Type GCM05
DC Intertrip Relay
Figure 1:
Type GCM05 relay with lid removed
Features
Typical Applications
Description
Two way group intertripping of
up to 4 remotely connected sites
Figure 2 illustrates four typical
applications, where a fault on the
feeder or transformer will require
the hatched portion of the system to
be isolated to clear the fault.
The GCM05 DC Intertripping Relay
has been designed to provide group
intertripping of up to four remotely
connected sites. The 15kV isolation
level of the unit allows application
for intertripping requirements of
electrical networks where large
induced voltages may be
experienced on the pilot circuits.
Operates using conventional
metallic pilot wires (pilot
resistance from 0 to 2k)
Inherent 15kV isolation eliminates
the need for isolated intertripping
batteries
Powered directly from substation
battery
Inherent self and pilot wire
supervision
A dc intertripping scheme will
achieve this with the utmost
simplicity and reliability.
This requires a pilot pair to be run
between all locations. Up to four
locations can be tripped as a group
provided the pilot pair has a total
resistance of less than 2k.
A dc trip voltage impressed on this
pilot pair will cause the receive
relays at each location to pick up
simultaneously.
Figure 3 illustrates the operational
connections for a single pilot
application.
In comparison to conventional
isolated intertripping batteries and
equipment, the GCM05 provides a
simple means of utilising multiterminal, minimum circuit breaker
power system configurations.
The efficient compact design of the
intertrip relay allows the use of
standard substation batteries and
the elimination of many HV breakers
whilst maintaining effective network
protection and discrimination
without the need for complex voice
frequency, fibre optic or microwave
communication systems.
Tripping zone
Tripping zone
33kV
11kV
11kV
Transformer ended feeders
3 feeder mesh network
Tripping zone
11kV
Tripping
zone
11kV
415V
110kV
415V
3 feeder radial networks
Teed feeder networks
Figure 2: Typical applications: dc intertrip relay
To additional
remote units
Pilot cable
Master
WARNING DO NOT EXCEED 50V ON PIN 5
POWER
SUPPLY
INTERTRIP
SEND
20
/
50
+
50
/
150
+
0
20-150V
+
INTERTRIP RECEIVE
WARNING DO NOT EXCEED 50V ON PIN 5
POWER
SUPPLY
ALARM
INTERTRIP
SEND
10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Relay
faulty
alarm
Intertrip send
initiate
INTERTRIP RECEIVE
20
/
50
+
50
/
150
+
0
20-150V
+
Slave
10
ALARM
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Pilot/relay
faulty/alarm
Intertrip send
initiate
+
To intertrip
receive auxiliary
relay
To intertrip
receive auxiliary
relay
Figure 3: Typical connection diagram: dc intertrip relay
When used in a retrofit situation, the
relay will replace existing dc relays
and the ancillary isolated battery
banks, therefore eliminating the ongoing procurement and
maintenance costs of such systems.
Principle of Operation
Figure 4 illustrates a block diagram
of the relay. The GCM05 uses a dc/
dc converter, to feed constant
energy pulses through the pulse
transformer into a rectifier circuit
connected to the pilot. The pilot is
connected between all sites within
the Intertrip group.
The pulse transformer provides 15kV
isolation allowing use on pilots
prone to high induced voltages that
occur during system faults.
When an input to any one of the
GCM05 units is energised, remote
tripping of all other units is effected
by increasing the rate of energy
transfer at any site. This raises the
voltage on the pilot above the
tripping threshold of 80V dc.
Initiation may be from a fleeting
contact input and the unit will not
respond to its own intertrip send
signal.
Pilot Supervision
Supervision of the pilots is achieved
by setting one unit as the master
and the remaining units as slave.
The master unit injects a supervision
voltage of approximately 24V dc
onto the pilots. Short, crossed or
open circuits of the pilot wires will
cause each of the remote slave
units supervision contacts to close.
The master unit may detect some
pilot short circuits depending on
position along the cable but will not
detect pilot wire open circuits due to
the supervision voltage it is
injecting.
Security and Reliability
of Operation
Comprehensive self supervision
circuitry in each relay generates an
alarm if any relay is unable to send
or receive a trip signal due to
internal failure. The system is very
secure as at least a 16 fold increase
in the rate of energy transfer is
required to change from the
supervision voltage to the tripping
threshold.
In the event of a capacitor failing to
open circuit in the oscillator circuit,
then the frequency will
approximately double, but remain
well below the 16 fold increase
required to cause a trip send.
Should a capacitor fail short circuit,
then the oscillator output will stop,
causing the intertrip faulty relay to
drop out. In such a case, the relay
will not false trip.
Redundancy has been employed in
other areas whereby a likely failure,
would prevent a signal, either send
or receive from being processed.
An intertrip receive signal cannot be
reset whilst the trip condition still
exists. Likewise, the sending relays
send indication cannot be reset
whilst the trip condition exists.
The internal receive relays coil is
permanently monitored for
continuity. Should an open circuit
occur with this relay, a fault
indication occurs visually via the
receive LED which cannot be reset.
The intertrip faulty alarm relay will
also signal the fault condition by deenergising. In the situation that the
receive relay coil is open circuit and
an intertrip is received from another
unit, the internal intertrip faulty relay
will energise for the duration of the
trip, erroneously signalling that the
unit is functional. The receive relay
will, of course, not signal the trip
received.
Enhanced Security
In a standard configuration, the
GCM05 utilises one pilot pair
between the units. An enhanced
method of operation is where two
separate pilot cable pairs are used,
physically separated and connected
back together at each end.
Pilot faults in one cable will
therefore not disrupt operation of
the intertrip scheme.
A further method offering an
extremely high degree of security,
needed in certain circumstances, is
to operate the protection over two
separate pilot wires as before, but
also to operate the relays as an
independent A & B system
(4 relays). In this arrangement, both
relays must receive the trip signal for
it to be processed. Figure 5 shows
two relays connected to operate in
series and also over two
independent pilot routes.
An internal fault in any relay will
cause the intertrip faulty relay to
close its contacts. Therefore, when
two units are connected in series to
offer this enhanced security, should
one unit develop an internal fault,
closing contacts 15 & 16 which will
result in a trip from the healthy relay
only. Further, when contacts 15 &
16 of any given relay close, so will
contacts 17 & 18 which would be
wired to cause an alarm output.
As mentioned earlier, the master/
slave arrangement has been
designed to provide a check on
pilot continuity. The design of this
feature ensures that the slave unit
will alarm in the event that pilot
continuity is lost. The master unit will
alarm in certain circumstances only,
as stated previously.
4
The consequence of this condition
would be intolerable when used in
the enhanced mode of
configuration.
The reason is that in the event that a
short circuit was to occur on one
pilot pair only and close to the slave
end or an open was to occur on the
same pilot, then whilst that slave unit
will bring up an alarm, the master
may not. In this situation,
operational control will not be
passed to the A system at the
master end in the event that the
short or open occurs on the B pilot,
or vice versa.
Therefore for one way intertripping
applications, both intertrip send
relays should be set to master and
both intertrip receive relays should
be set to slave as shown in Figure 5.
If two way intertripping is required
a further two relays would be
required as shown in Figure 6, (6
relays). The two relays at each end
operating over separate pilots are
set to slave and connected in series.
The two additional relays are set to
master and are located midway
along the pilots to ensure that the
relays set to slave at each end can
detect pilot failures.
50-150V
Intertrip
send
20-50V
0V
DC/DC
converter
VR4
Master/slave
VE
Send
Vx
VR1
+VE
Pulse
generation/detection
circuitry
Supervision
Send/
receive
Receive
Filter
Send
Terminals
pilot
RL1-1
PCB
link
8
Inhibit
RL1
RL1-2
Trip receive
VR1
+
9
10
Level detector
RL1-3
Intertrip receive
11
12
RL1-4
13
14
RL2
Supervision
VR3
+
RL2-1
Level detector
15
16
RL2-2
17
18
Figure 4: Block diagram: dc intertrip relay
Intertrip faulty
supervision alarm
To remote
substation relay B
To remote
substation relay A
Pilot cable B
Pilot cable A
Remote intertrip send relays set to Master
Relay A
Relay B
Slave
Slave
+
Local
substation
WARNING DO NOT EXCEED 50V ON PIN 5
POWER
SUPPLY
INTERTRIP
SEND
20
/
50
+
50
/
150
+
0
20-150V
+
INTERTRIP RECEIVE
ALARM
WARNING DO NOT EXCEED 50V ON PIN 5
POWER
SUPPLY
20
/
50
+
50
/
150
+
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Pilot/relay
faulty alarm
INTERTRIP RECEIVE
INTERTRIP
SEND
20-150V
+
10
ALARM
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Pilot/relay
faulty alarm
To intertrip
receive auxiliary
relay
Intertrip receive tripping logic
A REC
A REC
B REC
B REC
+
A REC
B REC
To intertrip
receive auxiliary
relay
Figure 5: Typical connection diagram: one way intertrip application with enhanced security operating as independant A and B (receive end)
To remote
substation relay B
To remote
substation relay A
Master relay located midway along pilots
Pilot cable B
Pilot cable A
Remote relays set to Slave
Relay B
Relay A
+
Master
WARNING DO NOT EXCEED 50V ON PIN
POWER
SUPPLY
20
/
50
+
50
/
150
+
0
20-150V
+
INTERTRIP RECEIVE
INTERTRIP
SEND
POWER
SUPPLY
10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
INTERTRIP RECEIVE
INTERTRIP
SEND
20
/
50
+
50
/
150
+
10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Pilot/relay
faulty alarm
INTERTRIP RECEIVE
INTERTRIP
SEND
20
/
50
+
50
/
150
+
Slave
WARNING DO NOT EXCEED 50V ON PIN
POWER
SUPPLY
20-150V
+
Local
substation
ALARM
WARNING DO NOT EXCEED 50V ON PIN
ALARM
20-150V
+
Slave
WARNING DO NOT EXCEED 50V ON PIN
POWER
SUPPLY
ALARM
INTERTRIP
SEND
10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
50
/
150
+
Pilot/relay
faulty alarm
Intertrip send
initiate
Intertrip receive tripping logic
A REC
A REC
A REC
B REC
B REC
To intertrip
receive auxiliary
relay
INTERTRIP RECEIVE
20
/
50
+
0
20-150V
+
B REC
Master
To intertrip
receive auxiliary
relay
Figure 6: Typical connection diagram: two way intertrip application with enhanced security operating as independant A and B system with separate Master relays
10
ALARM
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
1. Type of pilot cable used
charging curve to the trip send
circuitry, and this characteristic is
most pronounced when using the
high voltage trip input. In addition,
a dependency exists relating trip
threshold to unit master/slave
operation.
When operating as a master and
using the high voltage trip input, the
actual trip point is higher than the
trip point when operating as a
slave. Therefore, it is suggested that
when using the high voltage trip
input, terminals 4 & 6, the trip input
voltage be as high as possible,
keeping within equipment
specifications, so as to achieve the
shortest delay times. When using
the low voltage input, terminals 4 &
5, minimal delay times are achieved
at nominal input voltage.
If maximum rated voltage of reverse
polarity is applied to the trip inputs
for several seconds, damage is
likely to occur to the input
conditioning circuitry on the
substation interface board. This is
most pronounced when using the
low voltage trip input.
Application Notes
Trip voltage/delay
compromises
The trip voltage transient is an
exponential RC charging curve.
The internal trip receive threshold is
designed to lie in the linear portion
of this characteristic. If the trip
voltage is set below the
recommended 150V level and/or
many units are connected via a high
pilot impedance, the trip receive
voltage threshold may lie above the
knee of the RC charging curve with
consequent increase in the trip
receive delay. For this reason, a
maximum of 4 units can be used
over a pilot impedance of less than
2k.
Group delay characteristics
The further each sending unit is from
the receiving end, the longer will be
the delay time for system operation.
This is proportional to pilot
impedance; the higher the pilot
impedance, the longer the delay at
the units more distant.
2. Trip voltage level
3. Pilot cable impedance
4. Distribution of relays around the
pilot cable and with respect to
one another
5. Number of connected relays
Compatibility of relay with
other products
The GCM05 can provide up to
rated output voltage into a 7k
load, dependent on sub-station
battery voltage level. Provided the
loading does not exceed this, the
GCM05 will operate with other
types of existing dc systems.
Excessive load will not damage the
relay although it will not allow the
full trip level voltage onto the pilots
leading to possible failure to
operate.
In some situations it may be possible
to use the GCM05 as a send unit in
conjunction with existing dc intertrip
receive relays, thereby overcoming
the need for isolated intertrip
batteries. However, the pilot wire
supervision capability cannot be
used nor can bi-directional
intertripping in this configuration.
Intertrip send times
Relay trip input voltage
The intertrip time between sites,
connected via a pilot cable, within
the group is determined by the
combination of:
The trip input conditioning circuitry
on the sub-station interface board
presents an exponential RC
170
155.4
Terminal
blocks
Pilot
cable
+ terminals
155
168
142
178
25
18
Front view
End view
4 4mm holes
4 4mm holes suitable for 19 rack mounting
206
20 max
6 max
Dimensions in mm
30 max
103
50
52
Side view
Figure 7: Mounting details dc intertrip relay
8
Technical Data
Auxiliary supply voltage (Vx)
24/125V dc
Voltage ranges (selectable)
20V to 50V dc
50V to 150V dc
Operating mode
Master
Slave
Intertrip send
Output volts to pilot *
24V dc
<15V dc
150V dc
(adjustable)
Power consumption
<6W
<5W
<12W
* Total ac ripple voltage typically
160mV r.m.s. in all operating
modes.
Input
Terminals 4/5
Terminals 4/6
Pickup
20V dc
50V dc
Drop off
10V dc
25V dc
Max volts
50V dc
150V dc
Pilot receive
Intertrip receive
Pilot/relay faulty
Pilot pickup volts
<80V dc
<20V dc
Pilot drop-off volts
>60V dc
>15V dc
Output contacts
Intertrip receive
4 normally open or 3 normally open
and one normally closed
Pilot/relay faulty supervision
2 normally closed
Contact Ratings
Current
Make and carry
continuously
Break
ac
1100VA with
maxima of 10A
and 250V
Resistive 1100VA
inductive 825VA
with maxima of
10A and 250V
dc
240VA with
maxima of 10A
and 125V
Resistive 240VA
inductive 120VA
with maxima of
10A and 125V
Make: 30A and carry for 3s
Indications
Power
Intertrip send
Intertrip receive
Pilot wire isolation
15kV rms. for 1 minute, between the
pilot wire and other circuits and
earth
AC noise immunity
Up to 400V rms. at 50Hz for 3s
(300 source impedance)
Impedance presented to pilots
22K dc
7000 ac 50Hz
16000 ac > 300Hz
green LED
red LED
red LED
Pilot voltage adjustment
Up to 200V dc
Factory setting = 150V
Intertrip time
Typical values based on send
relay pilot
Voltage = 150V
Pilot cable details
2 ended
scheme
3 ended
scheme
4 ended
scheme
0 ohms
60ms
66ms
70ms
1,000 ohms 1F
65ms
68ms
73ms
2,000 ohms 2F
67ms
72ms
79ms
System reset time
2 seconds from completion of trip
send
Inherent reset time of the intertrip
send relay is 2s
Intertrip receive relay has no
intentional reset time delay
DC supply interruption
IEC 60255-11: 1979
AC ripple on dc supply
IEC 60255-11: 1979
10ms interruption in the auxiliary
supply, under normal operating
conditions, without de-energising
The unit will withstand 12% ac
ripple on the dc supply
Dielectric withstand
IEC 60255-5: 1977
2kV rms for 1 minute between all
terminals and earth
2kV rms for 1 minute between all
independent circuits, with terminals
on each independent circuit
connected together
1kV rms for 1 minute across
normally open contacts
High voltage impulse
IEC 60255-5: 1977
High frequency disturbance
IEC 60255-22-1: 1988 Class III
Three positive and three negative
impulses of 5kV peak, 1.2/50s
0.5J between all terminals of the
same circuit (except output
contacts), independent circuits, and
all terminals connected together
and earth.
2.5kV peak between independent
circuits and independent circuits
and earth.
1.0kV peak across terminals of the
same circuit (except metallic
contacts)
Insulation resistance
IEC 60255-5: 1977
Electrostatic discharge
IEC 60255-22-2: 1989 Class III
10
> 100M at 500V
8kV discharge in air with cover in
place
6kV contact discharge
Fast transient
IEC 60255-22-4 (1992) Class III
2kV, 5kHz applied directly to
auxiliary supply.
2kV, 5kHz applied directly to all
inputs.
Mechanical rating
Relay will perform >50,000
operations
Temperature range
Operating range 10C to +55C
Storage and transit 25C to +70C
Vibration
IEC 60255-21-1: 1988
Shock and bump
IEC 60255-21-2: 1988
Response Class 1
Endurance Class 1
Shock response Class 1
Shock withstand Class 1
Bump Class 1
Seismic
IEC 60255-21-3: 1993
Class 1
Humidity
IEC 60068-2-3: 1969
56 days at 93% RH and 40C
Enclosure protection
IEC 60529: 1989
Weight
IP20
IP50 rack mounted in an enclosure
2.5kg
EMC compliance
89/336/EEC
EN 50081-2: 1994
EN 50082-2: 1995
Product safety
73/23/EEC
EN 61010-1: 1993/A2: 1995
EN 60950: 1992/A3: 1995
Compliance with the European
Commission Directive on EMC is
claimed via the Technical
Construction File route
Generic standards were used to
establish conformity
Compliance with the European
Commission Low Voltage Directive.
Compliance is demonstrated by
reference to generic safety
standards.
Cases
See Figure 7 for case outline details.
Mounting
Supplied as projection mounted, however the unit can be flush mounted by
simply relocating the mounting brackets. The unit must be mounted so that the
terminal block is not at the top. The mounting bracket is designed to fit a rack
mounting frame if required.
Dimensions
Overall dimensions
Length: 237mm
Width: 178mm (including mounting brackets)
Height: 103mm
11
