OBEDOZA, KARL JAMES P.

Differential protection of alternator or Merz -Price circulating current

protection system
Differential circulating current protection scheme or Mertz Price circulating current scheme is a most
popular protection scheme for alternator stator protection. It function on the concept of compareing the
two currents in and out of stator coil. In normal condition the two current will be same, if fault occurs there
will be some difference , and Merz price circulating current scheme works by detecting this difference or
differential current.

Merz Price Protection of Power Transformer

Merz price circulating current principle is commonly used for the protection of power
transformer of 5MVA and and above against earth and phase faults. The system as applied
to transformers fundamentally the same as that for generators, but with certain complicated
features not encountered in the generator protection system. They are explained below;

Merz-price Differential Protection for Delta-Delta Power Transformer

It can be seen that for a delta/star power transformer, the CTs on the delta side should be
connected in star and those connected in delta are the ones in the star side.

The figure shows merz price differential protection for delta/delta 3 –phase power
transformer. The CTs on the both sides are connected in star. This is to compensate for
the phase difference between the power transformer primary and secondary currents. The

During normal i.e., no-fault conditions, the secondaries of CTs carry identical currents.
Therefore the currents entering and leaving the pilot wires at both ends are the same and
no current flows through (OC) of the relays. If a ground or phase to phase faults
occurs,the currents in the CT secondary’s will no longer be the same and the differential
currentflowing through the relay circuit will make the breaker on both sides of the power
transformer to trip.

This scheme also protection for short circuits between turns on the same phase winding.
When a short circuit occurs between the turns, the turn’s ratio of the power transformer is
altered and causes unbalance in current transformer pairs. When enough differential current
flows through the relay, it acts and clears the fault.

Translay protection scheme for lines in power system.

This system is similar to voltage balance system except that here balance or opposition
is between the voltages induced in the secondary windings wound on the relay magnet and
not between the secondary voltages of the line current transformers. This permits to use currenttransfor
mers of normal design and eliminates one of the most serious limitations of
originalv o l t a g e b a l a n c e s y s t e m , n a m e l y i t s l i m i t a t i o n t o t h e s y s t e m o p e r
a t i n g a t v o l t a g e s n o t exceeding 33 kV. In a 3-phase system one relay is placed at each end of
each phase of the 3- phase line. It can be simplified by combining currents derived from all the phases
in a singlerelay at each end, using the principles of summation transformer A
summation transformer
i s a d e v i c e t h a t r e p r o d u c e s t h e p o l y p h a s e l i n e c u r r e n t s a s a single-phase quantity. The
three lines CTs are connected to the tapped primary of summationtransformer. Each line CT energizes a
different number of turns (from line to neutral) with aresulting single-phase output. The use of summation
transformer permits two advantages
(i) primary windings 1 and 2 can be used for phase faults whereas windings 3 can be used for earth fault.
(ii) the number of pilot wires required is only two
IMPEDANCE FAULT DETECTION

impedance faults are generally not detected by conventional protection functions like over
current, ground fault, distance, differential etc. because of the magnitude of impedance
involved in the fault path and the nature and characteristic of the fault current are special
and different than the conventional fault current profiles. Each type of high impedance fault
is unique in terms of magnitude of fault current, nature, characteristic and waveshape.
Majority of the high impedance faults are single phase to ground faults but this can involve
phase to phase elements as well. Because of the inability of the conventional protection
functions to detect high impedance faults especially high impedance phase to ground faults,
the electrical conductor remains live under such condition and as can be imagined, poses a
huge and significant risk to wild life and more importantly human life.

CURRENT BALANCE DIFFERENTIAL PROTECTION

3 Phase Current Balance Protection A three phase current balance protection relay continuously
monitors a three phase AC current through current transformers, tripping upon an unbalanced load
condition. The output relay trips when the monitored current is outside of the user adjustable limit and
the LED ceases to illuminate indicating a fault condition. The trip point is adjustable from 3% to 20% of
the nominal current through the front control knob. The relay also has a built-in time delay, adjustable
from 0.1 to 10 seconds, used to avoid nuisance tripping. The output relay is set to de-energise in the
unbalanced condition ensuring the protection relay is failsafe. The relay is auxiliary powered and is
available with either a normally open or normally closed relay output.

For 3 phase current monitoring and protection against unbalanced loads