Distance Protection

1 INTRODUCTION

The problem of combining fast fault clearance with selective tripping of plant is a key aim for the protection of power systems. To meet these requirements, high-speed protection systems for transmission and primary distribution circuits that are suitable for use with the automatic reclosure of circuit breakers are under continuous development and are very widely applied.

Distance protection, in its basic form, is a non-unit system of protection offering considerable economic and technical advantages. Unlike phase and neutral overcurrent protection, the key advantage of distance protection is that its fault coverage of the protected circuit is virtually independent of source impedance variations.

This is illustrated in Figure 11.1, where it can be seen that overcurrent protection cannot be applied satisfactorily.

Distance protection is comparatively simple to apply and it can be fast in operation for faults located along most of a protected circuit. It can also provide both primary and remote back-up functions in a single scheme. It can easily be adapted to create a unit protection scheme when applied with a signaling channel. In this form it is eminently suitable for application with high-speed auto-reclosing, for the protection of critical transmission lines.

2 PRINCIPLES OF DISTANCE RELAYS

Since the impedance of a transmission line is proportional to its length, for distance measurement it is appropriate to use a relay capable of measuring the impedance of a line up to a predetermined point (the reach point). Such a relay is described as a distance relay and is designed to operate only for faults occurring between the relay location and the selected reach point, thus giving discrimination for faults that may occur in different line sections.

The basic principle of distance protection involves the division of the voltage at the relaying point by the measured current. The apparent impedance so calculated is compared with the reach point impedance. If the measured impedance is less than the reach point impedance, it is assumed that a fault exists on the line between the relay and the reach point.

The reach point of a relay is the point along the line impedance locus that is intersected by the boundary characteristic of the relay. Since this is dependent on the ratio of voltage and current and the phase angle between them, it may be plotted on an R/X diagram. The loci of power system impedances as seen by the relay during faults, power swings and load variations may be plotted on the same diagram and in this manner the performance of the relay in the presence of system faults and disturbances may be studied.

3 RELAY PERFORMANCE

Distance relay performance is defined in terms of reach accuracy and operating time. Reach accuracy is a comparison of the actual ohmic reach of the relay under practical conditions with the relay setting value in ohms. Reach accuracy particularly depends on the level of voltage presented to the relay under fault conditions. The impedance measuring techniques employed in particular relay designs also have an impact.

Operating times can vary with fault current, with fault position relative to the relay setting, and with the point on the voltage wave at which the fault occurs. Depending on the measuring techniques employed in a particular relay design, measuring signal transient errors, such as those produced by Capacitor Voltage Transformers or saturating CT’s, can also adversely delay relay operation for faults close to the reach point. It is usual for electromechanical and static distance relays to claim both maximum and minimum operating times. However, for modern digital or numerical distance relays, the variation between these is small over a wide range of system operating conditions and fault positions.

3.1 Electromechanical/Static Distance Relays
With electromechanical and earlier static relay designs, the magnitude of input quantities particularly influenced both reach accuracy and operating time. It was customary to present information on relay performance by voltage/reach curves, as shown in Figure 11.2, and operating time/fault position curves for various values of system impedance ratios (S.I.R.’s) as shown in Figure 11.3, where:

and

ZS = system source impedance behind the relay location
ZL = line impedance equivalent to relay reach setting

Alternatively, the above information was combined in a family of contour curves, where the fault position expressed as a percentage of the relay setting is plotted against the source to line impedance ratio, as illustrated in Figure 11.4.

3.2 Digital/Numerical Distance Relays
Digital/Numerical distance relays tend to have more consistent operating times. They are usually slightly slower than some of the older relay designs when operating under the best conditions, but their maximum operating times are also less under adverse waveform conditions or for boundary fault conditions.

4 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RELAY VOLTAGE AND ZS/ZL RATIO

A single, generic, equivalent circuit, as shown in Figure 11.5(a), may represent any fault condition in a three phase power system. The voltage V applied to the impedance loop is the open circuit voltage of the power system. Point R represents the relay location; IR and VR are the current and voltage measured by the relay, respectively.

The impedances ZS and ZL are described as source and line impedances because of their position with respect to the relay location. Source impedance ZS is a measure of the fault level at the relaying point. For faults involving earth it is dependent on the method of system earthing behind the relaying point. Line impedance ZL is a measure of the impedance of the protected section. The voltage VR applied to the relay is, therefore, IRZL. For a fault at the reach point, this may be alternatively expressed in terms of source to line impedance ratio ZS/ZL by means of the following expressions:

where:

Therefore :

or

The above generic relationship between VR and ZS/ZL, illustrated in Figure 11.5(b), is valid for all types of short circuits provided a few simple rules are observed. These are:

• for phase faults, V is the phase-phase source voltage and ZS/ZL is the positive sequence source to line impedance ratio. VR is the phase-phase relay voltage and IR is the phase-phase relay current, for the faulted phases

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