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High-speed Generator-transformer Unit Backup

Protection Scheme

Y. ROMANOV*1, G. NUDELMAN2
1
– RC BRESLER, 2 – VNIIR
Russia

SUMMARY

Power systems transient stability directly depends on the operation of relay protection
facilities. The shorter the relay protection operating time, the higher the stability. The main
protection and first stage of backup protections are the fastest. One should note here that only
their redundancy can reliably prevent the loss of synchronism. The main generator-
transformer unit protection against multiphase short circuits in a generator stator winding is
the longitudinal differential current protection. Backup of the main protection is effective only
against asymmetric short circuits and using only one type of protection – the negative
sequence current cutoff without delay and with the protected zone within the unit. In case of
symmetric faults negative sequence components of currents and voltages are absent, so this
protection is unable to work. All other backup protections act with delay, among them the
first-zone distance relay is the fastest. The operating zone of this protection has to reliably
cover the unit transformer, so its delay time must be more than the operation time of breaker
failure protections of adjacent elements, i.e. no less than 0,9 s. Thus, in the case of a
longitudinal differential protection fault, the generator backup protection system is unable to
reliably prevent the loss of synchronism after a symmetrical fault clearance. In this report we
propose to solve the specified problem by adding an additional stage (a third one) to the
distance protection system, with the protection zone within the unit and acting without time
delay. Several issues related to the implementation of the proposed scheme are considered.

KEYWORDS

Generator-transformer unit - Symmetrical short circuit - Backup protection

romanov_uv@[Link]
1. INTRODUCTION
It is evident that a short circuit is an extremely harmful phenomenon in the power system. It
causes serious damage to the equipment and separates the system into parts due to a dynamic
stability loss. The relay protection system is able to minimize the damage caused by a short
circuit and maintain stability most efficiently. And the lower the operating time of relay
protection, the more effective it is. Main, absolutely selective protection has the shortest
operating time with no time delay. Besides the main protection, the first stage of backup
protection is of quick-response type as well. Due to the fact that they have different operation
principles, their redundancy ensures highly reliable response action. If the backup quick-
response protection is missing, short circuit removal is delayed for at least 300 ms in case of
the main protection fault.

2. GENERAL
Let us consider the protection system for the synchronous generator operating jointly with the
step-up transformer. The current longitudinal differential protection is used as the main one
against stator winding short circuit. Backup of the main protection is effective for non-
symmetrical faults only and using only one type of relay, namely the negative sequence
overcurrent relay with no time delay and with the protection zone being within unit. For
symmetrical short circuit there is no negative sequence component of currents and voltages,
so this relay cannot operate. All other backup protections are with time delays, among them
the first stage of the two-stage distance protection (DP) is the fastest. The protection zone of
the first stage of DP has to cover the step-up transformer (see Figure 1a). So its time delay has
to be more than the adjacent breaker failure protection operating time and usually is no less
than 0,9 s. Therefore, if the longitudinal differential protection fails, the generator backup
protection cannot eliminate symmetrical faults fast.
The specified problem can be solved if we add to DP one more (a third) stage without time
delay and with protection zone being within the unit (see Figure 1b). The contact resistance of
this stage can be calculated as
Z trip  k rel X tr , (1)

where krel – reliability coefficient, may be taken as 0,8; Xtr – unit transformer inductive
impedance.

As a rule, all impedance relays of a generator DP have a directional circular impedance

characteristic (curve 1 in the Figure 2). However, it is better to use a nondirectional relay for
the additional stage of DP (curve 2 in the Figure 2). Otherwise, its sensitivity may be very
limited due to the small dimensions of the protection zone, which is 3-4 times shorter than the
zone of the DP first stage.

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 Protected zone

Protected zone
Figure 1 - Protection zones of DP stages
a - first stage; b - additional stage

Figure 2 - DP impedance relay characteristic

It is clear that a nondirectional impedance relay provides higher sensitivity than a directional
one. However, if we expand the impedance characteristic in the third and fourth quadrant of
the complex impedance plane, the likelihood of the relay false operation increases in case of a
generator loss of excitation. Despite this, a loss of excitation will not cause the additional
stage false operation because the fast operating stages always use power swing blocking.
According to the results of dynamic model research, the DP additional stage without any time
delay may operate in a false manner if the power swing blocking scheme is based on the
impedance measurement. It is likely in the event of a voltage circuit failure if the failure is
detected with some lag (see Figure 3). To exclude such false operation it is reasonable to use
swing blocking based on the measurement of negative and positive sequence currents
increments, not using voltage circuits.

Figure 3 - Example of DP false operation due to voltage circuit failure

Another problem with the DP additional stage is that the protection zone is small. The shorter
is the protection zone, the greater is the impact of a complex impedance measurement error
on the relay. Let us consider the example of how the error caused by a current transformer
(CT) magnetic saturation can affect the protection. Figure 4 shows the voltage and current

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waveforms at the three-phase short circuit inside the generator stator winding. The current is
represented both with the distortion due to CT saturation and without such distortion.

Figure 4 - Waveforms of voltage and current of three-phase short circuit in the stator winding

The behavior of the impedance measurement obtained by the Fourier filter in this process can
be seen in Figure 5.

Figure 5 - Complex impedance loci

As we can see, in the filter steady state, the impedance measurement made up of the
undistorted current (locus 1) falls within the impedance characteristic 3. And the impedance
measurement made up of the distorted current (locus 2) remains far from the impedance
characteristic throughout the transient duration. This is due to the fact that the CT core
saturation reduces the effective value of the measured current, which in its turn makes higher
the apparent distance to the short circuit fault than it really is.
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 To ensure reliable action of the protection facilities, filtering quality may be enhanced, for
example, through use of a filter operating for the areas of the correct transformation of the
current. To determine the correct transformation areas a variety of methods may be used, for
example those described in [1] and [2]. Next, let us consider the ideas that one of these
algorithms is based on.
In those short periods of time when the CT magnetic core is not saturated, short-circuit
current can be quite accurately described as the sum of sinusoidal and constant components:
in  I m sin2 f n   0   I 0 ,
where the amplitude of the sine wave I m , its initial phase 0 and the constant component I 0
are unknown values; f – power frequency, Hz;  – sampling interval, s; n – discrete time.
The following equation results from such model of the signal:
in  1  2 cos 2fin  1  1  2 cos 2fin  2  in  3  0 .
After modification:
in  1  2 cos 2fin  2  in  3  1  2 cos 2fin  1 . (2)
Let’s take then a coordinate plane with axes from equation (2):
u1 n  in  1  2 cos 2fin  2 ,
u 2 n  in  3  1  2 cos 2f in  1 .
The basic idea of the algorithm is that the signal of the short-circuit current mapped to this
plane tends to the bisecting line separating the first and third quadrant when the signal is not
distorted (see Figure 6).

Figure 6 - The plane used for separating of properly transformed current samples
Returning to DP, we note the following. Since the zone of the DP additional stage is short, the
question of which part of the stator winding it covers is open. To conduct qualitative
evaluation of the coverage area, let us consider a specific example of the generator of SV-
1340/150-96 and the transformer TDC-125000/110. The generator subtransient reactance
X d = 0,524 Ω, the transformer inductive reactance Xtr = 0,164 Ω. The contact resistance Ztrip
calculated using the formula (1) is 0,13 Ω. It should be noted that DP uses, as a rule, currents
from the neutral side of the stator winding and voltages from terminals of a generator. So in
the case of a generator internal fault the measured impedance Z does not correspond to the
distance to the short circuit fault. The estimated dependence of Z on the number of closed
turns of the stator winding starting from the generator neutral terminals is shown in Figure 7.
As can be seen, in the case of a short circuit in the middle of the winding (and in reality from
the middle of the winding to the neutral terminals) DP additional stage may fail to operate.

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 0.15

0.1

0.05

0
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Figure 7 - Dependence of the measured impedance on the number of closed turns
Sufficient sensitivity of DP third stage to the three-phase short circuit in the noncovered zone
may be provided using the following fact. The fact is that the short-circuit current taken from
the neutral point side increases with decrementing α. This is because the inductance of closed
turns decreases faster than their electromotive force when decrementing α. Therefore, the
problem can be solved if we add to the backup protection scheme the current cutoff with
pickup current Itrip that is more than the maximum current of a three-phase short circuit on the
generator linear terminals Ifault:
I trip  k rel I fault ,
where krel – reliability coefficient, may be taken as 1,2.

As noted above, the saturation of a CT magnetic core leads to underestimation of the effective
value of the measured current. It should be added there that the current cutoff may fail to
operate because of this. Figure 8 shows results of calculation of the effective value of the
current shown in Figure 4 by means of a Fourier filter. We see that the effective value of the
distorted due to CT saturation current (curve 2) is much less than the effective value of
undistorted one (curve 1), as well as lower than Itrip. And here we see that the current cutoff
does not fail to operate if the filter working only with properly transformed current samples is
used instead of the Fourier filter (see curve 3).

Figure 8 - Symmetrical short circuit current filtering results

3. CONCLUSIONS
Existent schemes of a generator-transformer unit backup protection cannot eliminate three-
phase faults within the generator stator winding without a time delay.

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The high-speed backup protection scheme can be designed on the basis of the additional DP
stage and the current cutoff. When designing the protection scheme one should take into
account the peculiarities of transients.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] Ljamets J.J., Zinov'ev D.V., Romanov J.V. "Method for determing homogeneity
intervals of an electric value" (Patent RU 2308137, 10 October 2007, Bull. 28).
[2] Ljamets J.J., Zinov'ev D.V., Romanov J.V. "Method for determing homogeneity
intervals of an electric value" (Patent RU 2316870, 10 February 2008, Bull. 4).