Power System

Basics

Tawsif Hossain Chowdhury

thchowdhury@seu.edu.bd
Electrical Power System
 Electrical Power System

Electricity is generated at a power plant (1),

Voltage is "stepped-up" for transmission (2)
Energy travels along a transmission line to the area where the power is needed (3)
Voltage is decreased or "stepped-down," at another substation (4),
&a distribution power line (5)
Carries that electricity until it reaches a home or business area (6).
Why A System Needs
Protection?
• There is no 'fault free' system.

• Electrical power system operates at various voltage levels. Electrical

apparatus are used may be in enclosed (e.g., motors) or placed in open
(e.g., transmission lines) forms. All such equipment undergo
abnormalities in their life time due to various reasons. For example,

• A tree falling or touching an overhead line may cause a fault.

• A lightning strike can cause insulation failure.

• Pollution may result in degradation in performance of insulators which

may lead to breakdown.

• Under frequency or over frequency of a generator may result in

mechanical damage to it's turbine requiring tripping of an alternator.
 Basic requirements of
protection
• In order to carry out the above duties, protection must have the
following qualities:

1. Selectivity: To detect and isolate the faulty item only

2. Stability: To leave all the healthy circuits intact to ensure continuity of

supply

3. Sensitivity: To detect even the smallest fault, current or system

abnormalities and operate correctly at its setting before the fault causes
irreparable damage.

4. Speed: To operate speedily when it is called upon to do so, thereby

minimizing damage to the surroundings and ensuring safety to personnel
It is used to de-energize equipment
and clear faults.
Basic Components of
Protection:
•  Breakers

-an automatically operated electrical switch designed to protect an

electrical circuit from damage caused by excess current, typically resulting

from an overload or short circuit. Its basic function is to interrupt current

flow after a fault is detected.

• Fuse:

-is an electrical safety device that operates to provide overcurrent

protection of an electrical circuit. It is an automatic means ot removing

power from a faulty system

Difference between Fuse and circuit breaker
Basic Components of
Protection:
• Isolators (disconnecting switches)

• -A manually operated switch which separate the circuit from the power main

to ensure that an electrical circuit is completely de-energized for service or

maintenance -It is used to create a visible and permanent isolation of primary

equipment for maintenance purposes.

• -Circuit breaker always trip the circuit but open contacts of breaker can’t be

visible physically from outside of the breaker and that is why it is

recommended not to touch any electrical circuit just by switching off the

circuit breaker. Here, electrical isolators separate a part of the system from

rest for safe maintenance work. It is an off load device which means it is a

switch where there is no current passing through when it’s switched.

Basic Components of
Protection:
• Busbar–

• In electric power distribution, a busbar  is a metallic strip or bar, typically housed

inside switchgear, panel boards, and busway enclosures for local high current

power distribution. In other words, it is a type of electrical junction in which all

the incoming and outgoing electrical current meets. Busbar is like a main pipe

line from which many tapping points are taken for use through feeder. Bus is

used to allow multiple connections (feeders)to the same source of power 

• The feeders connect the substation to the area where power is to be finally

distributed to the consumers. Feeder is used to distribute the power from

primary substations to secondary substations and secondary substations to

consumer end.
Basic Components of Protection
• Protective Relays

• to convert the signals from the monitoring devices and give instructions to

open a circuit under faulty conditions or to give alarms when the equipment

being protected is approaching towards possible destruction

• Earthing Switch–

• to discharge the voltage on the lines to earth after disconnecting them as a

mean to maintainequipmentsafely

• Surge Arrester-

• The function of Surge Arrester is diverting the high voltage surges tp earth

and maintaining continuity during normal voltage.it is used to protect

primary equipment of sudden overvoltage (lightning strike).

Basic Components of Protection
• Potential Transformer (Voltage Transformer):

-stepping down the voltage for the purpose of protection,

measurement and control. 

• Current Transformer

-Stepping down the current for measurement, protection and control.

It is used to measure primary current and voltage and supply scaled
down values for protection and controlling to metering, SCADA, etc.
 Types of Protection
• Protection systems can be classified into
• apparatus protection
• system protection.

Apparatus Protection

• Apparatus protection deals with detection of a fault in the apparatus

and consequent protection. Apparatus protection can be further
classified into following:
• Transmission Line Protection and feeder protection
• Transformer Protection
• Generator Protection
• Motor Protection
• Busbar Protection
 System Protection
• The protection of the whole system.

• System protection deals with detection

(a) Of proximity of system to unstable operating region and

(b) Consequent control actions to restore stable operating point and/or

(c) Prevent damage to equipments.

• Loss of system stability can lead to partial or complete system blackouts.

 
Development of simple distribution systems

• When a consumer requests electrical power from a

supply authority, ideally all that is required is a
cable and a transformer. This is called a radial
system
 Radial System
Advantages

• -If a fault occur at T2, then only the protection on one leg connecting T2
is called into operation to isolate this leg. The other consumers are not
effected Simplest as fed at only one end.
 • The initial cost is low.
 • It is useful when the generating is at low voltage.
 • Preferred when the station is located at the center of the load.
 • More economical for some areas which have a low load requirement

 • require less amount of cables

  • It has a low maintenance
 Radial System
• Disadvantages

• If the conductor to T2 fails, then supply to this particular consumer is lost

completely and cannot be restored until the conductor is replaced/

repaired.

• The end of distributor near to the substation gets heavily loaded.

 • When load on the distributor changes, the clients at the distant end of

the distributor face serious voltage fluctuations.

 • As users are dependent on single feeder and distributor, a fault on any of

these two causes interruption in supply to all the users connected to that

distributor
 Parallel feeder System

• -This disadvantage can be overcome by introducing

additional/ parallel feeders, connecting each of the

consumers radially.

• -However this requires more cabling and is not always

economical. The fault current also tend to increase

due to use of two cables

 Ring Main system
• It is the most favorable system.

• -Here each consumer has feeders but connected in different paths to ensure

continuity of power, in case of conductor failure in any section.

• Advantages

• In case of a fault in the radial circuit the entire system goes off unlike in ring

where by incase one end gets a fault the other end still keeps on supplying

power

 • Compared to the radial system, the voltage drop is less along the distribution

line

 • More subscribers can be installed to the system than the radial system

 • Less voltage fluctuations can be seen at client’s terminals.

 Ring Main System
• Disadvantages
• Ring is very expensive
• requires more materials than radial
•  High maintenance cost