Generator & transformer

Protection
Hui Ren
Electrical Engineering Department
North China Electric Power University

Source: Power System Protection, Edited by the Electricity Training Association

Generator faults, Abnormal

Condition and Protection
Phase to phase faults
Stator
faults

rotor
faults

Abnormal
condition

interturn faults

Interturn fault protection

earth faults

overcurrent protection

earth faults

Earth fault protection

Loss of excitation

Loss of field protection

overloading

Overload protection

Reverse power

Reverse power protection

overvoltage
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Differential protection

Overvoltage protection

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 Overall differential protection for phase-tophase faults

Overcurrent protection as backup
protection and protection for earth fault.

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Differential Relay

(a) Basic differential

overcurrent
relay
(b) percentage
differential relay

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Differential Relay
Percentage-differential relaying for a wye-connected
generator.

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Differential Relay
Percentage-differential relaying for a delta-connected
generator.

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Percentage-differential relay for

a generator and transformer unit

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Inter-turn fault protection

Inter-turn fault can not be detected by the Differential
protection
Remaining clear of earth, no differential current except for
a large current circulating the shorted turns.
Fault evolving and cleared by other protection
If the faults occur in the stator slots, they quickly develop
into faults to earth, then cleared by the stator earth fault
protection.
risk
If occur at the winding ends, may cause extensive damage
to the generator before the fault evolves to one detectable
by other protection.
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Stator Ground Protection

Ground faults, particularly single phase to ground, are the
most likely to occur. Although generators are usually wye
connected, the neutral is not usually grounded directly,
because of the possible very large ground fault current values.
A solidly grounded synchronous generator will supply a single
phase to ground short circuit current of about 120% of the
three-phase short circuit current. Since the single phase to
ground short circuit is the most likely, an impedance is usually
introduced in the neutral of generators to limit the ground fault
current.

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Stator Ground Protection

High-resistance grounding
Advantages of High-resistance grounding
reduced thermal and mechanical stress in
apparatus carrying ground fault current;
reduced shock, burn, and flash hazards to
personnel in the vicinity of a ground fault,
ability to control transient overvoltages due to
arcing faults.

For these reasons, most generators use

high-resistance grounding.
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Stator Ground Protection

drawbacks of High resistance grounding
it complicates the detection of ground
faults on the stator winding, particularly
when the fault is close to the neutral.
Due to the small fault current, the
generator differential relay is insensitive to
a ground fault.
The differential relay has trouble
distinguishing the small fault current from
the third harmonic current that also flows in
the neutral.
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Stator Ground Protection

Two methods of detecting a short circuit to ground

Overvoltage
relay

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Stator Ground Protection

100% of Stator ground protection

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Rotor earth-fault protection

Utilizing a high resistance connected
across the rotor circuit, the centre point of
which is connected to earth through the
coil of a sensitive relay.

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Reverse Power Relay

If the prime mover does not produce sufficient torque to
drive the generator, the generator may operate as a motor
driving the prime mover. Since this is a potentially
dangerous condition for steam turbines, gas turbines,
engines, and some hydro turbines, protection is needed.
The simplest way to provide this protection is with a
directional relay that senses the real (or average) power
flow P, but is insensitive to the reactive flow Q. If the relay
detects P into the generator from the electrical system, then
the prime mover may have insufficient input power and the
relay should trip. The relay may be set to alarm and/or trip
after a time delay of a few seconds.

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Negative phase-sequence relay

Faults external to the generator are usually cleared quickly
by circuit protection, but failure of remote protection to
operate, or its associated circuit breaker to trip, would
leave the faulted circuit connected to the genrator.
Phase to ground and phase to phase short circuits
unbalanced loads, and unsymmetrical (non-transposed)
transmission lines are produce varying degrees of negative
sequence current in the generatorso cause the rotor
overheating. Therefore, the negative sequence protection is
one of the primary protection.
the negative sequence relay is a backup protection, since it
primarily protects the generator from faults external to the
unit. Because of this, the relay must be coordinated with
other relays in the system. Typical relay application is a
time-overcurrent relay with a negative-sequence current
measuring network
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Negative Sequence Relay

diagram of a negative phase sequence overcurrent relay

Negative phase
sequence current
measuring network

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Loss of excitation (field failure)

protection
Loss of excitation results in a generator losing
synchronism and running above synchronous speed.
Operating as an induction generator, it would produce
its main flux from wattless stator current drawn from
the power system to which it was still connected.
Excitation under these conditions requires
components of reactive current which may well
exceed the rating of the generator and so overload the
stator winding.

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Loss of Field Protection

Loss of field (loss of excitation) relays are
recommended for generators. If the generator
loses its excitation, then it will draw its excitation
from the electrical system by drawing reactive
power as what an induction machine would,
meaning the generator is supplying real power but
absorbing reactive power.
Excitation under these conditions requires
components of reactive current which may well
exceed the rating of the generator and so overload
the stator winding.
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Loss of Field Protection

Although loss of field can be damaging to the
generator, it is also a system problem that causes low
voltage and resulting in low reactive-power support
of other nearby generators. In some cases, system
instability could occur because one machine lost its
field at a time when the remaining generators were
heavily loaded with reactive power.

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Transformer Protection Topic

Introduction
Differential protection
Percentage differential protection
Magnetizing inrush current
Overcurrent relays
Pressure relays
Conclusion

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Introduction
Fault, abnormal condition and protection
Phase to phase faults
interturn faults
Phase to earth faults

Differential protection

Overcurrent protection
Overload protection

Core fault

Overfluxing protection

tank fault

Overheating protection

overfluxing
overheating
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Differential protection
Similar to that of generators, but
The differential protection system compares
h.v. and l.v. current, which are in a known
relationship under healthy conditions, rather
than the same current entering and leaving
the protected apparatus, as for generator
protection.
So, it is capable of detecting interturn short
circuits, since these change the effective
overall transformation ratio of the power
transformer.
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c.t. connection requirements

Giving a through fault balance
No zero-sequence currents;
Phase shift due to the through transformer of
positive and negative-sequence currents must
be compensated;
Effect of tap changing equipment upon the
overall transformer ratio.

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Differential Protection
Two basic requirements that the differential-relay connections
must satisfy are:
(1) the differential relay must not operate for load or
external faults;
(2) the relay must operate for severe enough internal faults.

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Differential Protection
Unbalanced current

unbalances between CTs during external faults

arising from an accumulation of unbalances for
the following reasons:
(1) tap-changing in the power transformer;
(2) mismatch between CT currents and relay tap
ratings;
(3) the difference between the errors of the CTs on
either side of the power transformer;
(4) the inrush current;

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Differential Protection
the CTs on any
wye winding of a
power transformer
should be
connected in delta,
and the CTs on
any delta winding
should be
connected in wye.

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Percentage (biased) Differential

Protection

Connections of Two-winding transformer with differential

relays.

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Percentage Differential
Protection

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Problems related to differential relaying of power

transformers
disturbance
inrush

measurement

Side effects 1

Side effects 2

Side effects 3

Accurate estimation
of the 2nd and the 5th
harmonics takes
around one cycle.

Due to the magnetic

of the core, the 2nd
and the 5th harmonic
may be jeopardizing
relay security

The harmonics may

block a relay during
severe internal faults
due to saturation of CT

The CTs saturation

during external fault
may produce an
extra differential
signal

All the means of

preventing false tripping
during external faults
reduce to the
dependability of the
relay

The means of
restraining the
relay from
tripping during
external
faults,inrush and
overexcitation
may Limit the
relay speed of
operation

The internal current

may be as low an
few percent of the
rated value

The security demands

under inrush,
overexcitation and
external faults may limit
relay dependability

overfluxing

External fault

Internal fault

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The measured
currents display
enormous rate of
change and are often
significantly distorted

The 5th harmonic may

be present in internal
fault currents due to
saturation of CT

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Magnetizing Inrush Current

the magnetizing inrush may be also caused by
(a) Initial magnetizing due to switching a
transformer in.
(b) occurrence of an external fault, voltage
recovery after clearing an external fault.
(c) when a phase-to-ground fault evolves into a
phase-to-phase-to-ground fault
(d) out-of-phase synchronizing of a connected
generator.
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Inrush due to switching-in

When a transformer is switched-off, the
magnetizing voltage is taken away, the
magnetizing current goes to zero while
the flux follows the hysteresis loop of the
core. This results in certain residual flux
left in the core. When, afterwards, the
transformer is re-energized by an
alternating sinusoidal voltage, the flux
becomes also sinusoidal but biased by the
remaining flux. The residual flux may be
as high as 80-90% of the rated flux, and
therefore, it may shift the flux-current
trajectories far above the knee-point of
the characteristic resulting in both large
peak values and heavy distortions of the
magnetizing current .
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Typical Inrush Current

Characteristics of the inrush current

Include a large dc component.
Include amounts of higher harmonics , mainly the second harmonic.

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Harmonic components of the

inrush current
70
60
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th

50
40
30
20
10
0

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Second Harmonic Restraint

This is a classical way to restrain the relay from tripping during
magnetizing inrush conditions. As analyzed before, the
magnetizing inrush current consists of certain amounts of higher
harmonics, but the second harmonic always dominates. Generally,
low levels of harmonics indicate internal fault and enable
tripping, while high levels indicate inrush and restrain the relay.
For digital relays this may be written as:
Where, Id2 is the amplitude of the second Harmonic in the
differential current;
Id1 is the amplitude of the power frequency component in
the differential current;
K is the restraint ratio of the second harmonic, and the
setting is about 0.15-0.2(15-20%).
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Inrush Current
The shape, magnitude and duration of the inrush
current depend on several factors:
Size of a transformer
Impedance of the system from which a transformer
is energized
Magnetic properties of the core material
Remanence in the core
The moment when a transformer is switched in
How a transformer is switched in
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Sample inrush currents in a three-phase wye-delta connected

transformers

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Inrush in Three Phase

Transformer
Inrush currents measured in separate phases of a
three-phase transformer may differ considerably
because of the following:
The angle of the energizing voltages are
different in different phases.
When the delta-connected winding is switchedin, magnetizing voltages are line voltages.
Depending on the core type and other conditions,
only some of the core legs may get saturated.
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Saturation of current
transformers during inrush
Due to the large and slowly decaying dc component, the inrush
current is likely to saturate the CTs even if the magnitude of the
current is comparatively small. When being saturated, a CT
introduces certain distortions to its secondary current. Due to
CTs saturation during inrush conditions, the amount of the
second harmonic may drop considerably.

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Overcurrent protection
High current setting must not operate
under emergency loading conditions
Slow operation time setting may have to
be high in order to grade with other
overcurrent relays on the system
On large transformers as backup
protection for terminal faults, or uncleared
l.v. system faults.
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Pressure Relay
Various types of mechanical relays such as sudden
pressure relays and gas-accumulation relays have
been used for transformer protection.
On the occurrence of an internal transformer fault,
the pressure inside the tank suddenly rises. The
sudden pressure relay senses this, but it is
insensitive to pressure changes that normally
occur in a transformer during operation. In many
cases, the pressure relay will operate on an
internal fault that does not produce enough current
to trip the differential relays to avoid catastrophic
failures.
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Conclusion
Percentage differential protection
Application: above 6300KVA
Magnetizing inrush current
The cause of magnetizing inrush current
The characteristics of magnetizing inrush
current
The measures of distinguish inrush current
Overcurrent protection
Application: external phase-fault protection
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Loss of Field Protection

the most common type of lose-ofexcitation relay is a directionaldistance relay measuring the AC
current and voltage at the main
generator terminals. Figure shows
several loss-of-excitation
characteristics and the operating
characteristic of one type of loss-of
excitation relay on an R-X diagram.
No matter what the initial conditions are, when excitation is lost, the equivalent
generator impedance traces a path from the first quadrant into a region of the
fourth quadrant that is entered only when excitation is severely reduced or lost.
By encompassing this region within the relay characteristic, the relay will
operate when the generator first starts to slip poles and will trip the field breaker
and disconnect the generator from the system before either the generator or the
system can be damaged.
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