graded system, faults on cables
usually end up with clearing times of around 600‐650ms. This
causes the generator to unnecessarily feed the fault for that long
duration and having the cable undergo short circuit stresses. This
limitation can be overcome by using Cable Differential protection
wherein all cable internal faults are cleared instantaneously.
This is a well established type of protection for feeders. It is
based on the Merz‐Price circulating current system and suitable
for operation over privately owned two core pilots with a
relatively high core resistance and low intercore insulation level.
Cables of length 50‐100mtrs feeding power to substation shall be
provided with cable differential protection so as to avoid delayed
tripping. As the clearing time of the faults on the cables end up
to approximately 650ms, the fault will circulate in the system
unnecessarily which will cause damage to the equipments. The
majority of plant feeders can be protected with this form of
protection, which features a unit protection scheme with no time
or current grading problems even on ring circuits.
MOTOR DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION:
CAPACITOR BANK PROTECTION:
The capacitor bank protection is an integrated protection,
control, and monitoring device for shunt capacitor banks.
The protection provides both the bank and system
protection schemes for shunt capacitor bank protection.
The current and voltage based protection functions are
designed to provide sensitive protection for grounded,
ungrounded single, and parallel capacitor banks and banks
with taps, for a variety of capacitor bank configurations.
The provides current based protection functions, which
include phase, ground, and neutral instantaneous and time
overcurrent elements for standard overcurrent protection
of the bank.
The voltage differential is applicable for both grounded and
ungrounded banks. In the ungrounded case, the algorithm
uses the neutral point voltage to provide sensitive
protection. Based on a simple voltage divider principle,
which compares the bus voltage with the tap voltage of the
bank.
BUSBAR DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION:
Busbars are very critical elements in a power system, since they are the points of coupling of
many circuits, transmission, generation, or loads. A single bus fault can cause damage
equivalent to many simultaneous faults and such faults usually draw large currents. So, a high
speed bus protection is often required to limit the damage on equipment and system stability
or to maintain service to as much load as possible. Busbars can also be protected using Merz‐
Price method of protection. In this application, the current flowing “into” the busbar from the
incomers is compared with the current flowing “out” of the busbars through the feeders. If
the difference between what is flowing in and what is flowing out is greater than a certain
value, the busbar is isolated. Using this method of busbar protection, the tripping time is
reduced to 40ms.
Basic protection of a busbar is not much different from other components, but the key role of
a busbar makes two of the requirements the more importance: speed, and stability. The
primary protection of busbar protection is to limit the damage and also to remove busbar
faults before back up line protection, to maintain system stability.
GRID ISLANDING PROTECTION:
Grid Islanding scheme is a set of protective relays,
connected at the incomer bus ‐ these relays will sense a
disturbance in the grid and give a trip command to the
incomer breaker whenever the grid disturbance exceeds
a set limit. By opening the incomer breaker, the plant is
isolated from the grid. The plant as well as the generator
is disconnected from the disturbed grid by the grid
islanding scheme. The process of disconnecting the
generator from the Electricity Board is called Islanding of
the generator.
A grid is said to be disturbed when there is:
• Undervoltage (27)
• Overvoltage (59)
• Under frequency (81U)
• Over frequency (81O)
• Rapid rate of change in frequency (df/dt)
• Vector surge (dVθ)
• Power failure in grid
• Fault in the grid
It is strongly advisable to disconnect the generators from the grid, when the grid is disturbed.
The main reason is that the TG may get spoilt due to grid disturbances resulting in heavy
repair costs and shut downs. It is necessary to protect the generators from grid disturbances.
It is also better to disconnect the generator from grid whenever the grid fails, by opening the
incomer. If not, the generator which is running will experience a severe jolt when the grid
comes back. This will cause extreme damage to generator. In case of any failures in the grid,
the grid islanding relay operates within 40ms and isolates the grid from the rest of the power
system so as to maintain stability.
A typical layout of 33kV network has been shown in the figure covering all the protections
described above. This layout shall give an overall idea of the unit protection to be considered
for each and every equipment so as to isolate the fault in minimum time without any delayed
action. Providing this type of protection will avoid nuisance trippings in the industrial plants
and shall save the number of black outs occurring in the plant.
3. CONCLUSION
With the advent of newer technologies, it is essential that newer fundamentals shall be set in
line with the problems faced in all the industrial plants. Using “Unit Protection” as a concept
shall however, solve majority of the problems related to the time delayed actions of the
relays. Any fault shall be isolated from the network almost instantaneously which means the
fault current will not be circulating in the power system for a long time. This will not only help
limit damage to the equipments, it will also help to ensure proper relay has tripped for a fault
on that section.
The only drawback in using differential protection relays is that these relays are much costlier
as compared to conventional electromechanical relays. Hence, these relays are not very often
used in the plants. However, increased black outs in the industrial plants causes heavy
production loss which is not beneficial to the company. Hence, to avoid the black outs and
production loss, it is essential that the electrical power system of any industrial plant is
appropriate with adequate protections required. Using the “unit protection” concept will lead
to fast clearance of faults from the power system and hence the number of black outs
occurring in the plants can be saved which will in turn lead to no production loss to the plant.