J Control Autom Electr Syst (2013) 24:339–348
DOI 10.1007/s40313-013-0014-5
Coupling Capacitor Voltage Transformer: A Device to Correct
its Secondary Voltage in Real Time
Célio Anésio da Silva · Damásio Fernandes Jr. ·
Washington Luiz Araújo Neves ·
Eubis Pereira Machado
Received: 10 March 2011 / Revised: 22 July 2011 / Accepted: 14 August 2012 / Published online: 2 April 2013
© Brazilian Society for Automatics–SBA 2013
Abstract Usually, the secondary voltage of a Coupling
Capacitor Voltage Transformer (CCVT) is not a perfect
replica of its primary voltage. In this study, the steps to
design a hardware capable of performing the correction of
the CCVT secondary voltage is presented. The device is basi-
cally a recursive digital filter whose parameters are obtained
from the CCVT frequency response. The evaluation of the
device is made by connecting it to the Real Time Digital Sim-
ulator (RTDSTM ) and carrying out real time simulations for
two case studies: harmonic distortion and short-circuit in a
230 kV system. It is shown that the hardware device brings
the CCVT secondary voltage waveform close to the primary
voltage signal.
Keywords Coupling capacitor voltage transformer ·
Real time simulations · Digital signal processing ·
Electromagnetic transients
C. A. da Silva (B) · D. Fernandes Jr. · W. L. A. Neves
Department of Electrical Engineering (DEE), Federal University
of Campina Grande (UFCG), Rua Aprígio Veloso, 882, Bairro
Universitário, CEP 58.429-900 Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil
e-mail: celio.silva@ee.ufcg.rdu.br
D. Fernandes Jr.
e-mail: damasio@dee.ufcg.edu.br
W. L. A. Neves
e-mail: waneves@dee.ufcg.edu.br
E. P. Machado
Collegiate of Electrical Engineering (CENEL), Federal University
of Vale do São Francisco (UNIVASF), Av. Antônio Carlos Magalhães,
510, Santo Antônio, CEP 48.902-300 Juazeiro, Bahia, Brazil
e-mail: eubis.machado@univasf.edu.br
1 Introduction
Electric power utilities use the Coupling Capacitor Volt-
age Transformer (CCVT) to feed measuring and protecting
devices in high voltage and extra high voltage systems. It is
desirable that the CCVT operates as close as possible to an
ideal voltage divider. In practice, the CCVT secondary volt-
age waveform depends on the primary voltage waveshape,
i.e., the CCVT is a frequency-dependent equipment.
The inability of CCVT to reproduce the primary voltage
waveform at its secondary terminal may cause some prob-
lems for distance relays. During a fault on the transmission
line, the voltage collapses at the CCVT primary side and the
energy stored in the capacitors and inductors may produce
voltage swings that have significant magnitude and duration
that affect the performance of protective relays (Arrillaga and
Watson 2003).
The proper functioning of the protection system depends
on the accurate action of relays, which in turn, depend on
errors caused by instrument transformers. Since the sec-
ondary voltage waveform is not an exact replica of the pri-
mary voltage waveform, errors will occur and relays may not
operate as desired. If errors are large, relays may overreach or
underreach the fault point. So, a first-zone operation may take
place for an expected second-zone operation or viceversa.
The search for methodologies to mitigate such phenomena
on protective relays is the subject of research in the scien-
tific community. There are some error estimation methods to
predict the CCVT secondary voltage (He et al. 2006). One
of them estimates the measured steady-state error according
to the CCVT parameters. This method has some drawbacks
in practical applications because the error is affected by the
CCVT load, which usually is not known in advance since its
value depends on the protective devices fed from the CCVT
secondary terminal. A second approach is to filter out high
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frequencies according to the time domain characteristic of
the transient voltage, which is also sensitive to the CCVT
load. A third method estimates the value of the measured
voltage based on the source impedance ratio (SIR), in which
the equivalent impedance seen from the CCVT bus is needed.
Also, the value of SIR is difficult to obtain.
A fast and reliable method to correct the CCVT secondary
voltage waveform in real time is still needed. In this direc-
tion, this study presents the steps to design a hardware device
capable of performing the correction of the CCVT secondary
voltage. The device is basically a recursive digital filter whose
parameters are obtained from the CCVT frequency response
assuming a predefined topology. The error evaluation is car-
ried out through real time simulations with the device con-
nected to the Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDSTM ). With
the strategy used here the errors do not depend on the load
connected to the CCVT secondary terminal, as opposed to
design methods reported in the literature.
Evaluation of the operation of the proposed device is given
for a 230 kV CCVT from Companhia Hidro Elétrica do São
Francisco (CHESF). Two important situations are addressed:
harmonic distortion and short-circuit in a 230 kV system.
Real time simulations show that the dynamic compensation
of the CCVT secondary voltage may enhance the perfor-
mance and reliability of the measuring, control, and protec-
tion systems.
2 Coupling Capacitor Voltage Transformer Model
A typical CCVT consists of two capacitive stacks connected
in series (C1 and C2 ), with an intermediate derivation b whose
rated voltage is typically in between 10 and 20 kV, which in
turn feeds the primary winding of a step down transformer
(SDT), providing the secondary voltage Vo to measure and
protect the instruments. The compensating inductor (L c ) is
designed to correct the voltage lag produced by the capacitive
divider. A basic circuit diagram for a typical CCVT at 60 Hz
is shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1 Electrical basic diagram for a typical CCVT
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J Control Autom Electr Syst (2013) 24:339–348
Under certain conditions, for example, an unsuccessful
reclosing of a transmission line, or after clearing out a short-
circuit in the CCVT secondary terminals, ferroresonance may
take place. This phenomenon is basically the resonance of the
circuit capacitance with the iron-core nonlinear inductance.
In order to damp out ferroresonance oscillations, a ferrores-
onance suppression circuit (FSC) is used across the SDT
winding.
The diagram shown in Fig. 1 is valid only near power
frequency. A CCVT model applicable for electromagnetic
transient studies must take into account stray capacitances
between the windings and stray capacitances between each
winding and ground (Kezunovic et al. 1992; Kojovic et al.
1994). A model suitable for a frequency range from 10 Hz
to 10 kHz is shown in Fig. 2, for a particular FSC (Fer-
nandes Jr. 2003). It basically consists on six main com-
ponents: capacitor stack (C1 e C2 ), compensating inductor
(Rc , L c e Cc ), SDT (Rp , L p , Cp , Cps , Rs , L s , Cs , Rm e L m ),
FSC (Rf , L f e Cf ), and drain coil (L d );. However, this
detailed representation requires data which are not easily pro-
vided by manufacturers.
Aiming to reduce the complexity of the model, Kezunovic
et al. (1992) and Fernandes (1999) performed sensitivity
analysis in a frequency range from 10 Hz to 10 kHz to detect
which parameters are relevant in this frequency range. They
concluded that L d , Cps , Rs , L s e Cs do not cause significant
changes in CCVT frequency response curves, i.e., they can
be neglected without affecting the results. The equivalent
circuit of the CCVT with the most important parameters is
shown in Fig. 3. This topology has been successfully used in
electromagnetic transient studies (Fernandes Jr. 2003; Neves
et al. 2007).
The circuit shown in Fig. 3 is appropriate to reproduce
the behavior of an actual CCVT in the frequency range of a
few kHz and will be used here to represent the CCVT in real
time simulations. However, since there are some situations
in which the CCVT secondary voltage is not a replica of
its primary voltage, a compensating device must be used to
overcome those difficulties. In the next section, the steps to
design a programmable compensating device to be attached
to the CCVT secondary terminal is presented. The behavior
Fig. 2 CCVT general model for electromagnetic transient studies
J Control Autom Electr Syst (2013) 24:339–348 341

-5

Gain (dB)
-10

-15

-20

-25
1 2 3 4
10 10 10 10
Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 3 CCVT model used for linear parameters estimation
Fig. 5 Magnitude curve of the 230 kV CCVT voltage ratio (Fernandes
Jr. 2003)

100

50

Phase (º)
Fig. 4 Block diagram to perform the correction of the CCVT sec- -50
ondary voltage
-100

-150
of the CCVT and the device altogether must reproduce the -200
ideal voltage divider response as close as possible. 10
1
10
2
10
3
10
4

Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 6 Phase curve of the 230 kV CCVT voltage ratio (Fernandes Jr.
3 Compensator Design 2003)

The proposed technique is implemented in a DSP to be used

in connection, which is a real time simulator. The correction
of the CCVT secondary voltage is made according to the
block diagram shown in Fig. 4.
The following steps were used for the design of the com-
pensator:

1. Computation of the CCVT model parameters from fre-

quency response measurements;
2. Computation of the recursive digital filter coefficients;
3. Recursive digital filter implementation;
4. Signal conditioning;
5. Validation of the technique through real time simulations.

3.1 Computation of the CCVT Model Parameters from

Frequency Response Measurements
In order to obtain the frequency response data to be used as
input data to the routine developed to compute the CCVT
parameters, frequency response measurements, for magni-
tude and phase, were carried out for a 230 kV CCVT, in a
frequency range from 10 Hz to 10 kHz (Fernandes Jr. 2003),
as shown in Figs. 5 and 6.
A software (TPCalc), developed by the authors (Neves et
al. 2007), was used to compute the CCVT model parameters
Fig. 7 230 kV CCVT frequency response measured and fitted curve—
magnitude
shown in Fig. 3. The software uses the Levenberg–Marquardt
method (Press et al. 1992) to calculate iteratively the model
parameters that best reproduce, in a least square sense, the
frequency-dependent transfer function Vo /Vi . The magni-
tude and phase curves for the measured and fitted voltage
ratios are shown in Figs. 7 and 8, respectively. Using the

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1.01

Gain (dB)
0.99

0.98

0.97
1 2 3 4
10 10 10 10
Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 9 Magnitude of the transfer function for the compensated CCVT

function presented in Eq. 2 with two zeroes at the origin.

z n , n = 1, . . . , 7 and pm , m = 1, . . . , 8 are the zeroes and
Fig. 8 230 kV CCVT frequency response measured and fitted curve— poles, respectively, of the rational function approximation.
phase
For an ideal compensation, i.e., unity gain for the fre-
quency range of interest and a minimum phase-shift between
Table 1 Initial guesses for the 230 kV CCVT parameters
the primary and secondary voltage, the product of the transfer
C1 = 10.0 nF Cp = 30.0 pF L f 1 = 3.0 mH functions of the compensator and the CCVT must be equal
C2 = 65.4 nF Rp = 30.0  Cf = 170.0 µF to 1 (Eq. 3).
Rc = 3.0 k L p = 170.0 H L f 2 = 170 mH
However, one should be careful to not obtain the compen-
sator function G com (s), by the direct inversion of HCCVT (s).
L c = 170.0 H Rm = 1.7 M Rf = 1.7 
This would produce an unstable compensator, since G com (s)
Cc = 3.0 nF L m = 17.0 kH M = 8 mH
would have the number of zeroes greater than the number
of poles. Besides, it would have two poles at the origin. To
Table 2 Estimated parameters for 230 kV CCVT after the fitting pro- overcome those difficulties, Eq. 3 is modified to Eq. 4, where
cedure φ(s) is an improper rational function (the number of poles
is greater than the number of zeroes) and G com (s) takes the
C1 = 10.0 nF Cp = 512.8 pF L f 1 = 4.1 mH
form of Eq. 5.
C2 = 65.4 nF Rp = 7.7  Cf = 226.9 µF
Finally, the compensator must be designed to meet the
Rc = 505 k L p = 98.3 H L f 2 = 30.5 mH
requirements of the rational function φ(s)−1 in Eq. 6. φ(s)−1
L c = 338.5 H Rm = 1826.6 M Rf = 4.3 
will impose the dynamic bahavior of the compensated CCVT.
Cc = 668.9 nF L m = 7.0 kH M = 3.9 mH
In order to cancel out the undesirable poles in the inversion
of HCCVT (s), φ(s)−1 should have at least two zeroes at the
origin. And, as a second condition, it is desirable that when
initial guesses from Table 1, the estimated parameters are ω → 0, φ(s)−1 → 0, i.e., φ(s)−1 should have at least three
shown in Table 2. C1 and C2 were assumed to be fixed para- poles. Taking into account these two conditions, the sim-
meters obtained from the manufacturer and do not take part plest expression for the transfer function of the compensated
in the iterative procedure. CCVT is given by Eq. 7.
As shown at the bottom of Figs. 7 and 8, the initial average Since φ(s)−1 is a nonlinear function in the coeffi-
error for the magnitude and phase, before starting the iterative cients D3 , D2 , D1 and D0 , they were estimated using the
procedure, were 134.493 % and 33.668◦ , respectively. After Levenberg–Marquardt method. After the fitting procedure,
using the fitting procedure, the errors came down to 3.739 % the D coefficients shown in Eq. 8 were obtained. The mag-
for the magnitude and 7.004◦ for the phase. nitude and phase curves of the transfer function for the com-
pensated CCVT are shown in Figs. 9 and 10, respectively.
3.2 Computation of Recursive Digital Filter Coefficients Note that the magnitude and phase of φ(s)−1 have accept-
able behavior, i.e., unity gain and very small phase-shift in the
The CCVT voltage ratio for the model shown in Fig. 5 can be range from 10 Hz to 10 kHz. Since φ(s)−1 has an acceptable
expressed by Eq. 1. The coefficients An , n = 2, . . . , 7 and dynamic behavior for the whole frequency range of interest,
Bm , m = 0, . . . , 8 are nonlinear functions of the elements one can assume that the transfer function of the compen-
R, L and C. Note that Eq. 1 is a special case of the rational sated CCVT is defined by the Eq. 9, and, z n , n = 1, . . . , 7

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2.5
1. Write the transfer function of the analog filter in the form
2
of poles and zeroes in the s plane (Eq. 10);
2. Rearrange poles and zeroes in increasing or decreasing
order of their real parts;
Phase (º)

1.5
3. Split the transfer function into four sections of second-
1
order filters (Eq. 11), each section comprising the ratio
0.5
of a pair of zeroes to a pair of poles (Eqs. 12–15).
The transfer function of the compensator can be written as
0
10
1
10
2
10
3
10
4 the product of second-order filters in the s plane:
Frequency (Hz)
G Com (s) = G 1 (s) .G 2 (s) .G 3 (s) .G 4 (s) , (11)
Fig. 10 Phase of the transfer function for the compensated CCVT
where each of them is expressed as:

s + z 1′′ . s + z 2′′
   
and pm , m = 1, . . . , 8 are the zeroes and poles of CCVT G 1 (s) = ; (12)
s + p1′′ . s + p2′′
  
rational function, respectively.
For convenience, the function φ(s)−1 was forced to have 
s + z 3′′ . s + z 4′′
  
double zeroes at the origin to cancel out the existing double G 2 (s) =  ; (13)
s + p3′′ . s + p4′′
 
zeroes in CCVT transfer function, HCCVT (s). Thus, the trans-
s + z 5′′ . s + z 6′′
   
fer function of the compensated CCVT can be represented G 3 (s) =  ; (14)
s + p5′′ . s + p6′′
 
by Eq. 10. Where z n′′ , n = 1, . . . , 8 and pn′′ , m = 1, . . . , 8
are the zeroes and poles of the compensator transfer function, s + z 7′′ . s + z 8′′
   
respectively. The poles and zeroes of the compensator trans- G 4 (s) =  . (15)
s + p7′′ . s + p8′′
 
fer function are shown in Table 3. Since all poles and zeroes
are located on the left hand side of the s plane, the compen- The Laplace Transform is very useful in stability analysis
sator has a stable behavior. The next step is to implement the of continuous systems. For discrete systems, the z-transform
compensator in the time domain. has a similar role. The implementation of the compensation
technique in digital signal processor was done by applying
A7 s 7 + A6 s 6 + · · · + A2 s 2
G CCVT (s) = (1) the bilinear transformation:
B8 s 8 + B7 s 7 + · · · + B0
2 1 − z −1
 
(s + z 1 ) . (s + z 2 ) . · · · . (s + z 7 )
HCCVT (s) = (2) s= , (16)
(s + p1 ) . (s + p2 ) . · · · . (s + p8 )

Td 1 + z −1
HCCVT (s) .G Com (s) = 1 (3)
HCCVT (s) .G Com (s) .ϕ (s) = 1 (4) where Td = 50 µs is the sampling time used. Thus, the trans-
G Com (s) = [HCCVT (s) .ϕ (s)]−1 (5) fer function of the compensator in the z plane is given by:
ϕ (s)−1 = 1 (6) 4
VCom (z)  ki1 + ki2 .z −1 + ki3 .z −2
s2 G Com (z) = = k0
ϕ (s)−1 = (7) Vo (z) 1 + ki4 .z −1 + ki5 .z −2
D3 s 3 + D2 s 2 + D1 s + D0 i=1

s2
(17)
ϕ (s)−1 =
4.85 × 10−10 × s 3 + 1.00 × s 2 + 2.44 × s + 2.98 where, ko and ki j , with i = 1, . . . , 4 e j = 1, . . . , 5, are
(8) respectively, the scaling constant of the filter sections and
 
1
G Com (s) = .ϕ (s)−1 (9) the coefficients of second-order recursive digital filter. ki j
HCCVT (s)
coefficients depend on the sampling time (Td ) and on the
s + z 1′′ . s + z 2′′ . · · · . s + z 8′′
     
G Com (s) = (10) poles and zeroes of the compensator transfer function. In
s + p1′′ . s + p2′′ . · · · . s + p8′′
     
Table 4, ki j coefficients are shown for the 230 kV CCVT of
Fig. 3.
3.3 Recursive Digital Filter Implementation The scaling constant of the filter is found adjusting the
ratio between any non-zero value of the secondary voltage
The compensator is implemented as an 8th order recursive Vo and the compensated secondary voltage VCom at point n
digital filter—four second-order cascaded sections. A sim- defined by:
ple method to cascade second-order filters is presented by
Oppenheim and Schafer (1989) and adapted here in the form Vo (n)
k0 ≡ , (18)
of an algorithm: VCom (n)

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Table 3 Poles and zeroes of the

compensator transfer function i Poles ( pi ) Z er oes (z i )

1 −2062291087.4731565
2 14144.602140705099
3 −564.938044020341
4 −203.477585444023
5 −905.900621118066 − j4344.234016373835
6 −905.900621118066 + j4344.234016373835
7 −1.219717000724 − j1.220039934453
8 −1.219717000724 + j1.220039934453
−0.744497659727
300342.107079962380
−898.562006472482 − j4385.708773829852
−898.562006472482 + j4385.708773829852
−503.410022344792 − j852.036648385486
−503.410022344792 + j852.036648385486
−60.390407860040 − j119.503111095392
−60.390407860040 + j119.503111095392

Table 4 Coefficients of
second-order filter sections for Coefficients Section
the 230 kV CCVT 1 2 3 4

ki1 −0.000195300285 0.999859198626 1.006377412037 1.002969556573

ki2 −0.000060020700 −1.867380633707 −1.960963994579 −1.999855623391
ki3 0.000255304211 0.914897085192 0.956988733944 0.996930884072
ki4 −1.094170253869 −1.867792922094 −1.962024098249 −1.999878028298
ki5 −2.094050229243 0.914343995432 0.962306042310 0.999878035738

3.4 Signal Conditioning

A block diagram for the signal-conditioning circuit is shown

in Fig. 11. The analog anti-aliasing filter processes the ana-
log input to obtain the band-limited signal, which is sent to
the analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) unit.
Anti-aliasing filters are low-pass filters with a cut-off fre-
quency f c equal to one-half of the sampling rate used by the
ADC. An ideal anti-aliasing filter characteristic is shown in
Fig. 12. A practical filter can only approximate this “brick-
wall” shape, as shown by the dashed line. Anti-aliasing fil-
ters could be passive, consisting of resistors and capacitors
exclusively; or active, using operational amplifiers. As some
buffering between the filters and the ADC is generally nec-
essary, operational amplifiers are needed in any case. Here,
a second-order Butterworth filter was designed with cut-off Fig. 11 Block diagram of signal-conditioning circuit
frequency nearly 5 kHz.
Since CCVT secondary rated voltages are normally stan-
dardized in 115 or 66.4 V and the analog/digital inputs of
the DSP work only with voltages between 0 and +3 V, it is
necessary to perform the conditioning of the input signals of
the DSP. For the same reason, it is necessary to condition the
signal from the GTAO card (Gigabit Transceiver Analogue
Output) of RTDSTM . This card is used to generate analog sig-
nals with peak values between ±10 V through 12 channels Fig. 12 Ideal anti-aliasing filter characteristic for a cut-off frequency
of 16-bit output. of f c . Approximate realizable characteristic shown by the dashed line

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Fig. 13 Block diagram of the implemented signal- conditioning circuit

The block diagram representing the signal-conditioning Table 5 CHESF transmission line data
circuit with the respective waveforms in the output of each Sequence R (/km) ω. L(/km) ω. C(µ S/km)
stage is shown in Fig. 13.
Zero 0.4309 1.5659 2.3301
Positive 0.0888 0.5249 3.1210
3.5 Validation of the Technique Through Real Time
Simulations

The validation of the technique for correction of the CCVT voltage. It comprises three voltage harmonic sources and two
secondary voltage will be made through real time simula- 230 kV transmission lines (200 km long) whose data were
tions using the RTDSTM . The simulator operates in real time, obtained from the electrical system of CHESF (Companhia
therefore not only allowing the simulation of the power sys- Hidro Elétrica do São Francisco), the most important North-
tem but also making it possible to test physical protection and east Brazilian utility. The line resistance, reactance, and sus-
control equipment (Forsyth et al. 2004). The benefits of the ceptance values (zero and positive sequences) are shown in
compensator will be addressed for two situations: harmon- Table 5.
ics and single-phase short-circuit. For clarity, the simulation The voltage sources for phase a at buses 1, 2, and 3, in kV,
results are presented in Sect. 4. are represented by expressions 19, 20 and 21. Although the
voltage sources are not realistic, i.e., their harmonic contents
3.5.1 Harmonics in the 230 kV System are much higher than expected, they are suitable to analyze
the behavior of the compensator device under extreme situ-
The fictitious electric system shown in Fig. 14 is used here ations.
to validate the technique for correcting the CCVT secondary √ √
230 2 230 2
va(Bus 1) = √ sin(ωt) + √ sin(3ωt)
3 3 3
√ √
230 2 230 2
+ √ sin(5ωt) + √ sin(7ωt)
5 3 7 3
√
230 2
+ √ sin(9ωt) (19)
9 3
√
230 2
va(Bus 2) = √ sin(ωt − 5◦ )
3
√
Fig. 14 Electrical system used for measurement of harmonics in 230 2
230 kV transmission system + √ sin(11ωt − 55◦ )
11 3

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√
230 2 to control the angle of the fault and fault impedance, was
+ √ sin(13ωt − 65◦ )
13 3 implemented in real time.
√
230 2
+ √ sin(15ωt − 75◦ )
15 3
√ 4 Case Studies: Real Time Simulations
230 2
+ √ sin(17ωt − 85◦ ) (20)
17 3 The validation of the method will be done in two stages: first,
√
230 2 the compensator is used to monitor voltage signals with high
va(Bus 3) = √ sin(ωt − 10◦ ) harmonic content; second, the behavior of the compensator
3
√ is analyzed when faults occur in the system.
230 2
+ √ sin(19ωt − 190◦ ) In both cases, the voltage waveforms obtained with the
19 3 compensator will be compared to the CCVT primary voltage.
√
230 2 The diagram used to perform the simulations in real time is
+ √ sin(21ωt − 210◦ )
21 3 shown in Fig. 16. There are connections among the computer,
√ RTDSTM , oscilloscope, DSP, and signal-conditioning circuit.
230 2
+ √ sin(23ωt − 230◦ ) When performing the simulations, it was necessary to use
23 3
√ an oscilloscope with four channels due to the number of sig-
230 2 nals to be monitored, specifically:
+ √ sin(25ωt − 250◦ )
25 3
(21) 1. Channel 1 (CH1) was used to get the signal from the
For the source voltages at phases b and c, the RTDSTM com- CCVT secondary voltage;
putes the magnitude and phase angles automatically. In fact, 2. Channel 2 (CH2) was used to get the reference signal to
the magnitude of each harmonic component in each bus is trigger the oscilloscope;
the same as its corresponding harmonic source at phase a, 3. Channel 3 (CH3) was used to display the corrected volt-
but their phase angles changes according to their harmonic age signal, i.e., the output of the compensator;
sequence. For instance, in phase b and c positive-sequence 4. Channel 4 (CH4) was used to display the CCVT primary
harmonics introduce a −120◦ and +120◦ shift, respectively, voltage waveform. This signal was used as reference in
whereas negative-sequence harmonics introduce a +120◦ valuation of the compensator behavior.
and −120◦ shift, respectively.
Since the ADC input of the DSP works only for voltages
between 0 and +3 V, a circuit to condition the signal coming
3.5.2 Single-Phase Short-Circuit in the 230 kV System
from RTDSTM was assembled as shown in Fig. 17. An oscil-
loscope was used to check the signal conditioning circuit. A 6
In order to evaluate the compensator behavior in the protec-
tion system, the model of a simplified power system with
three buses, as shown in Fig. 15, was implemented. Table 6 Data of the 230 kV equivalent system
The electrical system consists on three buses, two voltage
Source Voltage (kV) R0 () X 0 () R1 () X 1 ()
sources with their respective impedances and transmission
lines (200 km long). The lines are the same lines of Fig. 14. A 187.8/0◦ 0.2856 5.5610 2.0205 7.2720
The data sources are shown in Table 6, where voltages cor- B 187.8/− 10◦ 0.8644 12.2484 12.8150 31.7268
respond to phase to ground peak values.
For this study, a logic to perform all kinds of faults (phase-
ground, between phases or between phases and ground) and

Fig. 15 Electrical system used for evaluation of the CCVT secondary

voltage compensator in protection system Fig. 16 Arrangement used to perform simulations in real time

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V peak-to-peak sinusoidal signal was applied to the input of
the signal-conditioning circuit and a 2 V peak-to-peak output
voltage signal with +1.5 V DC biased was obtained as shown
in Fig. 18. One can see that the signal-conditioning circuit
works fairly well.
4.1 Compensator Effects: Harmonics
With the real time implementation of the electrical sys-
tem shown in Fig. 14, several simulations were performed.
Figure 19 shows per unit CCVT primary and secondary
voltage waveforms during the monitoring of harmonic dis-
tortion without using the compensator.
Note that the voltage waveform at the CCVT secondary
side is very different from the primary side voltage. The com-
pensator enables greater accuracy for the measurements of
signals with harmonic contents, as shown in Fig. 20. There-
fore, measurements of signals with harmonic distortion may
present significant errors when the CCVT is not compen-
sated.

4.2 Compensator Effects: Single-Phase Short-Circuit

In Fig. 21 the CCVT primary and secondary voltage wave-

forms, expressed in per unit, are shown during a phase to
ground fault without the use of the compensator.
The compensator behavior for single-phase short-circuit
in a 230 kV system is shown in Fig. 22. It corrects the
CCVT secondary voltage during a fault at the primary
side eliminating transients produced by energy storage
elements.
Here, it is shown what relays would “see” when the com-
pensator is used or not used. A thorough investigation regard-
ing the compensator effects on the protection system is the
Fig. 17 Signal-conditioning circuit subject of future work by the authors.

4
Input Voltage
3 Output Voltage 1.5
CCVT Primary Voltage
2 CCVT Secondary Voltage Corrected
1
Voltage (V)

1
Voltage (p.u.)

0.5
0

-1 0
-2
-0.5
-3
-1
-4
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
-1.5
Time (ms) 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Time (ms)
Fig. 18 Oscilloscope waveforms of input and output voltage of the
signal conditioning circuit Fig. 20 CCVT with the compensator: Primary voltage with harmonic
1.5 distortion
CCVT Primary Voltage
CCVT Secundary Voltage
1
1.5
CCVT Primary Voltage
Voltage (p.u.)

0.5
CCVT Secondary Voltage
1
0
Voltage (p.u.)

0.5
-0.5
0
-1
-0.5
-1.5
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 -1
Time (ms)
-1.5
0 50 100 150
Fig. 19 CCVT without the compensator: Primary voltage with har-
monic distortion Time (ms)

Fig. 21 CCVT without the compensator: Fault occurrence

123
348
1.5
CCVT Primary Voltage
1
CCVT Secondary Voltage Corrected
Voltage (p.u.)
0.5
-0.5
-1
-1.5
0 50 100 150
Time (ms)
Fig. 22 CCVT with the compensator: Fault occurrence
5 Conclusion
In this paper, a compensator device capable of performing
the correction of the CCVT secondary voltage in real time,
was presented. The compensator was designed from the lin-
ear parameters of the CCVT and from the ideal frequency
response of the compensated CCVT, for a frequency range
from 10 Hz to 10 kHz.
Two time domain studies were carried out to evaluate the
voltage at the secondary side of a 230 kV CCVT when a
disturbance occurred at its primary side: a harmonic source
applied to the CCVT primary side; a fault at the CCVT pri-
mary side. In both cases, the compensator acted to bring the
secondary voltage waveform close to the primary voltage
signal. In other words, the compensated CCVT secondary
voltage is a replica of the primary voltage.
The coefficients of the compensator were calculated tak-
ing as reference the CCVT frequency response. With the
strategy used here the coefficients of the compensator do not
depend on the load connected to the CCVT secondary termi-
nal, as opposed to design methods reported in the literature.
123
J Control Autom Electr Syst (2013) 24:339–348
Acknowledgments The authors are grateful to capes (coordenação de
aperfeiçoamento de pessoal de nível superior) and fpti (fundação parque
tecnológico itaipu) for financial support. The authors would also like to
thank the reviewers for their invaluable suggestions.
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