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Centralized Protection • Protection

The History of Protection

Philosophy for Hydro One
Transmission Lines
by Daniyal Qureshi, Pankaj Sharma, Suzana Arbana, Hydro One, Canada

Hydro One Limited, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, is Ontario’s largest
electricity transmission and distribution provider with approximately 1.5 million
valued customers, approximately $30.4 billion in assets as of December 31,
2021, and annual revenues in 2021 of approximately $7.2 billion. Our team of
approximately 9,300 skilled and dedicated employees proudly build and
maintain a safe and reliable electricity system which is essential to supporting
strong and successful communities. In 2021, Hydro One invested approximately
$2.1 billion in its transmission and distribution networks and supported the
economy through buying approximately $1.7 billion of goods and services.

We are committed to the communities where we live and work through

community investment, sustainability and diversity initiatives. We are designated
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as a Sustainable Electricity Leader™ by Electricity Canada.
 Power system protection is often described as an art, and relays as the canvas
on which the protection engineer manifests their creativity. To guide their brush,
the engineer looks to a protection philosophy – a unifying way of thinking and
set of decisions that aims to achieve reliability for a particular system. Looking
back at how a protection philosophy has progressed can help build a deeper
understanding of the intentions behind a particular rule and can potentially
inform future decisions to ensure the safest and most reliable power system
possible.

At the dawn of the 20th century, private companies were developing power
generation facilities along the Niagara River, exploiting the bounty of
hydroelectric potential in the southern region of Canada’s province of Ontario.
In the interest of providing its constituents with a public utility, the government
of Ontario passed the Power Commission Act in 1906, thereby forming the
Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, which was renamed as Ontario
Hydro in 1970. In the late 1980’s a move toward deregulated energy markets
swept across North America; through the Energy Competition Act, 1998, Ontario
Hydro was restructured into five entities to provide competitive electricity rates
for consumers. One of these five entities, dealing with transmission and
distribution, became Ontario Hydro Services Company (Ontario Hydro), the
predecessor to the modern Hydro One. With close to a hundred years of
history, Hydro One has had an extensive history of protecting transmission lines
and improving its settings philosophy. (Figure 2).

Before 1965

In the early 1900’s, the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario became one
of the world’s first integrated public electric utilities. It completed the first 110-kV
bulk electric power transmission lines to supply several municipalities in
southwestern Ontario and by 1920, hydro accounted for more than 97% of total
electricity production in Canada.

The first protective relays developed were electromechanical type. These were
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230-kV lines of the province were put into service at 25-Hz. The scheme for
these lines employed balanced-beam impedance relays which were designed
 and manufactured in house. In this scheme, two sets of impedance relays were
employed (one for phase and one for ground), supervised by directional
overcurrent elements. To account for metering error in the instrument
transformers, two tripping zones were used: an instantaneous underreaching
Zone 1, and a time-delayed overreaching Zone 2 (acting also as a protection
backup). Phase relays were yet unable to discriminate between phase-phase
and three-phase faults and had to be set accordingly. Ground relays, prior to the
development of zero-sequence compensation, were set based online
impedance with a much-added reach for Zone 2.

Emerging from the Great Depression, in 1938, more 230-kV lines were put into
service in southern Ontario. Communication media, in the form of power line
carrier, were installed to support a permissive overreaching transfer trip scheme
on these lines, increasing dependability. A decade later the grid began to
standardize to a 60-Hz frequency, and a sweeping effort to replace the 25-Hz
protection system began.

By 1950, the Mho

relay had arrived
as a superior
alternative to the
balanced-beam
impedance relay.
Mho relays with
Zone 1 and Zone
2 backup became
standard,
expanding on the
usage of
communication-
aided schemes
for high-speed tripping. These included permissive overreaching transfer trip
(POTT), directional comparison blocking (DCB), and phase comparison (Figure 3).

1968 Protection Standard

As the
Hydro-
Electric
Power
Commis
sion of
Ontario
began
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interco PAC World  Store 

nnectin
g its 230-kV network with the United States for the purposes of creating the
 northeastern grid to improve reliability, constraints in Zone 2 as a conventional
backup were revealed. To address this, Zone 3 relays (timed at 3 seconds) were
introduced with a very high reach all the way over to the line ends of circuits
adjacent to the remote terminal breaker. Consequently, the risk of load
conditions encroaching into the phase Mho characteristic increased. (Figure 4).

This risk was unfortunately realized on a cold November day in 1965, when a
line in the Niagara region was overloaded and a Zone 3 remote backup tripped.
After the loss of the line, other loaded lines at the substation also tripped on
Zone 3, leading to a cascading blackout that spilled into the northeastern United
States, including New York City where restoration efforts took up to two days.

To address the security risk, blinders were added to the Zone 3 characteristic to
block load encroachment. This solution was not without its limitations in an
increasingly complex network. The 1965 blackout and its political repercussions
served as an important juncture in the story of the utility’s protection
philosophy, triggering new protection standards and an era where modern
communications began to be used for remote end breaker failure. Protection
would be duplicated in 2 packages, designated ‘A’ group and ‘B’ group – each
identical in function, fully self-contained and independent of the other.

The availability of instantaneous overcurrent relays on the market, with faster

high pickup/dropout ratios, allowed for the development of high-speed breaker
failure protection that would replace the older Zone 3’s. A robust microwave
telecommunications network was designed by the Relay and Communication
Department to meet a 99.99% reliability objective resulting from the events of
1965. This channel facilitated the use of transfer trips, signals that trip the
remote breakers, initiate their breaker failure protection, and initiate their
automatic reclosure circuitry. Transfer trip channels were shared by breaker
failure and line protection schemes.

Direct underreaching transfer trip (DUTT) via microwave or power line carrier
(PLC) was embraced as a standard scheme for 230-kV lines. A local Zone 1 trip
initiates breaker failure and automatic reclosure, and transfer trip is transmitted
to the remote line end. Receival of a transfer trip signal from the remote end
would initiate a local trip, breaker failure and automatic reclosure.

In a simple 2-terminal DUTT application, for a fault occurrence at 50% of the line
where Zone 1’s overlap, the fault is cleared instantaneously. Near the line ends
where only one Zone 1 sees the fault and transfer trips to the other end, the
fault clearing time would take slightly more time for the channel delay.

DUTT offered high-speed tripping on the entirety of the line if the

communication channels were healthy. However, if the remote end breaker or
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line disconnect switch is open it will fail. To provide an alternate instantaneous
 fault clearing approach, and address a potentially open remote end breaker,
POTT or DCB schemes were set up concurrent to DUTT.

The POTT scheme via microwave was adopted as the standard for most 230-kV
lines in southern Ontario. In the POTT scheme, if local Zone 2 (set to ~125% of
line impedance) picks up, it will transmit a permissive signal to the remote line
end. If it receives a permissive signal from the remote end, and it detects a fault,
it will trip immediately. In addition, it will initiate breaker failure and automatic
reclosure and send a transfer trip to the remote line end. Should the remote line
end be open when the local end keys permission, the permissive signal would
be echoed back to local. (Figures 5, 6).

In the DCB scheme via either microwave or PLC, Zone 2 elements wait 50-ms for
a blocking signal to be received from the remote end. If no block is received by
the elapsed time, it will trip locally, initiating breaker failure and automatic
reclosure, and send a transfer trip. If a block is received, the relay will not trip. If
local Zone 3 reverse-facing elements pick up, it will transmit a blocking signal to
the remote end. Zone 3 reach is set to the overreach of the remote Zone 2 of
the neighboring system plus a margin (typically 10%) to ensure blocking of
remote Zone 2 for out of zone faults (Figure 7).

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 The typical DCB coordination delay of 50-ms was chosen based on twice the
assumed delay of microwave communication (20-ms), plus some margin. This
mandatory timer makes POTT a slightly faster scheme, and thus the preferred
scheme in southern Ontario during the era. However, due to the risk of the
permissive signal not being transmitted over PLC, in areas where only PLC was
available, the A group protection was POTT, and the B group was DCB.

Independent of the schemes, an overreaching Zone 2 will trip unconditionally

after an extended time delay, although it will not trigger transfer trip or
automatic reclosure. The intention of this behavior was to provide protection
upon a total loss of communication channels. As a backup element, only to
initiate if all other protective elements failed, the standard time delay was
desired to exceed the remote breaker failure clearance time (with a margin) – a
value selected to be at 400-ms.

High resistance open phase (HIROP)

In the early
Magazine  1970s, the problem
Events  of high-impedance
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Newscaught
 the attention of PAC World 
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the public as well as that of protection engineers at the newly minted Ontario
Hydro. The utility had a unique interest in the consequences of open phase due
 to the architecture of its system. While elsewhere, generation is typically spread
out over a large geographic area and connected to the grid at multiple nodes,
Ontario Hydro interfaces with large concentrations of generation found close to
each other. This exposes a high amount of generation to the risk of being
shaken off for a single open phase.

One of Ontario Hydro’s most innovative developments of this era was high
resistance open phase (HIROP) protection (ANSI device code 97N), which served
two functions: the detection of an open phase, and the detection of a high
resistance fault.

Open phases frequently occur when one or two poles of a breaker/disconnect

switch fail to open/close effectively. The sequence components of the currents
will then circulate in the affected system in inverse proportion to their sequence
impedances. The currents are in the magnitude of the load currents, depending
on how large they were before the occurrence of the open phase; the element
with the open phase would carry the most current.

In 1981, there was an open phase in a synchronizing circuit breaker in the

switchyard at the Nanticoke coal generation station. The phase currents at the
site of the open phase were high enough that they produced large zero-
sequence currents flowing back into the grounded generator unit transformers
– thereby tripping the transformer ground overcurrent relays and disconnecting
all four 500-MW units. It became apparent that a simple open phase in a breaker
or line disconnect switch could shake massive amounts of generation off the
system.

The Ontario system is solidly grounded, such that zero-sequence current will
flow in all cases (excluding radial lines). Furthermore, there was no line where an
open phase would not result in at least twice as much zero-sequence current on
the line with the open phase than on any other line in the system.

In view of these principles, it was decided in 1987 to implement inverse time

zero-sequence measuring relays, set with the same pickup current, and time dial
settings measuring the zero-sequence current of all system elements.

This would enable selective operation and isolation of the open phased element
at the affected terminal since the relay at this terminal would operate first.

Coordination was achieved by having all relays use the exact same pickup, time
dial and curve. The minimum pickup of the overcurrent was based on a balance
between the maximum natural unbalance current on the transmission lines, and
the zero-sequence current as it is directly related to the pre-open phase load
current. As
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decided to use a pickup of 360-A (twice the unbalance with some margin) for all
 relays. A time dial of 0.5 and the IEC Curve ‘A’ ensured the open phase
protection would never operate before line protection.

These open phase detection elements would also be able to provide

coordination for low level high resistance ground faults.

Yet for high magnitude high resistance ground faults that could not be detected
by the ground distance relays, coordination could not be ensured (Figure 8).

To address this, a high set instantaneous ground overcurrent element was

included in the open phase protection on lines where they would not trip for
remote end faults. For shorter lines, it had to be included as an operating
element in the DCB/POTT scheme. In these cases, the overcurrent was
directional and delayed by 120-ms, to allow for current reversals when one
breaker tripped before the other. A 2-kA pickup setting was selected because it
would detect essentially any forward fault, and lines where the tapped
transformer inrush current could exceed 1-kA could be energized. This incurred
an additional cost for directional relays, and so was only applied on short lines.

Hydro One and the Modern Era (1998 Until today)

In the latter half of the 20th

century, protective relays
rapidly evolved, leveraging
powerful microprocessor
technology. As the newly
formed Hydro One, a formal
program was developed to
replace end-of-life solid state
and electromechanical devices
with microprocessor-based
ones, called Intelligent
Electronic Devices (IEDs). In
addition, the older microwave communication system was gradually replaced
with high-speed digital systems using microwave or fiber optics. (Figure 9).

In adopting IEDs, Hydro One made a conscious decision to disable native relay
logic in favor of programming its own unique logic which matched the existing
setting philosophy. In addition, consistent input and output signals were used,
meaning that regardless of the relay model, the wiring and operation remained
standard.

IEDs brought innumerable benefits for the design and installation of protection
systems. A single
Magazine IED could
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News electromechanical
Advertising PAC World  Store 
relays that formerly took up more space on the rack mount.
 With IEDs in 1999, directional ground instantaneous overcurrent elements could
be included in the POTT/DCB schemes at no additional cost. This addressed the
limitation with HIROP and meant that all high resistance ground faults down to
only 2-kA could be detected. As a result, the high set instantaneous elements
that were in place on longer lines were phased out.

In 2009, Hydro One began to connect distributed generation onto existing high
voltage lines, adding a layer of complexity from a protection perspective. Prior to
this moment, generation would supply energy to a major bus at a terminal
station. Now, generators directly supplied energy onto long transmission lines
across multiple locations.

In two-terminal applications, the setting of Zone 1 at 80% and Zone 2 at 120% of

line impedance is straightforward. However, with multi-terminal lines, this line
impedance must be defined as the path to one of the remote terminals. Zone 1
reach would now need to not exceed 80% of the shortest path to a remote
terminal to ensure that there was no chance Zone 1 would trip for an out of
zone fault. Zone 2 reach, on the other hand, would need to be set to 120% of the
longest path to a remote terminal, to guarantee complete coverage of the line
for local backup as well as teleprotection schemes. (Figure 10).

The logic of POTT and DCB would also require adjustment to accommodate the
terminals involved in the scheme. For POTT, a permissive signal would need to
be received from all remote ends before initiating local tripping to ensure that
the fault is seen by all ends and was therefore in zone (AND-gate). For DCB, if a
blocked signal was received from any line end, it should then inhibit local
tripping as the Zone 2 could be overreaching any one of the remote terminals
(OR-gate).

Future

Rapidly evolving technologies, customer needs, and global commitments to

reduce greenhouse gas emissions have transformed the energy industry in
recent years. Increased deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs),
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increased share of DC electricity transmission, and continuous reduction of
conventional synchronous generation pose a wide range of challenges to
 existing power systems, including the provision of dependable and secure
protection.

The protection field is undergoing major transitions, such as the implementation

of IEC 61850 and the protection of inertia-less/deprived systems. Though costly,
effective philosophies such as transfer trip have enabled protection engineers to
overcome many of these modern challenges.

In 2009, Hydro One released the Distributed Generation Technical

Interconnection Requirements (TIR). Taking into consideration the IEEE 1547
standard, other industry standards, and Hydro One’s business practices, the
document guides customers below 50-kV on scheme configuration, isolation,
protection, and control requirements at the point of interconnection.

Most local distribution companies in Ontario have adopted its principles. These
requirements play an important role in protecting DERs, where protections
cannot determine if undervoltages are due to an in-zone fault or transients
elsewhere in the system. The implementation of transfer trip with DERs allows
faults to be cleared in these scenarios in a timely manner without adverse
effects on a larger base of customers.

As demand for distributed generation increases, Hydro One will continue to

research innovative ways to relax transfer trip requirements based on
acceptable risk, such as utilizing controlled signals through the Distribution
Management System for energy storage and smaller-size inverter-based
generators. Automated tools can now be used to verify relay settings, perform
wide-area coordination studies, and validate protection system compliance.

Though tools and approaches to developing the settings philosophy will

continue to change, our commitment to safety and reliability will always remain.

Acknowledgements: The backbone of this article was formed from the

exhaustive work of John Ciufo & Aaron Cooperberg. In addition, the authors
would like to acknowledge the countless other engineering experts whose
efforts have contributed to the innovation of Hydro One.

Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and
do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Hydro One. Hydro One will
not be liable or be held responsible for any consequences of the use of, or
reliance on the information contained in this article.

Biographies:

Magazine  Daniyal
EventsQureshi
 Areas of Interest
is a Protection News
& Control
  at Advertising
Officer Hydro One PAC World  Store 
Networks Inc. He specializes in protection system modelling in
industry-standard software, studies for the purposes of compliance,
 and the development of automated solutions for analysis and reporting.
Through Daniyal’s prior experience as a consultant, he has contributed to relay
coordination and sensitivity evaluation tools for numerous utilities across North
America. Daniyal regularly authors conference papers and holds a Bachelor of
Applied Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto.
Daniyal loves reading and has a passion for Classical languages, world history
and paleontology. In his spare time, he enjoys horse-riding, travelling, and
writing.

Pankaj Sharma (Bachelor, Electrical Engineering) is licensed

professional engineer in the province of Ontario, Canada. He works
as Sr. Manager, Protection & Control Engineering in Hydro One.
After graduation Mr. Sharma worked 15 years in Gujarat Electricity Board in
India. Mr. Sharma joined Hydro One in 2006, worked in Asset Management,
Operations and Engineering departments. At present his team delivers designs
of Protection, Control and Metering for Transmission & Stations.

Suzana Arbana P.Eng., is a senior electrical engineer with over 25

years of expertise in protection, control and SCADA design of power
generation, EHV/HV transmission and distribution systems. Her
design experience includes utility, commercial and industrial sectors. She has a
degree in Electrical Engineering Power System from Polytechnic University of
Tirana Albania. Currently she works as the Manager for P&C Engineering at
Hydro One where she leads a team of 25 design engineers.

#Issue 063 March 2023

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Including Mode R Competition – March 2023

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