Ground Differential (87GD) Protection
Industrial transformers are generally grounded through a resistor in the transformer wye neutral, as described in the section “Transformer Basics.” Many industrial transformers rely solely on the 87T to provide ground fault protection.
Some industrial engineers do not understand that phase-differential protection alone does not provide
the level of sensitivity to detect faults over the entire wye winding.
A significant portion of the wye winding near the neutral will not be protected if only phase differential
is applied. Even for ground faults on the transformer wye terminal, additional sensitivity is required where the ground fault current is limited to the 200–400 A range.
Consider the following example, which is shown in Figure 14.