Automating Relay Coordination

Will English * and Charles Rogers *

T
h e process of setting relays
and checking the coordination
between primary a n d b a c k u p
--
Consumw-s Power
a system of relays) is applied to
protect its own system element
(or z o n e of protection), it is
relays has always been a time- automated several steps thought of a s a primary relay;
consuming process. Automation in the relac).lcoordination when the function is to back up
of various steps of relay setting other relays for a fault at a remote
and checking is easing the tedium process by using location, it is serving as a backup
of this process for engineers at a program of macros that relay. Usually, a specific relay is
Consumers Power Company. This
automation is performed by a
accesses a comprehensiue providing both functions simulta-
neously; that is, it is serving as a
series of macros written for use power system database primary relay for its own zone of
with the Computer-Aided Protec- protection and as a backup relay
tion Engineering (CAPE) system, for remote zones of protection.
which has been featured in previ- Therefore, relays must be time-
ous issues of EEE Computer Applications in Power and in coordinated so that the primary relay will always oper-
other technical papers. This article illustrates how the ate faster than the backup relay.
functions available in t h e protection system can be Relays being coordinated may employ a variety of
linked together through macros that produce graphical operating principles. Overcurrent relays may have time-
and tabular output that demonstrate the state of coordi- current characteristics ranging from definite-time, where
nation between primary and backup relays and other the operating time of the relay varies little with changes
protective devices. of current, to extremely-inverse-time,where changes in
operating current cause t h e relay operating time t o
Consumers Power System change drastically. Impedance relays with timers
Consumers Power Company is a combination (gas ancl respond to the apparent impedance of a fault location
electric) utility, serving customers throughout most ot (measured by monitoring voltage and current at the
Michigans lower peninsula. The electrical peak load of relay location) at a fixed time delay. Transformer banks
6285 MW occurred in the summer of 1993. The transmis- serving distribution facilities from the transmission sys-
sion and subtransmission system comprises approxi- tem are often protected by fuses, which have an operat-
mately 250 substations and 10,000 circuit-miles of 345-, ing time characteristic similar to a very-inverse-time
138, and 46kV lines. There are also about 1,250 distribu- overcurrent relay and may be thought of as a primary
tion substations connected to the 138kV and 46-kV sys- relay for transformer bank protection.
tems. For overcurrent relays having similar operating time
Transmission-voltage-level interconnections are in characteristics, Consumers Power Company has tradi-
place with the Detroit Edison Company, the American tionally used a tabular approach to reviewing relay coor-
Electric Power Company, the Indiana and Michigan Elec- dination. In t h e tabular a p p r o a c h , t h e response of
tric Company, the Northern Indiana Public Service Con-I- selected relays is laboriously evaluated for a variety of
pany, and the Edison Sault Electric Company. There are fault locations on a spreadsheet-type form.
also interconnections to numerous municipal and coop- A graphical a p p r o a c h is usually used when t h e
erative electric systems within Michigan. devices being coordinated have different time-current
operating characteristics. This is the case when using
overcurrent relays with dissimilar operating characteris-
Relay Coordination Concepts tics, when evaluating coordination between overcurrent
The function of a specific protective relay can b e and distance relays, or when checking coordination with
thought of as either primary or backup. When a relay (or a transformer fuse. In t h e graphical approach, t h e
response of the selected relays (or fuses) is individually
* Consumers Power Company plotted on log-log graph paper for each specific fault

22 IEEE Computer Applications in Power ISSN i)8!W) 156~94/S4.OO(i;1994IEEE

condition being evaluated. ~~

Fuse Coordination
Whether a tabular approach Much of the tedium The majority of load tap trans-
or a graphical approach is used, formers connected to the Con-
evaluation of relay coordination of manual data gathering, sumers Power 46-kV subtrans-
is tedious and time consuming. number crunching, and curve mission system are protected
tracing has been absorbed by fuses. The remote line termi-
CAPE System Overview nal relays are typically direc-
Compute r-Ai d e d Protection by computer workstations, tional o r torque-controlled
Engineering (CAPE) is a modu- allowing engineers to overcurrent devices.
lar system of programs, with The manual process of per-
the central focus on a compre concentrate on the Anal forming a fuse coordination
hensive relational d a t a b a s e . analysis of coordination s t u d y begins with gathering
T h e d a t a b a s e , which u s e s a data. A short circuit program
commercially available data- would be used to calculate the
base-management system, con- p h a s e and ground fault cur-
tains detailed system and equipment data. Current and rents. A trip to the filing cabinet would reveal the backup
voltage transformer models are placed in the database relay types and settings, the CT ratio, and the VT ratio. A
to represent their locations on the actual system. Local few simple calculations would be performed to generate
zones of protection are defined for all system elements. the alignment (to account for the different currents
All relays and other protective devices are likewise seen by different relays because of infeed in looped
entered in the database. Wherever one relay supervises systems) of each curve on the graph. Finally, each curve
another, that supervision is included. Finally, contact with its proper alignment would be traced onto a single
logic is defined for all relay elements and assembled sheet of graph paper. The relay engineer would then
within the local zone of protection, resulting in a model examine this graph and determine whether or not coor-
for the behavior of all protective relaying systems. A key dination had been achieved.
element of the database is the library, which contains Each protective device and its CT, PT, etc. are linked
catalog-type information for all relays and other devices to a specific location on the power system, allowing the
and permits modeling of system relays in a simple, but program to compute the current flowing through any
consistent, fashion. device in primary and/or secondary amps. The device
The capabilities of the program to address specific library within the database contains the information that
user requirements is greatly enhanced by its user- develops the device operating characteristic. The pro-
defined macro facility and the users programming lan- gram can align the curves on a graph.
guage (CUPL), which is a high-level programming Consumers Power macros for t h e Coordination
language that gives the user direct access to database Graphics module take advantage of the systems fea-
quantities and the ability to perform arithmetic and logi- tures and functions to automate the fuse coordination
cal operations on them. It can also directly access process, allowing the engineer to bypass the mechanics
results from the short-circuit module. Variables can be and immediately begin the analysis. Prior to executing
incorporated into macros, permitting the user to define the fuse coordination macro, the user must specify any
programs-within-the-program t o perform complex, outage conditions and define a device set. With circuit
repetitive operations. Macros may be used in all mod- data and protective devices already in the database,
ules, and commands from any of these modules may be specifying the outage conditions and defining a set of
uniformly used within the macros. Figure 1 is a fragment devices can be completed quickly and easily. The macro
of a macro showing the use of variables and commands. incorporates Consumers Power setting criteria, allowing
it to choose the fault location. The macro then displays
if (branch-type = XFMR) from-bus1 to-bus1 cktl then the operating characteristic of each device in the set,
if ( y k > 0) from-bus1 to-bus1 cktl then adds the pertinent fault information to the graph and leg-
of slg to-bus1 x end, and provides the proper alignment of the curves on
save (3*ifz)to-bus 1 as rect-fault-current t h e graph. Typical results of t h e fuse coordination
convert-to-prim macro are shown in Figure 2. Note how the display
save (prim_fauIt_current/qrt(3))as high-side-eq makes apparent the coordination margin between the
piotx high-side-eq HS PH CURRENT FOR LS SLG
fuse and its backup relays.
endif
Upon completion of the macro, control is returned to
end
the user. Additional information or devices can be added
or settings can be changed by point and click and a
Figure 1. Fragment of a macro using CUPL uariables series of pop-up menus. The program immediately
and commands updates the graph and legend to reflect the changes.

July 1994 23
 location is derived within the macro
_r
and the values of fault currents, in con-
junction with database information, are
used by t h e macro t o p r o d u c e t h e
desired tabular result.
A typical tabular report will include
substation name, relay name, relay set-
tings, fault c u r r e n t s (per unit a n d
amperes), ct ratio, primary pickup
amps, multiples of pickup, time for the
relay itself to operate, total time for the
breaker to trip, and total clearing time
including the coordinating time inter-
val. A separate report is generated for
each outage condition. These reports
are written to a file just prior to the ter-
mination of the macro.
A graphical approach is used to eval-
"df
l.c- uate coordination between relays with
dissimilar operating characteristics.
For s e t s of overcurrent relays, t h e
Figure 2. Result o f fuse coordination macro process is quite simple. A macro uses
primary and backup device s e t s t o
Relay Coordination determine the fault location, multiples of pickup, and the
A tabular approach is convenient for evaluating coordi- proper alignment of the curves on the graph. Figure 3
nation of overcurrent relays having similar operating shows a result of t h e graphical relay coordination
characteristics. Traditionally, the engineer would manu- macro.
ally enter the data on a piece of paper or in a spread- Coordination between overcurrent and distance ele-
sheet program. The spreadsheet didn't model the relay ments is extremely time consuming when done manual-
operating characteristic, requiring that the engineer ly. Relay e n g i n e e r s a t C o n s u m e r s Power h a v e
extract the relay operating time from a graph. Engineers traditionally used an equation involving currents, imped-
at Consumers Power have written a macro that gathers ances, and relay settings to develop a close approxima-
all of the pertinent data and details the coordination in tion of the operating current at reach points of distance
tabular form. Preparations for running
the macro include using a mouse t o -
define primary and backup device sets.
Coordination may be evaluated with
either a single primary relay or a set of
primary relays representing all relays
connected to a particular bus. Similar-
ly, the coordination evaluation can
evaluate either a single backup relay or
a set of all relays providing remote
backup for a particular fault.
To e x e c u t e t h e m a c r o , t h e u s e r
either enters the macro name on the
command line or selects t h e macro
from the userdefined Shortcuts menu.
The macro r e q u e s t s t h e device s e t
names for both the primary and back-
up relays, the type of fault, and any spe-
cial contingency conditions. The user
also h a s t h e option of allowing t h e
macro to automatically outage each
transformer bank and/or line connect-
ed to a bus, one at a time. The fault Figure 3. Result ofgraphical relay coordination macro

24 IEEE Cortiputw Al~plicutionr111 f o i l Pr


Figure 4. Combined timeavercurrent and stepdistance characteristics
elements. The distance element macro uses a variation
of this equation, where the impedances are removed
from the equation and voltage is used.
To evaluate coordination between overcurrent and
distance elements, an overcurrent relay set is defined, as M.K. Enns, P.F. McCuire, R. Ramaswami, CAPE: The Computer-
are separate distance relay sets for each stepdistance
package t o be evaluated. The graphical coordination
macro computes the performance of the devices in the
overcurrent device set and displays the overcurrent
devices with their proper alignment. The macro then
calls another macro to determine the operating currents
for the distance element set, retrieves the stepdistance
package timer data, and plots the stepdistance curve on
the timecurrent diagram. All relay settings, operating
currents, and other associated quantities are reported in
the legend. Figure 4 shows the result of the stepdistance Biographies
macro, where the overcurrent device is the primary
relay and the stepdistance devices provide the backup.
Further Developments
Several of t h e macros written at Consumers Power
require some fine tuning. Stepdistance relays have tradi-
tionally been plotted for three-phase faults. An option
within the macro could be made available to plot the
curve for a phase-tephase fault. Coordination time mar-
gins could also be added to the relay operating time at
selected values of current and the resultant point or
points plotted on the graph and reported in the legend.
Major changes in t h e macros may also be made.
Macros that slide the fault location along a line until an
element operates could be incorporated within the exist-
ing macros to obtain a more precise picture of coordina-
tion. Engineers have also written macros to gather short
circuit and impedance information
used in developing preliminary relay
settings. These macros, which are cur-
rently executed in t h e Short Circuit
module, may be adapted for use in the
Relay Setting module to allow the com-
puter, with an option for human inter-
vention, t o develop t h e preliminary
relay settings and automatically store
these settings in the database.
Concluding Remarks
Reviewing relay coordination can be a
slow, tedious process. A program using
high-level macros and accessing a com-
prehensive database containing power
system data, including relays and other
protective devices, has enabled engi-
neers at Consumers Power to automate
several steps in the relay coordination
checking process. Much of the tedium of
manual data gathering, number crunch-
ing, and curve tracing h a s been
absorbed by computer workstations, allowing the engineer
to concentrate on the final analysis of the coordination.
For Further Reading
Aided Protection Engineering System, Proceedings o f the 1992
American Power Conference,Chicago, Illinois, April 13-15, 1992.
C.W. Rogers and J.A. Zipp, Relaying Process Modernized at
Consumer Power, 1991 Georgia Tech Protective Relaying Confer-
ence, Atlanta, Georgia, May 1-3, 1991.
C.W. Rogers, R. Ramaswami, P.F. McCuire, Graphical Coordina-
tion Program Aids System Relaying at Consumers Power, IEEE
ComputerApplications in Power, Volume 3, Number 3, July 1990.
R. Ramaswami, P.F. McGuire, Navigating a Protection-Engineer-
ing Database, IEEE Computer Applications in Power, Volume 2,
Number 2, April 1989.
Charles W. Rogers is a senior engineer in the Transmission Engi-
neering department at Consumers Power Company. He graduated
from Michigan Technological University in 1978 with a BSEE
degree and has been employed at Consumers Power since then.
His primary responsibility has been transmission system relaying.
He has also been active in the technical aspects of connecting
nonutility generation to the Consumers Power system. He is the
lead engineer for implementation of CAPE into the Consumers
Power protective relaying process. He is a registered professional
engineer in Michigan, a member of IEEE, a member of the IEEE
Power Engineering Society, and a member of Eta Kappa Nu.
Will E. English is a general engineer in the Transmission Engi-
neering department at Consumers Power Company. He graduated
from Michigan Technological University in 1989 with a BSEE
degree and from The Ohio State University in 1991 with an MSEE
degree. He was employed as a 1989 summer intern with the Trans-
mission System Relaying group of Consumers Power and, upon
completing his masters degree requirements, rejoined the compa-
ny in 1991. He has worked in system controls engineering and in
transmission system relaying. He is a member of IEEE.
July 1994 25