Directional Overcurrent Relaying Now and Then

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQPKWUIJvuw

Need for Directional Relays:

Let’s assume we have two parallel line from the Generator to the load where both lines have the same
parameter and we have 4 breakers and we have time delayed overcurrent protection in all the circuit
breakers. As the impedance of both line A-B and C-D are same, during normal operation we will see same
current flowing through the lines.
Let’s assume a fault happened between breaker A & B.

Due to the fault the overcurrent relay at CB A will pick up and at the same time as we have parallel line the
fault current will flow through CB- C, D & B to the fault location.

As we know the 51 element will pick up when the fault current exceeds the setting and after time delay,
depending on the fault magnitude, it will issue a trip command.
In this fault condition Breaker B & D will trip first, as these two breakers are closer to the fault and have more fault
current. As the CB B & D opened still CB-A feeds the fault current.
After time delay the backup protection will trip the Breaker A also.

In this situation the load is completely lost as both transmission line is tripped. To solve the issue another protection
scheme could be adopted, like 67 (Directional Over Current).

In the directional scheme it will have forward looking and reverse looking zone.
For fault in the location current will flow like the Blue & Yellow arrow, the black arrow indicates the forward-looking
zone of the protection relay.
Directional relay will trip on forward zone only, if the current value exceeds the setting and the direction of the fault in
forward zone, relay will issue a trip command.

Breaker B will trip first, and as fault is still fed through CB A, after time delay CB A will trip also.
By applying directional element we can feed the load and trip the faulty line only.

67 Scheme is good for Parallel Feeders, Ring/Loop network, Ring/loop network with multiple generation.

67 can work in supervisory role for 21 protection element. It will prevent 21 element to trip from reverse zone fault.
To detect the direction 67 element will look at both current & voltage phasors,

After relay checking the directionality of the fault it will give permission to the 50/51 element to trip.
If the element sense the fault in reverse direction it will block the protection.
How relay detects the direction:

In the above example CT is placed between CB B & C. CT & VT connected with 67 element. If there is a fault between CB
C & D, the Generator G-1 and G-2 both will feed the fault. The fault is in the forward direction as per the CT marking on
the 67 element. After detecting the direction 67 element will declare it as a forward fault and depending on the setting
50/51 element will issue the trip command.

As we know the transmission line or the power system is not purely resistive, it has certain X/R ratio. During the fault
current & voltage will never in phase, there will be some phase difference between Voltage & the fault current.
Typically fault current lags the voltage.
It has been observed that when the fault goes away from the generating station the current lags more the voltage. The
angle depends on the fault type, feeder parameters, etc. Fault current could be leading in some cases.

If the fault is on the reverse direction,

As the 67 element is programmed for forward zone fault, the fault is located at reversed zone of the 67. The current got
180 flip in the phasor diagram compared to fault in the forward zone.
Characteristics of Directional Relay:

The directional relay works on the Phasor of voltage and current, but traditionally it works on the torque.
Vpol is defined as the polarizing quantity, depending on which the polarity of the fault could be decided. The
polarization quantity should be something that is not affected by the fault and could be used as a reference for the fault.

At maximum fault in the inductive circuit the current will lag the voltage by 89.9°. The MTA could be 89.9°/90°
maximum.

When the fault phase angle equals the angle of maximum torque relay will see maximum torque. The whole idea was to
make the operation of relay faster in the electromechanical world.

From the MTA +- 90 will be taken as blinder for declaring direction of the fault. The in the example above the Grey zone
is considered as Forward zone and the straight line divided the zone is called zero Torque line. The zone behind the zero-
torque line is reverse zone.
Quadrature polarization is decided from the phase triangle relationship. From the quadrature polarization we can say
that for fault at A phase we can take V-BC as polarization reference, as BC volatge will not be affected by the fault in A
phase.
This is very good design used by many manufacturer.

As the faulted phase and reference phase has 90 phase angle between them it is called Quadrature Polarization.
In the example above we can see that quadrature polarizing is mainly used in phase relays for 3-ph and ph-ph faults.
Here V-BC used as polarization reference for A phase fault.
MTA is set 60° from the reference V-BC.
The relay will monitor the Phase current and Phase-Phase voltage of the system.

As we know during ground fault zero sequence current flows to the ground. We need to use zero sequence current or
voltage in the relay as a reference depending on the system configuration. Voltage from Broken Delta connected VT is
used in this relay.
If zero sequence current is used for reference, then the transformer neutral CT or the Core balance CT could be used for
this purpose.

This relay will be looking for any angle between zero sequence voltage and current.
As per the symmetrical component theory we know that VA+VB+VC=3V0.
In this electromagnetic relay the upper portion is the directional element and lower portion is the overcurrent element.
The directional element of the relay is fed from the current transformer and the restraining quantity is fed/measured
from the quadrature connected (90) voltage quantity.

When the operating torque is greater than the restraining torque the relay will operate and contact will close, it will give
permission to the 50/51 element.

The current will come at 8 & 9 and we have instantaneous coil, time over current coil and a directional coil connected in
series. The directional coil is the operating coil.
In 6 & 7 the voltage Quadrature quantity is connected, after polarization check the contact D is closes then the Coil CO
will energize and contact of CO will also close.

In the bottom is the Directional unit, I the middle is the time over current unit and at the top is the instantaneous unit.

For the directional unit Zero Sequence current and voltage both could be used as Polarization Quantity.

Here we have seen that both Zero Sequence Voltage and Current Polarization option is designed.
In the microprocessor-based relays the microprocessors Monitors the Voltage and Current inputs and calculate the
positive, negative and zero sequence quantities. Based on the analysis it will send the directional signal to 50/51 element
and based on the setting of 50/51 relay will pick-up or drop out.
As we know phase relays use Quadrature polarization and ground relays use zero sequence polarization traditionally.
Some manufacturer uses negative sequence polarization quantity also. As we know negative sequence current created
when there is Phase faults or phase ground faults.

As the negative sequence components are more sensitive than zero sequence component it can be used to detect the
direction of the fault. Negative sequence components are present in relatively high during the fault.

Negative sequence components are independent of the loads.

Some cases negative sequence components are better than zero sequence polarization in case of mutually coupled lines
where multiple source of ground polarization is present.

In this scheme the Angle between Negative Sequence Voltage and Current is compared. If the phase angle is within the
Grey area it is considered as Reverse fault. However, if the phase angle of current go to the White zone it will be
considered as Forward fault.

Forward fault declared when the negative sequence current leads the negative sequence voltage.
We know the Forward rotation of the phase sequence is A-B-C and the reverse rotation is A-C-B.

In microprocessor relays we have the freedom to get the zero sequence voltage from different sources. The zero
sequence current/voltage could be calculated from the 3 phase VT/CT inputs or could be obtained from dedicated CT
/VT used for zero sequence only.
As we know there are different units in the electromechanical relays as directional, instantaneous and Overcurrent
element. So there is different testing method for them.
Minimum pick up test is carried out to confirm the closing of the contact. In the MTA test it is verified that whether the
relay is picked up for Directional or non-directional fault from the angle of maximum torque.

The MTA here is 60Lead from reference voltage.

Here the minimum polarization voltage is 0.05XVT, that means at lease 3.45V is required to polarize the relay.
In case of 3 phase heavy fault the voltage will comes down to zero and the relay will lost polarization quantity, in that
case relay will use the memory voltage before the fault to get the polarization after the fault occurred.
Block OC when voltage memory expires: Mean that when the memory voltage expires the relay is able to see some
voltage and depend on the directionality permissive then we like to trip the 50/51 element or not. As it is Disabled relay
will issue trip command.

In this setting the Pick up is set as 1.25X CT rated current.

Curve selected as very inverse.
Direction set as Forward only.
The reset is instantaneous and the Time Dial setting is 10.

MTA TEST
To perform the test, we need to inject the current higher than the pickup setting and inject the polarization voltage
higher than the minimum polarization voltage.
In this condition we have to verify in which direction relay trips, we need to find out the phase angle at which the relay
blocks and at which the relay trips.
In the example above the yellow line is the zero operating line and blue part is the operating side. We can start injecting
the current at phase angle outside the operating region and start increase/decreasing the phase angle and see the relay
operation.
In this case the MTA setting is 60 and we got 57.

Here is 60
For overcurrent trip the phase difference between injected voltage and current kept at MTA.

Then slowly increase the current to get the relay pick up point.