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» Protection Protection Riddle No.38 - Restricted earth fault protection and Inrush current
» Protection Riddles 1
As you know, the inrush current just appears in one side of transformer when
» Protection Riddles 2 we energize power transformers. Therefore transformer inrush current can be
» Protection Riddles 3 cause the malfunction of differential protection; because of unbalance detected
current between primary and secondary side. On the other hand, according to
» Protection Riddles 4
technical recommendation, the applied restricted earth fault protection to one
» Protection Riddles 5 side of transformer shall be check for inrush currents too. Why? Regarding
» Protection Riddles 6 activation of restricted earth fault protection system in one side of transformer (
except auto transformers ), why shall we check the existing inrush current in
» Protection Riddles 7
unbalance zero current detection process similar the overall differential
» Protection Riddles 8 protection cases?
» Protection Riddles 9 Author : Hamid - From: IRAN
» Protection Riddles 10

» Protection Riddles 11 Wed, June 17th, 2009 - 08:53 #1

» Protection Riddles 12 The inrush current flowing in the primary while energisation of the transformer
is not of same magnitude in each phase, they are different in magnitude. Hence
» Protection Riddles 13
there will be phase currents of different magnitude and also it is not balanced
» Protection Riddles 14 through neutral. So there will be differential current in REF relay and hence it
» Protection Riddles 15 may operate during energisation if proper filtering/suppressing of 2nd harmonics
is not done.
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» Protection Riddles 19 Author : Abdul Hameed Pathiyil - From: Indian from Qatar
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Wed, June 17th, 2009 - 10:41 #2
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» Protection Riddles 22 Please note, high impedance type restricted earth fault relays just contain one
signal input and individual phase current do not insert to relay. In low
» Protection Riddles 23
impedance type equally, the function of relay is related to zero sequence
» Protection Riddles 24 calculator stage of relay; therefore the phase unbalance of inrush current cannot
» Protection Riddles 25 cause relay mal-operation. So REF must be stable against through zero
sequence inrush current theoretically.
» Protection Riddles 26
Author : Hamid - From: IRAN
» Protection Riddles 27

» Protection Riddles 28
Wed, March 31st, 2010 - 18:29 #3
» Protection Riddles 29
Dear All,
» Protection Riddles 30

» Protection Riddles 31 REF protection being a current balance scheme applied to only one side of the
transformer, it would appear that no second harmonic restraint is required as in
» Protection Riddles 32 the case of differential relay.
» Protection Riddles 33 However, REF relay, usually being set very sensitive (about 10-15% of CT
» Protection Riddles 34
rating) and without any intentional time delay, it is imperative that CT
secondary current balance is maintained fairly accurately for all through faults,
» Protection Riddles 35 in zone phase faults, system recovery transients (after external fault has been
» Protection Riddles 36 cleared by another relay) and transformer ‘inrush’ currents. Of the above,
» Protection Riddles 37
transformer ‘inrush’ imposes the most severe duty on CTs and can cause
saturation. The inrush current contains high magnitude of both odd and even
» Protection Riddles 38 harmonics which are not symmetrically placed across all phases (resulting
» Protection Riddles 39 in neutral harmonic currents other than triple n.) and DC offset of long decay
» Protection Riddles 40
times of about 100 msec to several seconds with different magnitudes in each
phase. If fast reclosing is employed in feeder circuits connected to the same side
» Protection Riddles 41 of the transformer, the remnant flux in CT core can aggravate the situation
» Protection Riddles 42 further. Under these conditions, there will be mismatch in secondary currents
and if suitable precautions are not taken the relay may maloperate.
» Protection Riddles 43

» Protection Riddles 44 The well known High Impedance REF scheme, if properly set, is quite secure
» Protection Riddles 45 under the above system conditions. Here again the relay is made immune to DC
and tuned to system frequency with the further advantage that the setting
» Protection Riddles 46
voltage can be made only on the basis fundamental and therefore, CTs of lesser
» Protection Riddles 47 knee point can be used. But the High Impedance scheme has a disadvantage
» Protection Riddles 48 that dedicated special protection class CTs are normally required. Also, voltage
limiting devices are required across relays in each phase to limit excessive
» Protection Riddles 49
voltages during in-zone faults fed directly by the [Link] these add to the
» Protection Riddles 50 cost.
» Protection Riddles 51
With numerical relays, manufacturers claim that dedicated CTs are not
» Protection Riddles 52
necessary because of the processing capability of these relays. Most of the
» Protection Riddles 53 present-day numerical relays use low impedance measurement principle with
» Protection Riddles 54 the following security measures:
(a) Current bias (static or a combination of static and dynamic)
» Protection Riddles 55
(b) Directional check (using fundamental phasor) of residual current with
» Protection Riddles 56 neutral current as polarizing signal.
» Protection Riddles 57 (c) Coincidence of residual and neutral current.( In case of actual faults they are
almost coincident.)
» Protection Riddles 58
(d) Operation only on the fundamental component of the differential current.
» Protection Riddles 59

» Protection Riddles 60 With the above security measures, especially the directional check, I understand
these relays offer good security against maloperation in the above mentioned
» Protection Riddles 61
scenarios. As [Link] has mentioned, some numerical relays still use second
» Protection Riddles 62 harmonic restraint and block the relay if it is more than a certain percentage (
» Protection Riddles 63 fixed setting). I am not sure why they do this. May be they place more onus on
the security of the protection. Other reason I think would be the inability of the
» Protection Riddles 64
algorithm to make directional check in the event of too low neutral current and
» Protection Riddles 65 thus use the restraint function for security. I am not sure about this. Please post
» Protection Riddles 66 you comments.
» Protection Riddles 67

» Protection Riddles 68 Author : K B Santharam - From: India

» Protection Riddles 69
Sat, April 3rd, 2010 - 10:15 #4
» Protection Riddles 70
As Mr. K B Santharam said, the DC off set inrush current can cause CT
» Protection Riddles 71
saturation in initial short time fault current which subjected to REF operations. I
» Protection Riddles 72 think mentioned facility in new numerical relays cannot cover mal- function of
» Protection Riddles 73
saturated CTs in protection system.
» Protection Riddles 74 Author : Hamid - From: Iran
» Protection Riddles 75
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