works well during actual line faults. However, for some external
fault events, poor CT performance may lead to improper operation
of line protection relays.
When current flows through a dual-breaker line terminal, the line
current measured by a relay using external summation matches
the actual line current only if the two CTs are accurate. The most
significant relaying problem is CT saturation in either CT. The current
measured by the relay may contain a large error current, which
can result in the relay operating due to an incorrect magnitude or
direction decision. This incorrect operation may also occur if the
linear error current of the CTs due to accuracy class is close to the
through current level. These errors appear in the measured phase
currents. As a result, relays that calculate the negative sequence
and zero sequence currents from the measured phase currents
may also see errors.
Distance: Distance relays applied at dual-breaker line terminals
are vulnerable to mis-operation on external faults. During a closein reverse external fault, the voltage is depressed to a very low
level, and the security of the relay is maintained by directional
supervision. If one of the line CTs saturates, the current measured
by the relay may increase in magnitude, and be in the opposite
direction of the actual fault current, leading to an incorrect
operation of the forward distance element for an external fault.
The D90
Plus
Line Protection System and the D60 Line Distance
Relay handles the challenge of dual-breaker line terminals by
supporting two three-phase current inputs to support breaker
failure, overcurrent protection, and metering for each circuit
breaker. The relays then mathematically add these currents
together to form the total line current used for distance and
directional overcurrent relaying.
Directly measuring the currents from both circuit breakers allows
the use of supervisory logic to prevent the distance element
and directional overcurrent elements from operating incorrectly
for reverse faults due to CT error. This supervisory logic does