Computer Relaying and Phasor Measurement Unit (EE 472)

Protective Relaying:

• Electric power is available to the user instantly, at the correct voltage and
frequency, and exactly in the amount that is needed.

• This remarkable performance is achieved through careful planning, design,

installation and operation of a very complex network of generators, transformers,
and transmission and distribution lines.

• Howewer, the power system is subject to constant disturbances created by

random load changes, by faults created by natural causes and sometimes as a
result of equipment or operator failure.

• Relaying is the branch of electric power engineering concerned with the

principles of design and operation of equipment (called ‘relays’ or ‘protective
relays’) that detects abnormal power system conditions, and initiates corrective
action as quickly as possible in order to return the power system to its normal
state.

• The quickness of response is an essential element of protective relaying

systems response times of the order of a few milliseconds are often required.

• The response must be automatic, quick and should cause a minimum amount of
disruption to the power system

Power system structural considerations:

• Multi-layered structure of power systems

• A power system is made up of interconnected equipment which can be said to

belong to one of three layers from the point of view of the functions performed

Figure 1 Basic Block Diagram of a Power System

• At the basic level is the power apparatus which generates, transforms and
distributes the electric power to the loads.

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 • Next, there is the layer of control equipment. This equipment helps maintain the
power system at its normal voltage and frequency, generates sufficient power
to meet the load and maintains optimum economy and security in the
interconnected network

• Finally, there is the protection equipment layer. The response time of protection
functions is generally faster than that of the control functions.

• Protection acts to open and close circuit breakers, thus changing the structure
of the power system, whereas the control functions act continuously to adjust
system variables, such as the voltages, currents and power flow on the network

What is a relay: (more specifically, what is a protective relay):

• The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) defines a relay as ‘‘an
electric device that is designed to respond to input conditions in a prescribed
manner and, after specified conditions are met, to cause contact operation or
similar abrupt change in associated electric control circuits.’’

• ‘‘Inputs are usually electric, but may be mechanical, thermal, or other

quantities or a combination of quantities. Limit switches and similar simple
devices are not relays’’ (IEEE C37.90).

• Relays are used in all aspects of activity: home, communication, transportation,

commerce, and industry, to name a few.

• The IEEE defines a protective relay as ‘‘a relay whose function is to detect
defective lines or apparatus or other power system conditions of an abnormal
or dangerous nature and to initiate appropriate control circuit action’’ (IEEE
100).

• Fuses are also used in protection. IEEE defines a fuse as ‘‘an over-current
protective device with a circuit-opening fusible pat that is heated and severed
by the passage of the overcurrent through it’’ (IEEE 100).

• Thus, protective relays and their associated equipment are compact units of
analog, discrete solid-state components, operational amplifiers, and digital
microprocessor networks connected to the power system to sense problems.

• These are frequently abbreviated simply as relays and relay systems. They are
used in all parts of the power system, together with fuses, for the detection of
intolerable conditions, most often faults.

Causes of Faults:

• Natural events that can cause short circuits (faults) are lightning (induced
voltage or direct strikes), wind, ice, earthquake, fire, explosions, falling trees,
flying objects, physical contact by animals, and contamination.
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 • Accidents include faults resulting from vehicles hitting poles or contacting live
equipment, unfortunate people contacting live equipment, digging into
underground cables, human errors, and so on.

• Most faults in an electrical utility system with a network of overhead lines are one-
phase-to-ground faults resulting primarily from lightning-induced transient high
voltage and from falling trees and tree limbs.

• In the overhead distribution systems, momentary tree contact caused by wind

is another major cause of faults. Ice, freezing snow, and wind during severe
storms can cause many faults and much damage.

• These faults include the following, with very approximate percentages of occurrence:

Single phase-to-ground: 70%–80%

Phase-to-phase-to ground: 17%–10%

Phase-to-phase: 10%–8%

Three-phase: 3%–2%

Figure 2 Typical Relay and Circuit Breaker Connections

Almost all the relays in use on power systems may be classified as follows:

1. Magnitude Relays: These relays respond to the magnitude of the input quantity. An
example is the overcurrent relay which responds to changes in the magnitude (either the
peak value or the rms value) of the input current.

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2. Directional Relays: These relays respond to the phase angle between two AC inputs. A
commonly used directional relay may compare the phase angle of a current with a voltage.
Or, the phase angle of one current may be compared with that of another current.

3. Ratio Relays: These relays respond to the ratio of two input signals expressed as
phasors. Ratio of two phasors is a complex number, and a ratio relay may be designed to
respond to the magnitude of this complex number or to the complex number itself. The most
common ratio relays are the several versions of impedance or distance relays.

4. Differential Relays: These relays respond to the magnitude of the algebraic sum of two
or more inputs. In their most common form, the relays respond to the algebraic sum of
currents entering a zone of protection. This algebraic sum may be made to represent the
current in any fault (if it exists) inside the zone of protection.

5. Pilot Relays: These relays utilize communicated information from remote locations as an
input signal. This type of protection generally communicates the decision made by a local
relay of one of the four types described above to relays at the remote terminals of a
transmission line.

Relaying Practices

 Conventional relaying equations provide the ideal method of achieving a protection

goal.

Electromechanical relays

 Earliest relays were electromechanical devices consisting of plungers, balanced

beams and induction discs or cups.
 With the exception of the balanced-beam types, all other electromechanical relays
are in use at the present time.
 Electromechanical relays are robust – both mechanically and from the point of
view of electromagnetic interference (EMI).
 Although they can be very fast (quarter cycle operating time), usually they are slow –
their speed of operation is measured in cycles or seconds.
 They also require a fairly high amount of energy to operate, thereby necessitating
current and voltage transformers with relatively high volt-ampere capability.

Solid-state relays

 In the late 1950s solid-state relays began to appear. These were designed with
discrete electronic components such as diodes, transistors and operational
amplifiers.
 Early solid-state relays were plagued by failures of components due to EMI, and
by failures brought on by the high failure rate of the early solid state components.
 Modern solid state relays are relatively maintenance-free and offer a greater flexibility
as far as protection applications are concerned.
 Their operating speed is high – of the order of one cycle or less.

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  On many power systems, the protection system consisted of a combination of solid
state relays and electromechanical relays – electromechanical relays being more
common in simpler applications such as overcurrent relaying, while solid-state
relays dominated in more complex applications such as pilot relaying or step-
distance relaying.

In recent years, computer relays have supplanted solid state and electromechanical relays
as protection systems of choice.

Computer Relaying

• The field of computer relaying started with attempts to investigate whether power
system relaying functions could be performed with a digital computer.

• These investigations began in the 1960s, a period during which the digital
computer was slowly and systematically replacing many of the traditional tools
of analytical electric power engineering.

• The short circuit, load flow, and stability problems – whose solution was the
primary preoccupation of power system planners – had already been converted to
computer programs, replacing the DC boards and the Network Analysers.

• Relaying was thought to be the next promising and exciting field for
computerization.

• It was clear from the outset that digital computers of that period could not handle
the technical needs of high speed relaying functions.

• The evolution of computers over the intervening years has been so rapid that
algorithmic sophistication demanded by the relaying programs has finally found
a correspondence in the speed and economy of the modern microcomputer; so
that at present computer relays offer the best economic and technical solution
to the protection problems – in many instances the only workable solution.

Attributes of Computer Relaying

• Cost: Over the years, the cost of digital computers has steadily declined; at the
same time their computational power (measured by instruction execution time and
word length) has increased substantially.

• Self-checking and reliability: A computer relay can be programmed to monitor

several of its hardware and software subsystems continuously, thus detecting
any malfunctions that may occur. It can be designed to fail in a safe mode – i.e.
take itself out of service if a failure is detected – and send a service request
alarm to the system centre.

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 • System integration and digital environment: In substations of the future, computer
relays will fit in very naturally. They can accept digital signals obtained from
newer transducers and fiber optic channels, and become integrated with the
computer based control and monitoring systems of a substation.

• Functional flexibility and adaptive relaying: Since the digital computer can be
programmed to perform several functions as long as it has the input and output
signals needed for those functions, it is a simple matter to the relay computer to do
many other substation tasks.

Advantages of Digital Relay

 High level of functionality integration.

 Additional monitoring functions.
 Functional flexibility.
 Capable of working under a wide range of temperatures.
 They can implement more complex function and are generally more accurate.
 Self-checking and self-adaptability.
 Able to communicate with other digital equipment (pear to pear).
 Less sensitive to temperature, aging
 Economical because can be produced in volumes.
 More Accurate.
 plane for distance relaying is possible.
 Signal storage is possible.

Limitations of Digital Relay

 Short lifetime due to the continuous development of new technologies.

 The devices become obsolete rapidly.
 Susceptibility to power system transients.
 As digital systems become increasingly more complex they require specially trained
staff for Operation.
 Proper maintenance of the settings and monitoring data.

Phasor measurement unit (PMU)

A phasor measurement unit (PMU) is a device used to estimate the magnitude and phase
angle of an electrical phasor quantity (such as voltage or current) in the electricity grid using
a common time source for synchronization.

Time synchronization is usually provided by GPS or IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol,
which allows synchronized real-time measurements of multiple remote points on the grid.

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PMUs are capable of capturing samples from a waveform in quick succession and
reconstructing the phasor quantity, made up of an angle measurement and a magnitude
measurement. The resulting measurement is known as a synchrophasor.

These time synchronized measurements are important because if the grid’s supply and
demand are not perfectly matched, frequency imbalances can cause stress on the grid,
which is a potential cause for power outages.

PMUs can also be used to measure the frequency in the power grid.

A typical commercial PMU can report measurements with very high temporal resolution, up
to 120 measurements per second. This helps engineers in analyzing dynamic events in the
grid which is not possible with traditional SCADA measurements that generate one
measurement every 2 or 4 seconds.

Therefore, PMUs equip utilities with enhanced monitoring and control capabilities and are
considered to be one of the most important measuring devices in the future of power
systems.

Applications of PMUs

 Power system automation, as in smart grids

 Load shedding and other load control techniques such as demand response
mechanisms to manage a power system. (i.e. Directing power where it is needed in
real-time)
 Increase the reliability of the power grid by detecting faults early, allowing for isolation
of operative system, and the prevention of power outages.
 Increase power quality by precise analysis and automated correction of sources of
system degradation.
 Wide area measurement and control through state estimation,[21] in very wide area
super grids, regional transmission networks, and local distribution grids.
 Phasor measurement technology and synchronized time stamping can be used for
Security improvement through synchronized encryptions like trusted sensing base.
Cyber attack recognition by verifying data between the SCADA system and the PMU
data.[22]
 Distribution State Estimation and Model Verification. Ability to calculate impedances
of loads, distribution lines, verify voltage magnitude and delta angles based on
mathematical state models.
 Event Detection and Classification. Events such as various types of faults, tap
changes, switching events, circuit protection devices. Machine learning and signal
classification methods can be used to develop algorithms to identify these significant
events.
 Microgrid applications––islanding or deciding where to detach from the grid, load and
generation matching, and resynchronization with the main grid

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Adaptive Relaying

Conventional relays have fixed setting parameters and therefore it becomes difficult to
comply with the protection requirements in variable operation conditions in a power system.
A solution to this problem is the adaptive protection, which can vary its setting parameters
or its operating characteristics in response to changes in the power system.

Adaptive protection is defined by Horowitz, Phadke and Thorp as “a protection philosophy

which permits and seeks to make adjustments to various protection functions in order to
make them more attuned to prevailing power system conditions.”

This implies updating of the relay settings, which represent a change in the power system
topology. This change in power system topology is mainly due to the following reasons:

1. Deliberate system switching, for example, isolation of a part of the equipment for
maintenance.

2. Unplanned system switching, for example, removal of a fault by a relay from a healthy
power system.

In these cases, the power system topology gets changed but the system protection settings
remain the same as they before the modifications, which is why the latter may not be able to
adequately protect the current system. Once the system topology is changed, the settings of
the system devices should be updated as soon as possible to protect the system against
new faults. This can be achieved by applying the adaptive protection scheme.

Adaptive relaying can be utilized in the following areas:

i. Automatic circuit breaker reclosing control.

ii. Power transformer protection.

iii. Multi-terminal transmission line protection.

iv. Relay setting

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