8.4 Causes of false differential currents
The percentage differential relay described above takes care of the relatively small values of differential
currents which flow in the relay during normal load flow conditions, or during an external
fault. However, certain other phenomena cause a substantial differential current to flow, when there
is no fault, and these false differential currents are generally sufficient to cause a percentage differential
relay to trip, unless some special precautions are taken. All such phenomena can be traced
to the nonlinearities in the transformer core, or in the CT core or in both. We will now consider
the effects of these nonlinearities.