Basic Line Protection

BY
MADUIKE O. H. (MNSE)
Basic Line Protection

INTRODUCTION
The term ‘line’ is used for any medium through

which electric power is conveyed from point of
generation to a substation or consumer and from
substation to substation or consumer.
Lines used for the transmission of electricity of
voltage level above 33KV are referred to as
transmission lines while those used for voltage
level of 33kV and below are called distribution
lines.
A 33kV line may be called a sub transmission
line. A line is also known as a feeder.

A line could be either “Overhead” (O.H.) or “Under Ground” (U.G.)
cable is also added. For example, a 330KV O.H. transmission line or
132KV O.H. transmission line or an 11KV distribution O.H. feeder or
an 11KV U.G. Cable Feeder.
Lines can be classified as:
Short Lines: Length < = 80kM
Medium Lines: Length < = 240kM
Long Lines: Length > 240kM
Also as
High-voltage (HV): 69 to 230 kV
Extra-high-voltage (EHV): 345 to 765 kV
Ultra-high-voltage (UHV): greater than 765 kV

Lines are protected against fault current. Line faults are abnormal flow
of electric current outside operational limits. This could be an open
circuit fault caused by broken conductor or cut jumper. It could also be a
short circuit fault.

Line protection includes all the devices setup to safeguard
persons and equipment from the effect of fault. Lines are
protected to prevent or minimize damage to equipment and
maintain continuous supply of electricity at barest minimum
cost. The level of protection given to a line depends on the
voltage level of the line and the importance of the line. To
reduce or manage cost, a balance needs to be struck between
the cost of the protection and the degree of safety to the
equipment. The earliest method of protection was the fuse.
Fuses were used primarily in distribution networks due to that
fact that it is cheap and simple.
Its use in system protection is limited by the
following disadvantages:
 The fuse is slow in operation
 Before power supply can be restored the fuse has to be
replaced
 It is not selective or discriminative in operation
 It cannot be used for very high voltage protection.
Due to the following reasons, the use of fuses has

generally been replaced with the protective relays.
The main purposes of using protective relays are as
stated below:
 To ensure reliability of power supply.
 To reduce equipment damage.
 To maintain quality of service.
 To guarantee safety of life and property.
 To ensure operation of equipment at peak efficiency.

This is an electrical device that responds to an applied
input signal in order to cause a change in associated
control circuit by the prompt operation of its contact.
For effective performance of a protective relay, the
following parameters are required:
 Sensitivity: A relay must be sensitive to the least fault
conditions for which it has been configured.
 Reliability: It must be relied upon at all times to respond
to any fault by relaying signals that will cause the faulty
part to be isolated.
 Selectivity: The relay must be able to discriminate
between faults and abnormal conditions.
 Simple: For a relay to be effectively used, its
construction and operation has to be simple in nature.
 Speed of Operation: To be able to prevent damage to the
associated equipment the relay is protecting, it must act
fast before the damage is done.
 Cost: The relay should not be so expensive as to outweigh
the benefit of using it to protect the associated
equipment.

GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR DISTRIBUTION LINE PROTECTION
Protection for distribution system is design based on the network and density
of load served. Load within commercial hubs or larger cities are often highly
concentrated and hence require a high level of reliability. A sound protection
philosophy for distribution circuits should include:
 Permanent faults should isolate as few customers as practical. The main line should not
be permanently isolated for faults on taps.
 To promote safety of personnel, the public, and system facilities it is required that
protection scheme operate with high probability to ensure that all faults on the
distribution circuits will be detected and promptly cleared.
 Auto-reclosure of circuits following a trip due to a fault should be enabled as
experience has shown that up to 80-90% of faults on overhead distribution lines are
transient in nature
GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR TRANSMISSION LINE PROTECTION

Protection guidelines for transmission lines should include the following:
Faults should be cleared as fast as possible in order to enhance the transient
stability of the power system, minimize voltage disturbance, and damage to
equipment.
During a system fault condition, only those breakers required to isolate the
fault should trip, in order to minimized the scope of the resultant outage.
Overhead transmission lines should be reenergized automatically, following the
clearing of a fault, in order to restore the line to service, if the fault is
transient.
Protection system should not restrict the line from being loaded to its short-
term emergency load rating, to which it is operated
A line or feeder may be In radial systems, fault flows in only
protected with any or one direction. Overcurrent
protection using relays, reclosers,
all of the following and fuses is the typical protection
types of protection: for radial lines. In looped systems
 Over-current and fault currents can flow in either
direction at the relay, depending on
Earth Fault Protection the fault location. Looped systems
 Differential or are common in transmission
comparison protection systems. Protection of looped lines
can be provided with any of the
 Distance Protection following principles:
 Directional overcurrent protection
 Distance protection
 Directional comparison protection
 Phase comparison protection
 Differential protection

This is done either by using Inverse Definite Minimum Time
(IDMT) O.C and E.F relays or with instantaneous O.C and E.F
relays or with inverse time O.C and E.F relays or with
directional O.C and E.F relays or current balance and power
balance relay. This form of protection is the simplest and
cheapest of all the types of protection. It is a widely used
form of protection for:
Distribution feeders of 11KV
Transmission feeders of 33KV
Radial Transmission Lines up to 132KV
This is applicable where the cost of protection by other
schemes such as Distance and Pilot wire cannot be
economically justified.
This type of protection is also used as a form of back up
protection where Distance type of protection is used as the
main protection.

The fault coverage of overcurrent relays is a
function of source impedance which varies
considerably, making it difficult to get fast and
selective tripping, hence the need for a distance
protection scheme.
Ifault = E/(Zsource + Zload)

Distance relays or distance protection schemes employ
methods of continuously monitoring the basic parameters of
the line namely: Impedance, Reactance, Admittance, etc.
Such relays are termed Impedance relays, Reactance relays,
Mho relays, etc., with definite geometrical characteristics
which may be a circle or a straight line. A combination of
such relays used in a scheme is called a Distance Protection
scheme.
Distance protection scheme comprises of:
 A fault detector ( to detect the faulty phase and the
nature of the fault i.e.as to whether it is a ground fault
or a line to line fault)
 A fault measuring unit ( to measure the relay parameter
such as Admittance, Reactance or Impedance)
 An auxiliary tripping unit.
These distance relays are used as the main form of
protection for all transmission lines of 66KV and above.

REACTANCE
 Suitable for short lines
 Not effected by fault resistance
 Affected by power swings
 Non directional
IMPEDANCE
 Suitable for medium lines
 Non directional
 Affected by fault resistance
MHO
 Directional
 Least effected by power swings
 Less effected by fault resistance

Under close up faults, when the voltage is near to zero
then MHO will not operate. The mho characteristic can
be shifted towards origin for operation of close up
faults. This is known as OFFSET MHO. The offset mho
element can be used for a Busbar zone backup.

ZONE –1 : 80 % of protected line
ZONE –2 : 100 % of protected line+ 20 % of shortest

adjacent line section or 100% + 50% of transformer
impedance
ZONE –3 : 100% of protected line+ 100 % of longest

adjacent line or 100 % + 100% of transformer impedance.
ZONE -4: To cover close up back-up non-directional faults

generally reverse reach will be provided in relays (10%).
Time setting:
Zone-1 : Instantaneous
Zone-2 : 0.3 to 0.5 sec
(For long line followed by short line)
Zone-3 : 1.0 sec.

 System non homogeneity causes the apparent
impedance to tilt upwards or downwards. The
apparent impedance tilts upwards when 𝑉𝑅 leads 𝑉𝑆
and tilts downwards when 𝑉𝑆 leads 𝑉𝑅. For tilt upwards
the element will underreach for faults near the set
point. For tilts downwards, the impedance will fall
into the operating space and tend to overreach for
faults outside the protective zone.
 Magnetic mutual induction occurs between lines that
are paralleled for partial or all their length. In
mutually coupled lines, zero-sequence current flowing
on one line induces a zero-sequence voltage in the
other line. The mutual coupling will produce either a
higher apparent impedance and relay underreach or a
lower apparent impedance and relay overreach.
Current flowing in the paralleled line in the same
direction as the fault current in the protected line will
cause a higher apparent impedance and underreach.
Current flowing in opposite direction produces a lower
apparent impedance and relay overreach.
At the HV, EHV and UHV transmission, stability
becomes more of concern and the necessity for
fast tripping faults on any section of the protected
line becomes necessary as tripping on Zone 2 time
could lead to instability and possible system
collapse. The basic pilot protection or
teleprotection scheme which uses communication
channel to compare information from the line
terminals and provide high-speed fault clearing for
100 percent of the protected line. Pilot protection
include:
 Directional Comparison Schemes.
 Current-only Schemes:
 Phase comparison schemes
 Line differential schemes.

A forward and reverse-looking instantaneous directional overcurrent
elements or distance elements provide information for the scheme’s
logic at each line terminal. The forward looking elements are set to
overreach the remote terminal with enough margin. Underreaching
elements at each terminal provide instantaneous protection, which
is independent of the communication-assisting tripping logic.

Directional comparison schemes include:
 Direct underreaching transfer trip (DUTT)
 Permissive underreaching transfer trip
(PUTT)
 Permissive overreaching transfer trip (POTT)
 Directional comparison blocking (DCB)
 Directional comparison unblocking (DCUB)

Security is determined by the ability of the
protection scheme to operate only for intended
faults.
Dependability is when the scheme operates during
all internal faults.
The possibility of communication channel failure
should be considered when designing directional
comparison schemes
Blocking schemes may overtrip for out-of-zone
faults while the channel is not available.
Transfer schemes have higher security, but lower
dependability. The schemes may fail to trip for in-
section faults if communication channel s lost.
Current only scheme uses a communication channel to compare
current information from the line terminals. No VT is required.
Only the current signal from the CT is employed. The main
elements of the carrier channel are a transmitter, receiver,
coupling equipment, and line trap.

 Here the phase relation between the current entering
into and the current leaving the protected zone is
compared. The current magnitudes are not
compared.
 For internal faults, these currents are approximately
in phase. For external faults, the currents are
approximately1800 out of phase.
 An AND logic gate may be used for the comparison.
For internal faults, current entering and that leaving
are approximately in phase; the AND gate signal lasts
about halve a cycle, and the coincidence timer times
out and issues a trip signal.
 For external faults current entering and that leaving
are approximately 1800 out of phase, and the AND
gate does not assert or asserts for only short intervals
and the timer does not pickup. Phase comparison
schemes are difficult to apply to multiterminal lines.
By processing both current magnitude and phase information, line
differential schemes perform better than phase comparison
schemes.
Line differential scheme is quickly becoming the norm transmission
line protection. Differential protection is based on Kirchhoff’s laws,
stating that summation of current into a network node is equal to
zero in an ideal system.
Under normal condition

IS + I R = 0
In the event of a fault in
line AB,
IS + I R = I F ≠ 0

ADVANTAGES
 No voltage signal is needed.
 It’s possible to detect evolving faults.
 Does not respond to system power swings.
 Does not respond to phase impedance
unbalances.
DISADVANTAGES AND CONCERNS

 Requires band width on the communication
channel.
 Require additional time to transmit data
between terminals.
 Power swings are variations in power flow due relative changes in
the internal voltages of generators at different locations of the
power system to each other. Large power swings, stable or
unstable, can cause unwanted relay operations at different
network locations, which can aggravate the power disturbance
and cause major power outages or blackouts.
 Power swings can cause the load impedance which under steady-
state conditions is not within the relay’s operating characteristic,
to enter the relay’s operating characteristic. Operation of these
relays during a power swing may cause undesired tripping of
transmission line or other power system element. This may lead
to possible cascading outages and shutdown of major portions of
the power system.
 Distance or other relays should not trip unintentionally during
dynamic system conditions such as stable or unstable power
swings and allow the power system to return to a stable
operating condition. Distance relay elements prone to operate
during stable or transient power swings should temporarily be
inhibited from operating to prevent system separation occurring
at random.
 A Power Swing Block (PSB) function is available in modern relays
to prevent unwanted distance relay element operation during
power swing conditions.
1. Engr. Prof. Arunsi U. Chuku. “Modern protective relaying
solutions for electric power systems” presented at a Training
for engineers of Transmission Service Providers (TSP) of the
transmission company of Nigeria (TCN), November, 2016.
2. “Basic Line Protection”. A course presented at a training for
TCN engineers organised by Association of Power Utilities of
Africa (APUA), March, 2018 .

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