False Operation of Protective Relays in Oman Electricity Power System & its Remedies

Dr. M.Fawzi Abu sharkh Dr. Osama M.F. Abu Sharkh Abu-Sharkh Technical Consulting Office Thani M. Alkhusaibi Hilal S. Alhadi Oman Electricity Transmission Company

Abstract- In this paper, we conduct a study to clarify the difficulties which affected the operations of the protective relays in the Oman Electricity Power System and the steps which were taken to overcome these difficulties. A single line to ground fault on the network may cause the tripping of phase loads and reduce the speed of three phase inductive loads. This in turn causes an over current trip on the 11 and 33kV feeders after the fault is cleared. The bank capacitors, used in the system, should not trip during the dip of voltage to avoid any further increase. The settings of the earth fault relays should be adjusted taking into consideration the ground resistance and the length of the distribution lines. A load shedding arrangement for 33kV feeders should be used to avoid the tripping of a second transformer in the feeder transformer arrangement set. Distribution feeders should not be connected with the bus bars of the power stations. Under speed protective devices should not operate on frequencies more than 47.5 Hz. New types of relays should be used after testing it on the existing operating system. Keywords: Protictive Relays, Footing Resistance, Feeder Transformer, Under frequancy, Lightning, Arrestors

I. Introduction Oman Electricity Power System (OEPS) includes seven power stations. They provide the electrical power to costumers through the overhead lines, electrical substations and distribution networks. This system is protected by several protection relays. It is remarkable that, for certain reasons, when a fault occurs on a 220 or 132 kV line network, it causes an unnecessary trip of a number of distribution feeders or transformers, and sometimes the generator unit(s). Therefore, the tripping loads extend more than expected and desired. 1

The incorrect settings of the protective relays may be considered the main reason that causes the false operation or mal function of these protective relays. It is known that the environmental conditions determine the type of loads such as inductive loads, the value of the energy consumption and the additional electrical equipment such as the bank capacitors. These equipments are used to regulate the voltage, improve the power factor, decrease the losses, and increase the continuity of the power supply. Grounding resistance has a very high value due to the high resistivity of the Omani dry sandy ground. This limits the currents of the single phase to ground faults to a level that is not enough to cause the relay operation. Due to transient faults, auto reclosurs are used to restore the tripped feeders and curtail the cutting energy on the consumers. Some single phase to ground faults on the 0.415kV low tension side of the network cause tripping of the 11kV or 33kV feeders due to the false operation of the over current relays. In addition to that, the auto reclosures are locked which cause an unclear picture of the situation for the operating engineers. The arrangement of the transmission and distribution networks affects the arrangement of the protection system. Most of the 132kV transmission lines and 132/33kV substations are designed as feeder transformers. For example, if a 132 kV line trips, 132/33 kV transformer becomes out of service since there is no circuit breaker installed between the line and the transformer. Load shedding schemes are used depending on the value of the system frequency drop in order to prevent the cascading generator units outage and consequently the complete collapse of the system. It is also used to reduce the spinning reserve in the system. In this paper, we discuss several issues and concerns regarding the protection system of the Oman Electricity Power System from different aspects and provide solutions. This paper is organized as follows. In section II, we briefly describe the Oman Electric Power Network connections. The discrimination of protection elements is

discussed in section III. We illustrate the Omani load characteristics and its effect on the current protective relays and fuses in sections IV, V and VI. In section VII, we discuss the effect of the bank capacitors on the load and their effects on the current and earth fault relays. We discuss the effect of the high footing resistance on distance relays and the grounding resistance on earth fault relays in section VIII. In section IX, we suggest an arrangement for load shedding due to the overload on the circuits of the feeder transformers. In section XI, we discuss the tripping of generators due to the connections of distribution feeders with power station BB and the wrong settings of the unit speed. In section XII, we discuss phase to phase fault due to the flashover voltage which is created because of pollutions. The usage of a
G
11kV 220kV

They operate in three zones. The first zone operates instantaneously while the other two zones operate with delay times 0.4 and 0.9 consequently. Directional over current and directional earth fault relays are used as a backup protection system on all transmission lines. In distribution network, 33kV circuits are protected by standard IDMT over current and earth fault relays. On 11kV feeders, standard IDMT over current and earth fault relays are used. The 11kV side of the 11/0.415kV transformers uses drop out fuses. The elements of the protection system on the 0.415 kV circuits are HRC
33k V 11kV D r opout fuse 0.415k V Load

132kV

132kV

33kV Cap. banks

Fig. 2 Protection arrangement of the distribution network

33kV Feeder

11kV

E arthing Transformer.

Fig. 1 Oman Electric Network Connections new generation of protection devices on Oman system is discussed in section XIII. Finally, we conclude the paper in section XIV. II. Oman Electric Network Connections The flow of power from stations to the consumers is through transmission, main grid stations, distribution substations and feeders. It is shown in Fig. 1. The connection type of the vector group arrangement of 220/132kV is star/star (Y Y). The neutral point is connected to earth on two sides of the transformer. The connection types of the 132/33kV transformers is star/ delta (Yn ), the 33/11kV transformers is delta/ star ( Yn and the 11/0.415 kV transformers is delta/star ( Yn). The neutral point is connected to earth on the star sides of the transformers. A single line to ground fault, say phase A, on the 220kV line or 132kV line causes a dip of voltage on the faulty phase. It is clear to all voltage levels on the network on the star sides of the transformers, i.e. 220, 132, 11 and 0.415 kV circuits. It is also clear to line voltages VAC and VAB on the delta side of the transformer, i.e. 33kV circuits and 11kV side of the 11/0.415kV transformers. The healthy phases VB and VC may be affected very slightly and the line voltage VCB is not affected at all. It is known that the line voltage equals 3 Vphase. III. DISCRIMINATED PROTECTION ELEMENTS USED IN OMAN NETWORK The 220kV transmission lines are protected by two main sets of protective relays, Main 1 and 2. Main 1 consists of current differential relays while Main 2 consists of distance relays located on the two sides of the line. The 132kV transmission lines are mainly protected by distance relays which are located on the two sides of the line. Distance relays on 220kV and 132kV lines are connected with each other by using telecommunication means. They construct a number of arrangement schemes. 2

fuses. Fig. 2 shows the protection arrangement of the distribution network. Under frequency relays are also used in the system to manage the load shedding operations. IV. OMAN LOAD CHARACTERISTICS
[ 1]

In [1], we showed that the characteristics of the Omani loads during summer are the same as the characteristics of induction motors (IMs). This is due to the fact that most of the Omani loads during summer are air-conditioning, refrigeration and industrial. It is well known that the starting current Is of most IMs are almost five to six times the rated current. Most of it is reactive current. Also, IM current is inversely proportional with motors speed. For example, assume a group of IMs connected with one transformer through one feeder and the total rated current of IMs is half of the transformer rated current. If instantaneously IMs start to operate, the total starting current is more than 2.5 times the current rating of the transformer. Furthermore, if the IMs speed Nm decreases, the slip S increases and the IM current I increase as can be deduced from the followings. S = (synchronous speed (Ns) motor speed (Nm)) Synchronous speed (Ns) Percent slip (PS %) 1/ (Faulty Voltage) 2 (1) (2)

Where, the faulty voltage is enough to keep the motor in the running mode. I 1/S Or, I = K1/ (K2+R/S) (3) (4)

Where K1 and K2 are constants that can be calculated from applied voltage and motor configurations and R is the rotors resistance. S at the normal operation of the IMS ranges between 3% and 5%. For example, if the voltage before clearing the fault equals 0.6 of the rated voltage and if S at normal operation equals 0.04 then,

PS% = 1/ (0.6)2 = 2.78 or 278% and, S during the fault = 0.04 * 2.78 =11.1% Hence, the speed of IMs equals 88.9% of the synchronous speed. Therefore, from equation 4, IMs current increases and its value depends on the motor configuration.
I`f
I= 0

C I=0

If I`f
B IC=0 c

IF Ib=0 b

IF

I=0

I`f

Fig. 3 single phase to ground fault on low tension side V. SINGLE PHASE FAULT ON 0.415KV CIRCUIT REFLECTED AS TWO PHASE FAULT ON 11KV AND SINGLE PHASE FAULT ON 33KV Fig. 2 shows 33/11 kV and 11/0.415 kV delta/star distribution transformer. The high voltage side is delta connected and protected by over current and earth fault relays. The low voltage side is star, connected to earth, and protected by fuses and/or over current and earth fault relays. If a single phase to ground fault occurs on low tension side, as shown in Fig. 3, the fault is reflected as phase to phase fault on high tension side. Therefore, if the protection elements on the high and the low tension sides are not coordinated correctly, over current relays trip in the high tension side. In case these relays are connected to auto reclosure, it will not recluse the circuit considering the fault as permanent. In this case, some arrangements for auto reclosure are taken to try one shoot to reclose, the tripped line, after several minutes. If a phase to phase fault occurs on the star side of the transformer, it is reflected as single phase fault on the delta side. Therefore, if the protection devices on the circuits on the two sides of 33/11kV transformer are not coordinated correctly, earth fault relays trip on the 33kV side. In case these relays are connected to auto reclosure, on the 33kV tripped feeder, it will recluse the circuit considering the fault as transient. In practice, number of technical people prefers to operate the relay before the fuses from an economical point of view since they save the fuses. They achieve that by reducing the settings of the relays to the minimum value where the time multiplier setting equals to .05 for the relays on the 11kV feeders. They operate before the drop out fuses on the 11kV side of the 11/0.415kV transformers. After several investigations, we found that the rate of selected fuses is very low and incorrect.

VI. CHARACTERISTICS OF OVER CURRENT ELEMENTS IN OMAN DISTRIBUTION NETWORK

A fault on the network causes a significant dip of voltage. Therefore, the induction motors (loads) may stop or decrease its speed. When the fault is cleared, the voltage rises to its rated value. Thus, part of the connected induction loads restarts their operations while another part increases its speed which leads to an overload on the distribution transformers and feeders. Consequently, overload elements may trip those distributed feeders and transformers. Since more than 90% of faults on 220kV and 132kV circuits are single line to ground faults and most of loads in the 0.415 circuits (consumer loads) are single phase loads, we concentrate in our study on analyzing this type of faults and its effect on over current protection elements in Oman's distribution network. As mentioned in the previous section, the dip of voltage on one phase of 220kV and 132kV circuits due to a single phase to ground fault causes a dip of voltage on the same phase on 0.415 kV circuits. If the clearing time tc of the fault is within a normal margin, i.e. tc < 0.12 second, then due to the system inertia the consumer loads will not be significantly affected. On the other hand, if the clearing time tc > 0.4 second, then the distance relay clears the fault on the second zone. The latter case happened in august 2006 on the 220kV line between Sohar PSS and Sohar SIS. In this incident, the carrier between the two distance relays at the ends of the line did not operate correctly. This resulted when a single line to ground fault occurred due to flashover voltage on polluted insulator. One relay operated in the first zone and another one operated in the second zone. Due to a delay in the clearing time in Purami area, 11kV feeders were tripped by low setting IDMT over current relays. It is worth mentioning that most of the loads were single phase induction motors. An over current relay record shows that the load current, in the pre-fault condition, was almost half the rated current, while it was 1.5 the rated current in the post load condition. This means that on the faulty phase, one third of the single phase induction load was tripped while single phase induction load of healthy phases was almost not affected. The speeds of three phase induction motors were reduced since negative sequence torque existed when the unbalanced phase voltages were applied on motor terminals. By using rough calculations and some estimation, we can infer the followings. The total load is 0.5 rated loads, i.e. the load on every phase equals 0.5/3. Suppose the single phase induction load is equal to 80% of the total load. Then, the three phase induction load is almost equal to 20% of total load and its current is doubled due to the fault. After clearing the fault, Total load = 0.8(0.5/3+0.5/3+ 6*0.5/3)+0.2*2 = 1.47 of the rated load. By checking the relay record, we found that our estimated results are very close to the recorded results. We deduce that in order to stop unnecessary tripping the following steps should be taken. Select the drop out fuses as short circuit protection rather than an over current protection. Take into consideration the discrimination between protection elements. At least, tripping and restarting one phase inductive loads. 3

VII. CAPACITOR BANKS During summer time, the reactive power demand is high. Therefore, 33kV, 11kV and 0.4kV capacitor banks are used in distribution networks to improve the power factor, regulate the voltage, and decrease the system losses.
VB
VB
A=

Post fault voltage = 3 pre-fault voltage as in Fig 4. Hence, post-fault charging current is three times the pre-fault charging current. If the line is long and the settings of the relays are low, the relays may operate to trip the non faulty feeders instead of the faulty feeders.
132kV 33kV

VB
VB
VB A =

VB

VA

VA

VC

VC

(a) (b) Fig. 4 Value of phase voltage to ground a) Neutral point, solid to earth connected b) Neutral point is isolated Due to any fault on the network that causes a dip of voltage, the capacitor bank should be used as a memory circuit delay to reduce this dip of voltage. Consequently, it gives a chance to the system to return to the normal condition after the relays clear the fault. The capacitor bank has to supply the induction load with reactive power to make it starts or increases its speed after the fault is cleared rather than keeping the power flow from the source through the transformer. However, it may trip and cause a shortage of reactive power for the loads and therefore increases the dip of voltage more and more causing the induction motor to stop or slow its speed. When the fault is cleared, the voltage increases to its rated value. Consequently, the connected induction loads restart or increase their speeds which cause an overload on the distribution transformers and feeders. Overload relays may trip these distributed feeders and transformers. The solution of this problem is to avoid the tripping of capacitor bank during the faults or establish the capacitor bank in two parts. The first part has a fixed value that will not trip for any changes in voltage while the second part has switching stages. It is worth mentioning that the selection of suitable protective fuses is very important. Furthermore, the capacitor bank may cause an unbalanced condition when one fuse of the phase's system is blown or there is a shortage in the number of capacitor elements in the capacitor bank nests. This may cause the tripping of sensitive relays. VIII. GROUNDING RESISTANCE Due to the high ground resistivity in the desert area of Oman, where the ground consists of dry sand, it is difficult to construct low grounding resistance. High grounding resistance limits the single phase to ground fault current which may not be enough to cause the earth fault relay to operate and trip the faulty feeder. Moreover, it may operate the earth fault relays on the healthy feeders which are connected on the same bus causing the non faulty feeders to trip. The reason of that can be explained as follows. Charging current Ic (Phase to ground Voltage) 2 4

Fig. 5 feeder transformers connection

MSQ 1-4 Busher 1,2

132kV

YnD5
G GT-1 G GT-2 G GT-3 G GT-4

33kV

3 Ph Fault

Distribution Feeders Ax. Txs

G
GT-5

G
GT-6

Ax. Txs

Distribution Feeders

Fig. 6 Number of distribution feeders are connected with auxiliary BB of power Ghubra station IX. FEEDER TRANSFORMER PROTECTION Most of the 132 kV lines and substations in OEPS are designed as feeder transformers and there is no circuit breaker between the line and the transformer as shown in Fig. 5. If 132 kV line trips, 132/33 kV transformer will become out of service which causes the total substation loads to be loaded on another operating transformer. Over current relays trip the second transformer. This will increase the tripping loads in the network. We suggested a load shedding arrangement and practically applied it. It works as follows. If one transformer is tripped, it will cause an overload on the second transformer. Before the over current relay trip the second transformer, it trips selected 33kV feeders as a load shedding to reduce the 33kV loads to a value which is less than transformers full load. X. DISTRIBUTION FEEDERS CONNECTED WITH AUXILIARY BUS BAR OF POWER STATION A number of distribution feeders are connected with auxiliary Bus Bar (BB) of power Ghubra station, as shown in Fig. 6. If the voltage during normal operation drops to a critical level, the electromagnetic force will also drop causing the contactor coil to get tripped and therefore a deceleration of auxiliary motor occurs. If the voltage

increases again to the normal value, then the starting contact should be re-closed in order to accelerate the auxiliary motor. The above mentioned sequence has to be repeated manually by the operator. Usually this observation and re-closing takes time in such a way that some auxiliaries may reach a stand still and therefore tripping the associated generating units. The taken action has disconnected all the distribution feeders from BB of Power station. XI. UNDER SPEED RELAYS SETTING ON GENERATOR UNITS. It is well known that the load of electrical systems has active and reactive power components. Any generator unit can produce this apparent power within its capability curve. In normal operation, generator units in service should be capable of supplying the load demand to keep the system electrical quantities, voltage and frequency, within a normal operation level as well as to cover any shortage in generation. If any forced outage occurs to any unit(s), it prevents cascading outage and consequently the system is completely collapsed. A number of under speed relays settings installed on the steam generators units in Ghubra power station are proportional to 48.8 HZ as under frequency relays. The settings of under speed relays on generating units, which are simulated as under frequency relays, should be less than the settings of the last stage of under frequency load shedding scheme. i.e. less or equal 48 Hz. Because if the frequency setting of any generator unit more than the frequency setting of one or a number of frequency load shedding scheme, the generator will trip during the falling of frequency due to the shortage of the active power. It means that it will increase the shortage of active power and consequently accelerate and increase the dip of system frequency causing more load shedding. On the other hand, it may cascade the operating generator units if the frequency reached a critical value. Unfortunately, the manufacturer decided to keep the settings on those steam units as it is. XII.
FLASHOVER VOLTAGE ON WOODEN POLES [1]

In every new electrical project, new updated protection relays are installed as mentioned in Oman code. In fact, this is supposed to be good theoretically. However, a number of new types of relays are not tested on any electrical system before they are being installed on OEPS. Accordingly, Omani network acts as a laboratory for testing these relays and clarify their deficiencies. In 2004-2005 tens of processors of important relays were changed because errors were found in these processors only one year after erecting. XIV. Conclusion Single phase to ground fault with a significant clearing time on the network affects single phase loads on the faulty phase as well as the speed of three phase induction loads. Single Phase induction loads on one phase of 0.415kV distributed transformer side are seen as phase to phase faults on the 11kV side. They may cause an over load on the 33kV feeders which makes the over current relay trips the feeder. The auto reclosure considers this fault as permanent. To avoid a shortage of reactive power to loads and increase the dip of voltage during a fault on certain feeders, the capacitor bank should be adjusted in order not to trip. Also the selection of suitable protective fuses is very important. The high grounding resistance, the long distribution line and the low settings values of relays make some relays trip non faulty feeders while relays on faulty feeders may not operate. In feeder transformer protection arrangement, to avoid the tripping of a second transformer, over current relay trips selected 33kV feeders as a load shedding to reduce the 33kV loads to a value which is less than the capacity of the second transformer. Distribution feeders should not be connected to bus bars of power stations. Under speed protective devices should not operate on frequencies more than 47.5 Hz. New types of relays should only be used after testing them on existing operating systems.

It is noticed that a number of wooden poles with metallic cross arms used in Oman network catch fire at dry wooden bolt holes. When we studied this problem we found that there is a flashover voltage on two insulators through metallic cross arms which causes a phase to phase fault. Therefore, over current relay causes a trip to the faulty circuit. The auto re-closure does not try to re-close the tripped feeder. The solution we suggested is to earth the cross arm. Therefore, the flashover voltage causes a single phase to ground fault instead of a phase to phase fault. Consequently, the earth fault relay clears the fault and the auto re-closure considers the fault as transient. Re-closing shoots are available. XIII. NEW NUMERICAL PROTECTION RELAYS ON OMAN NETWORK

REFERENCES [1] M.F.Abusharkh, A.Alghafiri, T.Alkhusaibi "Distributed Voltage in Oman Electrical Power System", IEEE ICCCP'07, Oman, Feb. 2007. [2] M.F.Abusharkh,, TAlkhusaibi, H.Alhadi The Effects of Several Environmental Phenomena on Overhead Lines In Oman Electricity Power System, Problems and Solutions), GCC Cigre, Dubai, Nov. 2007. [3] M.F.Abusharkh, "Load shedding Management of the Jordanian Power System (JEPS), IEE. Power System Protection conference. Aden berg, April, 1989. [4] Statistical annual books, electric sector, MHEWOman, 2000 2004. [5] Reports of load distribution centre LDC, OETC Oman, 2004 -2006. 5

[6] Oman Electric Standard #4 May 1989. [7] Grid and Distribution Code, version 1, 2003.