The REF Protection Provides Fast Protection For Ground Faults For Wye Windings in

The REF protection provides fast protection for ground faults for wye windings in
transformers. It provides very sensitive ground fault protection for low magnitude fault currents. These low
levels ground fault will not be detected by 87 differential element. It is applied usually in resistance
grounded systems when the ground fault current is limited and can be very small for detection by
differential relay. If no REF, the fault would be cleared by time overcurrent 51G . Since you have a low
level ground fault in the transformer winding you always want to trip quickly HV and LV to isolate the
fault.
for standard you can use : C37.91-2000 IEEE Guide for Protective Relay Applications to Power
Transformers .
SES software
REF Protection for HV/LV transformer
Dhritiman DasSenior Engineer, Electrical at Alstom Group

Recently, I have received a requirement for considering provision of
tripping downstream LV breaker with REF of upstream HV/LV
transformer. It is known to be standard to trip the upstream HV
breaker with REF to protect the transformer from damage.
Reason for this sort of requirement could not be ascertained. What
is/are the probable reason(s)? Is it any new standard of protection
that recommends this, or was it always there, but lesser known?
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5 months ago
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Selvakumar
Selvakumar S
Power System Engineer at ABB Global Industries Ltd Chennai
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I have understood REF as Restricted Earth Fault. If so, It is mandatory to trip both HV and LV
side breakers to ensure the fault is isolated.
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5 months ago
Dhritiman
Dhritiman Das
Senior Engineer, Electrical at Alstom Group
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You have understood correctly.

Since, our purpose is to protect the HV/LV transformer, it is of utmost importance to isolate it
from upstream power and therefore de-energise the transformer under fault. Could you
explain, further, the purpose of isolating the LV downstream? It would also be great of you to
mention the IEC or any other standard which can be referred.
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5 months ago
Aries
Aries De La Cruz
Principal Engineer at Hyder Consulting
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the Motor loads will also contribute to the fault, in my experience this is practiced in
Qatar/Kahramaa, since the Utility provides the transformers, they prefer to minimize the
internal damage to the TX. Even for smaller TX's (1000, 1600 kVA) they still require REF
protection with HV and LV side trip.
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16 days ago
Dhritiman
Dhritiman Das
Hi Aries,
Thanks for the information about such practices. Till date I had not come across such
requirement from any of the clients, therefore it was new for me.
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To put it simply, Restricted Earth Fault is meant to protect the transformer windings at the
quickest on the basis of fault occurring in the secondary side (sometimes inclusive of the
distribution cable connected to secondary). The REF relay immediately trips the upstream
HV breaker to protect the transformer from major damage.
Please let me know, how tripping the LV side breaker can help achieve further better
protection.
Also, it was not possible not understand how small LV motor loads can contribute to the REF
protection, which is 'restricted' within secondary winding of the distribution transformer?
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15 days ago
Halim
Halim Bensmaia
Lead Electrical Discipline Engineer at Shell Energy Canada
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The REF protection provides fast protection for ground faults for wye windings in
transformers. It provides very sensitive ground fault protection for low magnitude fault
currents. These low levels ground fault will not be detected by 87 differential element. It is
applied usually in resistance grounded systems when the ground fault current is limited and
can be very small for detection by differential relay. If no REF, the fault would be cleared by
time overcurrent 51G . Since you have a low level ground fault in the transformer winding
you always want to trip quickly HV and LV to isolate the fault.
for standard you can use : C37.91-2000 IEEE Guide for Protective Relay Applications to
Power Transformers .
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15 days ago
Aries
Aries De La Cruz
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I think the requirement imposed by the service provider does not depend on the magnitude
of the down stream fault contribution but on the demarcation between service provider and
customer supplied equipment. in our case the service provider will supply the tx. customer
will provide lv panel + protection. since the service provider dictates the requirement they
will spec the maximum protection available even for the smallest tx's since the customer will
be buying the additional relays and ct's. also depending on the occupancy served by the
transformer, there are cases that we have 60 to 80% motor loads per tx, that will also have
a significant fault contribution to the internal tx fault if you dont open the LV side breaker.
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15 days ago
Aries
Aries De La Cruz
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15 days ago
Aries
Aries De La Cruz
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15 days ago
Aries
Aries De La Cruz
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15 days ago
Halim
Halim Bensmaia
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Make sure you are talking about ground fault and not other phase faults. You must be able to
provide settings for 87GD also. Then check the sensitivity and other factors affecting this
protection before talking about significant fault contribution for transformer internal faults.
You can also discuss with and without 87 (differential) since this protection is differential but
operate with a slope!
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14 days ago
Halim
Halim Bensmaia
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...and operate with a slope and must be sensitive for low level GF.
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14 days ago
Halim
Halim Bensmaia
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This protection can be unstable for LR grounded system. Using digital relay you need to
select appropriate slope and figure out the sensitivity. Transformer inrush and external fault
can have also have an impact on this protection.
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13 days ago
Pablo T.
Pablo T. Lazo, REE
PMT Electrical Engineer at Saudi Aramco
Top Contributor
A simple overcurrent and earth fault relay will not provide adequate protection for winding
earth faults. Even with a biased differential relay, the biasing de-sensitises the relay such
that it is not effective for certain earth faults within the winding. This is especially so if the
transformer is resistance or impedance earthed, where the current available on an internal
fault is disproportionally low. In these circumstances it is often necessary to add some form
of separate earth fault protection. The degree of earth fault protection is very much
improved by the application of REF-systems. Both windings of a transformer can be
protected separately with restricted earth fault, thereby providing high speed protection
against earth faults over virtually the whole of the transformer winding.
Anything which gets a fault off the system is generally a good thing. REF is a good relay to
protect against an internal short close to the neutral point which would probably not be seen
by an overcurrent relay, and is effective for any in-zone fault. Today it is a fairly cheap
protection function which provides rapid clearance for an in-zone fault. What is the
capacity/rating of the transformer in question, and how important is the load it feeds?
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Oh and hey, aren't you working in Alstom Group? this is a potential revenue to your
company!
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5 days ago
Halim
Halim Bensmaia
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REF scheme sensitivity is a problem only on star windings with resistance grounding
because the fault current is a function of fault position, phase-to-neutral voltage, and
earthing resistance value. For faults close to neutral, the fault current is very small.
Most REF relays use an operating and a restraint current. There are difference between
relays to determine the restraint quantities and in the detection algorithms and supervision
used for each relay to avoid nuisance tripping.
As Pablo mentionned before, it will be excellent to understand and/or discuss the algorithm
used in the Alstom relays for REF in order to determine the relay setting and provide
transformer data. if REF is set correctly, then you will trip primary and secondary CBs for low
level ground fault only!
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2 days ago

Pablo T.
Pablo T. Lazo, REE
Top Contributor
The restricted earth fault REF relays provide more sensitive protection for transformers
internal faults to ground as Halim already pointed out in his post earlier.
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Basically, restricted earth fault protection is a differential scheme, with CT's on the
transformer neutral and phase leads. The phase CT's are connected together in parallel &
then paralleled with the neutral CT. The resticted earth fault (REF) relay is connected across
the paralled CT circuits. The relay is either a voltage operated device or a current relay with
an external setting resistor. In either case, the scheme is set at a voltage based on the
maximum voltage that is developed at the relay for an external fault. A practical setting is
50% of the CT knee point voltage, if full info is not available. Heavy external faults may trip
the REF relay because of CT's asymmetries. To avoid this, additional choke, capacitor and
short time delay (relay) 1 to 2 seconds are needed to mitigate the effect of harmonics and
DC component. An stabilizing resistor is connected in series with the relay. See page 181 of
A. R. van C. Warrington "Protective Relays Their Theory and Practice" Volume I., 1971.
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2 days ago
Dhritiman
Dhritiman Das
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Friends,
Thank you for your contribution so far.
My question however is still there - what is the additional advantage of tripping the
downstream LV side breaker when we achieve max. protection by fast REF actuated trip in
upstream HV side breaker?
2nd question: What are chances of nuisance tripping due to REF relay?
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2 days ago
Halim
Halim Bensmaia
1)
In order to limit damage in transformer, we need to trip both primary and secondary. It is not
a matter of choice, with advantage or disadvantage but necessary to isolate the transformer
since the available energy (kw-cycle) feeding the fault can cause a lot of damage. Several
publications describing the level of damage for HR systems are available for you to read (for
generators or transformers).
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2)
Depending on the method of transformer grounding and fault location, some transformer
ground faults result in only a small increase in phase current, which transformer differential
protection may not detect. Also, the amount of current in the neutral may be sufficient to
detect most or all ground faults, depending on the grounding method. By connecting an REF
relay to CTs installed in correct locations on the transformer, we can use REF protection to
complete differential protection in detecting transformer ground faults (this was explained
before). REF protection can be high-impedance REF or low impedance
REF relays. You need to verify yourself (I am sure that Alstom has documents covering REF
protection for transformer). You need to understand the dfference between HI and LI REF .
Modern numerical relays relly on LI and use detection algorithms and supervision functions
with logic (harmonics, saturation, zero sequence, positive sequence ect...) to trip correctly
and as explained before you have operating and restrained currents. This is not the case
with HI .
REF Nuisance tripping are caused by CTs saturation, external fault, and poor relay settings.
You may have also inrush conditions if you did not include supervision of second harmonics
in your relay logic and checked with the manufacturers.
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1 day ago
Halim
Halim Bensmaia
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Depending on your CTs (phase and neutral) you may only use LI REF protection. It is better
to check your alstom relay.
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1 day ago
Pablo T.
Pablo T. Lazo, REE
Top Contributor
Hello Dhritiman, before we answer your two (2) questions below:
1.) What is the additional advantage of tripping the downstream LV side breaker when we
achieve max. protection by fast REF actuated trip in upstream HV side breaker?
2.) What are chances of nuisance tripping due to REF relay?
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In your original post, you've mentioned restricted earth fault (REF) protection only. Do you
have overcurrent or differential protection or other protection relay? If so, what do these
trip? Where are your overcurrent and differential relay located, is it in the source/primary of
the transformer, or in the secondary side of the transformer. What is the substation
configuration, is it radial feed or double ended substation with secondary selective main-tiemain.
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1 day ago
Ramesh
Ramesh B
Managing Director at Interface Electronics Pvt Ltd
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If the motor loads are present on LT side,there will be current flow from these motors to feed
the fault, although the HT side is tripped.
It is to cut off the source feeding the fault, therefore both HT and LT breakers to be tripped.
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23 hours ago
Halim
Halim Bensmaia
Why are we still discussing tripping the primary circuit breaker?
Transformer has usually protective functions @ primary side and secondary side (ex : 50, 51,
REF (87GD), 87...) . Some of this protection such as 50 @ primary side is a back-up for
differential protection 87T and 51 @ primary side looks at secondary thru faults, 51 at the
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secondary provides transformer OL protection. Most of this protection trips PRIMARY and
SECONDARY circuit breaker. We are also discussing ZONE protection . "Restricted" ground
protection is same as saying we are looking at a "ZONE" protection (transformer zone).
We also usually have back-feed from low voltage. Poor engineering or poor judgement only
limit tripping or discuss tripping at the primary transformer side only.
If we are using restricted (REF) already means we do not have enough GF current and
differential protection can not isolate low level ground fault near the neutral. We usually use
differential protection and restricted ground fault (if required) for large transformer. The size
and protective requirements will be imposed or required by the client .
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22 hours ago
Halim
Halim Bensmaia
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@Pablo
Can you please clarify further the relation between "REF nuisance tripping" and "substation
configurations"?
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21 hours ago
Pablo T.
Pablo T. Lazo, REE
Top Contributor
@ Halim
Let Dhritiman Das to provide us more info on his questions so the speculations can come to
an end.

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REF Protection for HV/LV transformer

Dhritiman DasSenior Engineer, Electrical at Alstom Group

You have understood correctly.

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