A Novel Busbar Protection Based on Fault Component Integrated Impedance

Jiale Suonan, Xuyang Deng, Guobing Song

Department of Electrical Engineering Xian Jiaotong University Xian, China
AbstractThis paper describes a novel principle for protecting busbars. The principle uses the ratio between the fault component voltage and the fault component differential current of the busbar to detect faults, which is defined as the fault component integrated impedance in this paper. The fault component integrated impedance of an external fault reflects the capacitance impedance of the busbar whereas that of an internal fault reflects the parallel connection result of the impedances of all the feeders connected to the busbar. As a result, the magnitudes of the integrated impedances are quite different between an external fault and an internal fault. According to such a characteristic, the criterion of fault detection is put forward, which has the inherent immunity to the impact of current flowing out when a fault occurs in the protection zone of the breaker-and-a-half busbar and is insensitive to fault resistance. The impact of the current transformer (CT) saturation on the proposed principle is discussed in this paper. Following the changes on the argument of the fault component integrated impedance, a feasible CT saturation detection algorithm is presented. EMTP simulation results verify the sensitivity and reliability of the proposed principle. Keywordsbusbar protection; breaker-and-a-half configuration; current transformer (CT) saturation; fault component; integrated impedance

Principles of group b) use the phase characteristics of the currents of all the feeders connected to busbar [4]-[5]. Unfortunately, their performances are also affected by the flowing-out current when an internal fault occurs on busbar, which will cause the relay protection refuse to operate. Principles of group c) have been developing since the 1990s. By comparing the polarity of the currents, internal fault and external fault can be distinguished [6]. [7] has proposed an algorithm that use the transient traveling wave power directions to discriminate the internal fault between the external fault. However, the sensitivity and reliability of these principles is affected by the configuration of the busbar. Moreover, correct operation of the principles is not guaranteed for the effect of a lower sampling rate and an anti-aliasing low-pass filter. In addition, reference [8] has proposed a busbar protection technique that estimates the impedances of the positive and negative sequence circuits for every feeder connected to the busbar. The idea is similar to phase angle comparision. An internal fault is detected if all the impedances seen on every feeder are located in the third quadrant of the impedance plane. However, the technique requires to calculate the impedance of every feeder connected to the busbar, which is a heavy work for the relay and may affect the operating speed of the busbar protection. In this paper, the fault component network of busbar is analyzed in details firstly, and the models of fault states are then built. By calculating the ratio between the fault component voltage phasor of the busbar and the fault component differential current phasor, which is defined the fault component integrated impedance in this paper, faults in a busbar protection zone can be distinguished from those outside the zone. Theoretically, the proposed principle has the inherent immunity to the impact of current flowing out when a fault occurs in the protection zone of the breaker-and-a-half busbar and is insensitive to fault resistance. In addition, the phenomenon of current transformer (CT) saturation and its impact on the proposed principle has also been analyzed. Results of EMTP simulation are presented, which show the sensitivity and reliability of the new protection. II. THE PROPOSED PRINCIPLE

I.

INTRODUCTION

The busbar protection is one of the most important relays in plants and substations of power system. It has direct effect on the security and stability of electric power system. Busbar fault is one of the worst fault conditions, which would threaten the stability or even cause the collapse of the system [1]. The continuous development of power systems in size and complexity demands more reliable and accurate response of busbar protection to improve the system stability. Presently, the busbar protection principles can be generally classified into three groups depending on the information of the input signal: a) protection based on the differential principle; b) protection based on the phase comparison principle; c) protection based on the transient traveling waves; Principles of group a) compare the magnitude of the differential current with that of the restraint current [2]-[3], which determines the relay tripping. However, the sensitivity and reliability of the approach is not desirable once there is fault current flowing out in a close loop when a breaker-and-ahalf busbar has an internal fault.
This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 50677051, 50877061), Ph.D. Program Foundation of Ministry of Education of China(No. 20070698057), and National Key Technologies R&D Program(No. 2005BA208C).

Fig.1 shows a busbar M , which is connected to several circuits (1, 2, n). The reference direction of current in this paper is also shown in Fig.1, which is taken into consideration during the development and analysis of the proposed principle.

978-1-4244-4813-5/10/$25.00 2010 IEEE

S1

R1

L1

i1

i2

L2

R2

S2

can be shown in Fig.2. It is clear from Fig.3 that Z eq and I expressed as

(3) 2 n By all appearance, I = I cd .Therefore, the fault component integrated impedance for an internal fault can be expressed by the following equation
1

Rn 1

Ln 1

in 1

in

Ln

Rn

eq = 1 2 n = I + I + + I I

(2)

F 1

F2

Figure 1. Circuit configuration of a busbar

A. Definition of The Fault Component Integrated Impedance The fault component equivalent circuit for an internal fault ( F1 in Fig.1) of the busbar can be represented by the network shown in Fig.2. The fault impedance is shown as Z f , which includes the fault resistance and impedances of the network representing unbalanced faults. Define Z1 , Z 2 , Z n as the equivalent impedances of the feeders connected at terminals 1, 2, n of the busbar. The incremental voltage of the busbar is .The incremental currents of each circuit are shown as U , I .The fault component integrated shown as I1 , I 2 n impedance can be defined as follows:

I = U I =Z Z cd = U cd eq

(4)

It is clear that the magnitude and the argument of Z cd can be expressed as follows.

Z cd < min { Z1 , Z 2 , Z n }

(5)

I Z cd = U (1) cd where: I cd = I1 + I 2 + + I n , which is the differential current of the busbar.

M
Z1

C. External fault The fault component equivalent circuit for an external fault ( F2 in Fig.1) on the circuit n connected to the busbar, can be represented by the network shown in Fig.4. The capacitance impedance of the busbar is shown as Z c and the , which can be current flowing through Z is shown as I
c c

expressed as the following equation according to Kirchhoffs current law. = I = I I c cd

M Z1

(6)
Z2

I 1

I 2

Z2

I 1

I 2

Z n 1

I n 1
F1

I n

Zn

Z n 1

I n 1
I c

I n
U U

F2 Z n

I f

U
Zf

Zf

Figure 4. Fault component network for an external fault Figure 2. Fault component network for an internal fault
M M

I cd

I cd
U

Z eq
U

Zc

Figure 5. Equivalent circuit for an external fault Figure 3. Equivalent circuit for an internal fault

B. Internal Fault It is known that the arguments of impedances are more or less the same between circuits and systems in ultra high voltage system, which are all close to 90 degree. Therefore, the fault component equivalent circuit for an internal fault of the busbar can also be equivalent to the circuit shown in Fig.3, which would be the parallel connection of all the impedances

Considering the equivalent circuit shown in Fig.5 and using an approach similar to that used in Section II-B, the fault component integrated impedance of the busbar can be expressed by the following equation. I = U I = Z Z cd = U (7) cd c c Therefore, the magnitude and the argument of Z cd can be expressed as follows.

Z cd = Z c III. FAULT DETECTION

(8)

inherent immunity to the impact of current flowing out when a fault occurs in the protection zone of the breaker-and-a-half busbar. Fig.6 shows the circuit configuration of a breaker-and-ahalf busbar. When an external fault occurs on circuit j (F1 in Fig.6) connected to the bus2, the fault component integrated impedances of the two buses are both the capacitance impedances of each bus. Its magnitude is particularly big. When an internal fault occurs on bus1 (F2 in Fig.6), the fault component integrated impedance of the bus1 would be the parallel connection of all the impedances connected to bus1.Its magnitude would be relatively small.
BUS1

The presentation of Section II leads to the following observations.

The magnitude of the fault component integrated impedance is relatively small when a fault is in the protection zone of the busbar. Generally, it is smaller than 100 ohms. The magnitude of the fault component integrated impedance is very big when a fault is outside the protection zone of the busbar. It is greater than 10000 ohms.

According to the above observations, the appropriate criterions for busbar protection can be put forward. Start-up Criterion:
>I I cd set

BUS 2

(9)

F2

F1

where: I set is the threshold value of the differential current of the busbar. is close to As the differential current of the busbar I cd zero theoretically when there is no fault in the protection zone of the busbar, I set can be set as 0.1A which would ensure the high sensitivity and reliability of the busbar protection to start up. Operation Criterion:
Z cd < Z set

C1

C2

Figure 6. Circuit configuration of a breaker-and-a-half busbar

(10)

where: Z set is the threshold value of the fault component integrated impedance of the busbar. As the stray capacitance of the bus-bar C is generally between 2000 pF and 0.1 F . If C = 0.1 F , the magnitude of the stray capacitance impedance Z C is minimum, which is almost 30000 ohms. It is clear that Z cd shows a clear distinction between the internal fault and the external fault. Therefore, Z set can be set to be 500 ohms to ensure the reliability of the bus-bar protection. This criterion can be used to distinguish faults outside the bus-protection zone from faults in the protection zone. IV. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

B. Current Transformer Saturation Current transformer (CT) is a basic component that is used in relaying schemes. It generally produces a waveform that faithfully represents the primary current until the CT core saturates. The saturation distorts the waveform of the secondary current and results in clipping a part of the waveform. The move severe the saturation, the more of the waveform is clipped. If the CT saturates, the busbar differential protection will misoperate. CT saturation may influence the performance of the principle proposed in this paper. Since a fault occurs outside the busbar protection zone with a saturated CT, the differential will rise, which can cause the magnitude of the current I cd fault component integrated impedance calculated by (1) decrease. The more severe the saturation, the more of the magnitude will decrease. Once the magnitude of Z cd is below the threshold of the operating criterion, the busbar protection will misoperate. Therefore, a CT saturation detection unit is needed to prevent false tripping for faults external to the busbar. Reference [9] presents an algorithm that makes use of the fact that the tripping time of the differential current element and the restraint current element are different when the differential current is caused by a CT saturated, which can be used to cooperate with the principle proposed in this paper. In addition, the argument of the fault component integrated impedance is close to 90 degree when the fault occurs outside the protection zone of the busbar. If the CT saturates, the waveform of the busbar differential current will have a distortion that may cause a phase excursion to the argument of the fault component integrated impedance. Due to this fact, the argument will not be close to 90 degree when the external fault occurs with CT saturation. According to this, CT saturation can be detected. The criterion can be expressed as follows.

A. Internal Fault on Breaker-and-a-half Busbar with Current Flowing out It is known that there might be fault current flowing out and back in the busbar through a closed loop even when an internal fault occurs on the breakerand-a-half busbar. As a consequence, the restraint current of the percentage restraint differential protection relays will increase, which causes the relays operate with low sensitivity or even refuse to operate. Since the proposed principle only uses the differential current to calculate the fault component integrated impedance, having nothing to do with the restraint current, it has the

90 < arg( Z cd ) < 90 + (11) where: is the tolerance of the argument, which may be set as 20 to be useful in practice. When the argument calculated does not satisfy the criterion, it will declare a CT saturation and block the busbar protection for a short time.

C. Fault Resistance The performance of the busbar differential protection may be affected by the fault resistance, which will cause the sensitivity of the busbar protection decline. According to (4) and (7) of Section II, we can see that the fault component integrated impedances are unaffected by the fault resistance no matter how big the value of the fault resistance is. Therefore, the performance of the proposed principle is immune to the fault resistance.
V. SIMULATION TEST VALIDATION

and Z set is the threshold. To ensure the algorithm is secure during external faults but is adequately sensitive during internal faults, the threshold is set as 500ohm. The performance of the proposed principle is evaluated for different types of internal and external faults. The impact of CT saturation is also investigated. Several typical scenarios are given in Figs.8-10 for the single bus model and Figs.11-13 are listed for the breaker-and-a-half model. Figs.14-15 shows the effect of CT saturation on the magnitude and argument.
1000 |Zcda|/ 500 0 Threshold Operating quantity 0 x 10
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A. Simulation Model In order to verity the effectiveness and reliability of the new principle proposed in this paper, one single busbar system and one breaker-and-a-half busbar system and the data obtained from Shaanxi in China are employed as simulation models, which are set up by the Electromagnetic Transients Program(EMTP), shown in Fig.7. The CT model has been implemented as indicated in [10]: an ideal transformer (EMTP TRANSFORMER) plus a nonlinear branch on the CT secondary (branch Type 98). The hysteresis curve has been obtained using the EMTP HYSDAT routine.
Bus2

Threshold 0 5 10 15 20 t/ms 25 30 35 40

(a)
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A phase-to-ground fault in the busbar protection zone

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(b)

A phase-to-ground fault outside the busbar protection zone

Figure 8. Comparative analysis of the A phase-to-ground fault occurring in the busbar protection zone and outside the busbar protection zone.

1000

Bus1
|Zcda|/

Figure 7. Simulation system model source impedance of S1: Z s1 = 1 + j 45.149 , Z s 0 = 2 + j 23.321

500 0

Threshold Operating quantity 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

1000 |Zcdb|/ 500 0 Threshold Operating quantity 0 x 10

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source impedance of S2: Z s1 = 2.1 + j 49.8097 , Z s 0 = 1.1 + j19.6 transmission line parameters: r0 = 0.1957 km , l0 = 0.6945 km , c0 = 0.02003 km
r1 = 0.0270 km , l1 = 0.3028 km , c1 = 0.01419 km

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Length = 200 km

Operating quantity Threshold 0 5 10 15 20 t/ms 25 30 35 40

B. Simulation Analysis In the following simulation analysis, a low-pass filter is employed to capture the 50-Hz signal. The sampling frequency is 2k Hz. Assume that Z cd is the operation quantity

(a)

AB double-phase-to-ground fault in the busbar protection zone

4 |Zcda|/ 2 0

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(b)

AB double-phase-to-ground fault outside the busbar protection zone

Figure 9. Comparative analysis of the AB double-phase-to-ground fault occurring in the busbar protection zone and outside the busbar protection zone
1000

Figure 11. Comparative analysis of the A phase-to-ground fault occurring in the bus1 protection zone
Bus1 1000 |Zcda1|/ |Zcda2|/ 500 0 Threshold Operating quantity 0 10 20 30 40 4 2 0 x 10
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(a)
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Three-phase-fault in the busbar protection zone

5

Figure 12. Comparative analysis of AB double-phase-to-ground fault occurring in the bus1 protection zone
Bus1 x 10
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x 10

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10

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Figure 10. Comparative analysis of the three-phase-fault occurring in the busbar protection zone and outside the busbar protection zone

Figure 13. Comparative analysis of the three-phase-fault occurring in the bus1 protection zone

From Figs.8-10, it shows that the internal fault can always be distinguished from the external fault by means of the proposed criterion no matter what the fault type is. As for the internal fault, the operation quantities of the fault phases are always below the threshold during the transient process of the fault while the operation quantities of the sound phases are always much greater than the threshold. For the external fault, the operation quantities of all three phases are always much greater than the threshold.

As the comparative analysis of the fault occurred on different bus configuration shown in Figs.11-13, it is clearly found that the results of the internal fault are different from those of the external fault. Similar to the single bus system illustrated before, for the internal fault, the operation quantities of the fault phases are always less than the threshold. Even though there is current flowing out the fault busbar, the criterion can still distinguish the internal fault from external fault sensitively and effectively.

Therefore, the principle proposed in this paper can be employed to identify the internal fault and external fault on busbar reliably and effectively because of a clear distinction between the internal fault and external fault. Fig.14 shows that the operating quantities of all three phases are larger than the threshold and the arguments are all close to 90 degree without CT saturation for an external to the busbar. When the CT connected to the fault circuit saturates, there will be a large differential current due to the CT saturation, which makes the operating quantity of the fault phase decrease below the threshold. However, due to the CT saturation, the argument of the fault phase will deviate 90 degrees shown in Fig.15, which can be used to detect the CT saturation.
4 |Zcda|/ 2 0 Threshold 0 x 10
5

Figure 15. The magnitudes and arguments of Z cd for A phase-to-ground-fault external to the busbar protection zone with CT saturation

VI.

CONCLUSION

A fault component integrated impedance based principle for distinguishing faults in and outside a bus-protection zone has been presented in this paper. The algorithm uses incremental currents in the circuits connected to the bus and the bus incremental voltage. The magnitude of the fault component integrated impedance computed by the relay is used to make trip decisions. Meanwhile, the argument can be used to detect a CT saturation. The performance of the principle has been verified by the EMTP-based simulations and results confirm that the principle works with high sensitivity and reliability. REFERENCES

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Figure 14. The magnitudes and arguments of Z cd for A phase-to-ground-fault external to the busbar protection zone without CT saturation

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