Application of Advanced Early Warning Systems with Adaptive Protection

This project developed and field-tested two methods of Adaptive Protection systems utilizing synchrophasor data. One method detects conditions of system stress that can lead to unintended relay operation, and initiates a supervisory signal to modify relay response in real time to avoid false trips. The second method detects the possibility of false trips of impedance relays as stable system swings “encroach” on the relays’ impedance zones, and produces an early warning so that relay engineers can re-evaluate relay settings. In addition, real-time synchrophasor data produced by this project was used to develop advanced visualization techniques for display of synchrophasor data to utility operators and engineers

Three zone detection and distance relay co-ordination of power system protection

To secure the transmission lines against power system faults, the distance relays are mostly used. Distance relay has its own Resistance (R)–Reactance (X) characteristics. Co-ordination of different distance relays is necessary for the fast operation of circuit breaker. Various distance relays which are being tripped with respect to circuit breakers which are attached at individual buses faraway from each other. These relays will be operated with respect to the distance between the occurred fault and relay location. In this paper, detection of three zones using relay characteristics, co-ordination of distance relays and circuit breakers are shown with the faults placed at different locations of an IEEE Nine bus system using MATLAB/Simulink GUI environment. A comparison also made between the relays performance and circuit breaker tripping operation with respect to severe faults at different locations on IEEE Nine bus system

A New Solution for Improving Transmission Line Distance Protection Security During System-Wide Cascading Failures

Protection misoperation is responsible for a large portion of all cascading failures. These cascading failures can lead to blackouts that have tremendous social impacts. This dissertation proposes a new method that uses local distance relay instantaneous three-phase currents to enhance the security of distance protection of transmission lines during wide-area cascading events. The method incorporates advanced signal processing techniques and pattern recognition approaches to prevent zone 3 distance protection misoperation. Prevention of misoperation is done through three major stages. The first stage is fault detection. In this first stage, the proposed method merely recognizes that a fault exists somewhere in the transmission system. The second stage determines whether this fault is within the distance relay’s protective reach. The last stage detects whether this fault has been cleared. If the second stage determines that the fault is outside the zone 3 reach of the relay, a blocking signal will be sent to the relay to prevent operation even if the impedance falls within the operating characteristics of the relay. Alternatively, if the second stage determines that the fault is indeed within zone 3 protection reach of the relay, a permissive trip signal will be sent to the relay only if the third stage determines that the fault has not been cleared yet. The first and second stages use three different k-nearest neighbor classifiers that are trained using level 3 detail coefficients of discrete wavelet transform of the aerial mode currents. The third stage uses the current fundamental to detect fault clearing. Several wide area cascading scenarios were simulated, and various performance metrics were analyzed to study the effectiveness of the proposed methodology

A New Relaying Method for Third Zone Distance Relay Blocking During Power Swings

Due to the increasing complexity of modern bulk power systems, the power swing identification, blocking, and protection have become more challenging than they used to be. Among various transmission line protection methods, distance relays are the most commonly used type. One of the advantages of using distance relays is the zoned protection which provides redundancy. However, the additional redundancy comes with a problem that it increases the probability of incorrect operation. For example, the undesired operation of the third zone distance protection during power swing scenarios has been attributed as one of the major causes for creating large-scale blackouts. Some research works in the literature investigate proper identification of stable and unstable power swing conditions. Most research works dwell on identification of power swing conditions but do not address how the scheme could be used for blocking the third zone of distance relays during stable power swings. Also, the current power swing detection schemes are often very complex to implement for a relaying engineer or are not fast enough for blocking the third zone distance element. This research proposes a reliable and fast methodology for the third zone blocking (TZB) during power swings. The new mathematical formulations and derivations are based on sound time tested power system theory and are simpler to understand for a relaying engineer to implement this technique. The algorithm proposed in the research can prevent unnecessary tripping of distance relays during power swings. The algorithm also overcomes the shortcomings of the conventional power swing identification methods when applied for the third zone blocking. A first zero-crossing (FZC) concept is introduced as the criteria for identifying stable power swing or out-of-step phenomena. The analysis is based on system stability point of view and utilizes power-angle equations. The proposed algorithm could be applied at every discrete time interval or time step of a distance relay to detect power swing points. It could also be applied to any transmission line in the power system by finding an equivalent single machine infinite bus (SMIB) configuration individually for each line on a real-time basis, which is one of the primary advantages of the proposed method. In the thesis work, the proposed technique is first demonstrated using a simple single machine infinite bus system. The TZB algorithm is then tested using a modified Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WSCC) power system configuration using Power System Analysis Toolbox (PSAT) simulations. The code is written in MATLAB. The TZB method is then further analyzed using electromagnetic simulations with Real-Time Digital Simulator (RTDS) on WSCC system. The proposed method uses small time step simulations (50 μs) to take various aspects of power system complexity into consideration, such as different harmonics presents in the system, synchronous machine operation at different speeds, travelling wave representation of transmission lines instead of purely lumped parameter representation, etc. The investigations as mentioned above and the results show that the proposed TZB scheme is a straightforward and reliable technique, involving only a few calculation steps, and could be applied to any power system configuration. The main novelty of this technique is that it does not require a priori stability study to find the relay settings unlike conventional power swing identification or distance relay blocking techniques. The inputs to the relay are basic electrical quantities which could be easily measured locally on any transmission line. The local measurements would make the implementation of the proposed TZB simpler for relaying applications compared to Wide Area Measurement System (WAMS) based techniques. In a WAMS based relaying technique - the cost associated with the communication network, reliability of the communication network, impact of communication delay on relay, etc all become factors for actual industry use

Model-based dynamic relaying for power system protection under uncertainty

Several major cascading outages have involved mis-operation or mis-coordination of protective relays during stressed system conditions that resulted in a vulnerable network. Such stressed conditions include concurrent high load demand, changes in circuit topology, equipment outages, and short-circuit faults. With levels of wind and photovoltaic (PV) generation projected to increase in the future, large-scale variable generation also presents an additional point of vulnerability to the existing protection system. In this work, a new framework is introduced that is built on model-based distributed relay intelligence. The framework integrates real-time measurements from adjacent buses and predictive circuit models embedded in relays. The data collected by the relay is input to circuit simulations in order to accurately predict possible fault conditions at the relay location. Settings can then be adapted in real-time based on prevailing system conditions. Several scenarios are evaluated to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach. This work further develops a probabilistic formulation of optimal relay characteristics that adapts to the randomness and uncertainty introduced by renewable generation. In this framework, the calculation of relay operating times is formulated as a stochastic optimization problem. In addition, at the system level, a mixed-integer linear program is developed for protective device and switch allocation considering intentional islanding with distributed generation in distribution systems.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

An Enhanced Adaptive Algorithm to Mitigate Mis-coordination Problem of the Third Zone of Distance Relays

ABSTRACT Cascaded tripping of power lines due to mal-operation of zone 3 distance relays is one of the main causes of many blackouts worldwide. The improved protection technique for zone 3 can help to prevent such mal-operation and, thus, more reliable power systems can be envisaged. This paper presents a novel zone-3 setting scheme based on impedance seen by distance relays in order to calculate zone-3 setting of the relays when faults are simulated on the reach of zone-2 of primary distance relays. The new technique is also enhanced to be used in an adaptive protection system. Since three phase fault rarely occurs in the system and in order to have better demonstration of effectiveness of the proposed scheme, it is tested for various type of faults such as, two phase (AB), single phase to ground (AG) and two phase to ground (ABG) as well as three-phase (ABC) using data simulated through DIgSILENT in the IEEE 30-bus test system during different topologies. The simulation results show that the novel zone 3 distance relay elements using the proposed method operate correctly for various events

Analysis of a rotating advanced-technology space station for the year 2025

An analysis is made of several aspects of an advanced-technology rotating space station configuration generated under a previous study. The analysis includes examination of several modifications of the configuration, interface with proposed launch systems, effects of low-gravity environment on human subjects, and the space station assembly sequence. Consideration was given also to some aspects of space station rotational dynamics, surface charging, and the possible application of tethers