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I. INTRODUCTION
improve the performance of protection have been ignored inappropriately. For example, some theories are not consummate
enough during the period of analog-based protection. Once they
can be properly improved with the strong abilities of memorizing and calculating the microprocessor, their performances
are promising to attain or even exceed the level of state-ofthe-art protections. We are about to conduct some work on improving the operation performance of the distance protection
during power swings, for which no satisfactory solution is available until recently.
There are many causes resulting in the power swing [2].
When the swing center is located on the line being protected,
the swing locus will pass through the fast operation zone of
the distance protection, and the time of it staying within the
operation zone may be long. One existing and popular solution
in China is to block the fast protection for a period of time
when the power swing occurs. The supplementary criteria are
used to unblock the protection with a certain time delay after a
fault occurs during power swings. The existing practical criteria
,
,
, and
in China are dR/dt
so on [3]. Furthermore, many new algorithms to detect the
power swing and allow distance protection to operate relatively
fast dealing with the fault occurring during power swings are
proposed [4][9].
It should be admitted that the aforementioned criteria have
their disadvantages in some cases. For instance, the value of
dR/dt should be zero in theory when a fault occurs. However,
it could be a large number at the inception of the fault due
to transient, while it is small during some stages of power
swings (e.g., when the phase difference between two sources is
close to 180 ). In this sense, the discrimination between faults
and power swings becomes difficult. Therefore, a certain time
delay is inevitable for the protection to operate although the
unblocking condition is satisfied. As the criterion
uses as the restraint quantity, the time delay may be long in
some fault conditions. Meanwhile, a three-phase short-circuit
fault cannot be identified by this criterion. Lacking profound
analysis of the power swing process, no strict theoretical fundamental exists on how to set the operation threshold and the time
delay, together with the coordination of the operation threshold
and the time delay of the aforementioned criteria. These key
parameters are always adjusted according to tests and field conditions, which may lead to improper settings. Therefore, how to
ensure the operation reliability of the distance protection during
power swings is still a problem that deserves to be studied.
During the age of analog quantity-based protection, the criterion of concentric-circle was widely used [10]. That is, a
power swing blocking relay is arranged to encircle the measuring unit (e.g., the Zone I relay, as shown in Fig. 1). The principle of this method will be deliberated in the following section.
Due to its drawbacks due to resolution of the time interval limited by the hardware, this criterion is abandoned by some protection manufacturers. Actually, by means of the studies on the
changing laws of impedance during power swings, this drawback is not difficult to be overcome, and the rationally modified
criterion will have better sensitivity and selectivity than most
existing criteria.
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= 1.
The demonstration of (1) is presented as below, which is divided into two scenarios.
The first scenario is that the locus is an arbitrary beeline
passing through the two concentric circles.
The aforementioned condition is that the ratio of the magnitudes of the electromotive forces (emfs) of the two side systems
is 1. The vector illustrations of all impedances in the system are
shown in Fig. 2, observed from the position where the protection
is installed. In this figure, the impedance angle of the system is
assumed to be equal to the impedance angle of the line. The apparent impedance can be expressed as
(2)
where
is the total impedance connected between two
equivalent sources, is the phase-angle difference between two
sources. And is the ratio of the system equivalent impedance
of the system at end , accounting for the total impedance
connected between two equivalent sources.
According to the knowledge of geometry, the swing locus
always vertically halves the vector line of the system total
, and the projection of the apparent impedance
impedance
, while the
on the swing locus line is
projection on the line of the system total impedance is
. Assume that the locus line intersects with
the circle at A, B, C, and D successively at , , , and
respectively, the corresponding phase differences are , ,
, and . Then, it intersects with the line of the system total
when
. The lengths of line segments
impedance at
and
can be calculated as follows:
(3)
(4)
Hence
(5)
is an isoceles triangle.
, then
(10)
and
(11)
Substituting it into (9), we then have
(12)
and
(13)
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systems are connected with such a weak link. The simplification resulting from the second scenario is a little bit deviated
from the practical electromechanical transient process. During
the time between the swing occurrence and the fastest swing
appearance, the relative movement of the phase differences of
the two systems is generally an accelerating process, while the
relative movement of the phase differences will enter a decelerating process if the system can eventually restore to stable.
However, because of the existence of inertia, their evolution is
doomed to be smooth whether it is a process of destabilization
or recovery, especially when the swing gradually subsides. As
for the evolution of a power swing, the time of the swing locus
passing through the first-half circle (including the gap between
two circles) will be longer than it passing through the last half
circle (according to the basic knowledge of physics, during
the period of accelerating movement in the case of passing
through the same distance, the time required by the last half
tenor will be shorter than that required by the first-half one).
In this case, the criterion has higher security because
is set according to
of the first-half circle. The operation
of the criterion in the regressive process of the power swing
should be focused on. In most cases, the regressive of the swing
is realized by a variety of safety automatic devices and correct
manual interventions, which means that the adjusting process
will be smooth and change slowly. In an individual swing cycle
(compared with the whole swing process, this is a relatively
short period of time), treating the phase difference relative
movement as a uniform speed movement will not lead to a great
error. On the other hand, even when the rare operation mode
and the system swing rapid cessation phenomena occurs, it will
also be handled properly, which will be discussed in Section IV.
The second scenario: The locus is a circle.
According to [10], in fact, the circle is the measuring locus of
, the center of the circle is
According to
(16)
(14)
And the radius is
We have
(15)
Thus, the first scenario is validated.
Now let us simply discuss the rationality of the aforementioned simplification. Equation (7) means that the swing locus
passes through the concentric circles only when is in the
vicinity of 180 . And the application of (14) indicates that
during every swing cycle, the swing is regarded as an invariable
speed moving process. As for the first scenario resulting from
(7), if the system can be equalized to two infinite systems via
a single and very long transmission line, which is an unusual
condition, the scenario of the swing locus falling into the
circles when just exceeds 90 possibly occurs. At this time,
the aforementioned simplification will definitely bring large
error. However, by virtue of the usual knowledge of power
system operation, it is very irrational that the two very strong
(17)
and
are the electromotive forces (emfs)s of the equivalent sources on the two sides. Generally, even under the condition of power swings, the discrepancy of the magnitudes of them
. Therefore,
.
is not large although
From (16) and (17), the center of that circle is far from the origin
of the impedance plane, and the radius is very long. In general
is much smaller than R, it is acceptable to
conditions, since
approximately regard the moving locus of
as a circle. Due
to the properties of the center and the radius of the circle, the
locus is still capable of being treated as a beeline when analyzing its operation behavior near zone I impedance circle. In
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Fig. 3. Apparent impedance locus during power swings when ignoring the resistances of all components in the system.
(20)
and
(21)
Furthermore, we have
(22)
(18)
where
(23)
Fig. 4. Variation of
1t =1t
As
with
08
: X
=X
, we have
(24)
Actually,
Hence, only when
.
, we have
(25)
is comparable to
(26)
As the end point of the locus reaches the center of the circle,
we have
(27)
and
(28)
Then, the range of x is
.
It is very difficult to evaluate the monotony of (26) using the
analytic method. Knowing the definition area, the observation
can be made by virtue of the illustrative method. According to
) can be obtained, as
(26), the changing curve of (x,
shown in Fig. 4.
increases monotonously with the
It can be seen that
increase of . That is, the smaller the impedances on the two
sides (the larger the system capacity) is, the larger the multiple
will be, but the maximum of it cannot exceed 6. Hence, if mulwith a limited coefficient a little greater than 6, the
tiplying
maloperation of the distance protection when the swing locus
passes through the internal circle can be reliably avoided.
An additional reliable coefficient of 1.5 can be used in view
that the inconsistent impedance angles of all the components
in the system leading to the actual swing locus are uneven.
In addition, the process of power swings is not a movement
in uniform speed. In view of the aforementioned factors, the
restrained coefficient is increased to 9. Therefore, the corresponding self-adaptive criterion is described as follows.
and
During the initialization, we reset the counters of
, and set
and
to the full scale
and
,
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V. SIMULATION VALIDATION
A. Description of the Simulation Model
By virtue of PSCAD/EMTDC, the simulation model of a typical 500-kV transmission system is set up. The model system
consists of an 800-MVA generator supplying power to an infinite bus. The generator is connected to the infinite bus through a
transformer and a 500-kV, 340-km double-circuit transmission
line as illustrated in Fig. 6 [11]. The distance relay is installed
at point R3. A disturbance is evoked by a three-phase fault occurring at F1 on circuit 1, which is cleared after a time delay of
300 ms by means of opening the breaker CB1 to disconnect the
faulty line. This disturbance will cause the generator to accelerate or decelerate, resulting in a power swing. The parameters
of each circuit of the transmission line are indicated in Fig. 6.
Fig. 7 shows the Aphase current during a full power
swing. Fig. 8 presents the apparent impedance locus passing
through the concentric circle during the shortest cycle of a power
swing. The simulation results show in the whole swing process,
the protection is always kept stable.
It should be pointed out that the time cost from the beginning
of the swing to the fastest swing is 1.2 s, and the time cost from
the fastest swing to the ceasing of it is 1.8 s. Indeed, the power
swing fades very fast (generally speaking, the complete ceasing
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Fig. 11. Phase-angle variation of the apparent impedance in nine cycles of the
postfault period.
Fig. 8. Apparent impedance locus passing through the concentric circle during
the minimal cycle of a power swing.
Fig. 10. Magnitude variation of the apparent impedance in nine cycles of the
postfault period.
power swing, the distance protection is all kept stable and the
security of the criterion is validated.
The sensitivity of the criterion is validated as well as presented below.
A variety of faults is applied on circuit 2 during the following
power swing. All faults on circuit 2 are applied when the phaseangle difference between the two side systems is close to 180 .
An extensive series of fault scenarios is carried out on the model
system.
First of all, typical cases are investigated. Assume a threephase short-circuit fault occurring on the line, of which 20% is
the line length to the relay. The occurrence of time the fault is
2.22 s. Fig. 9 shows the waveform of A phase current.
According to the proposed criterion, within ten cycles
after the fault starts, the magnitude and phase of the apparent
impedance changing with time and the locus of the apparent
impedance on the impedance plane are shown in Figs. 1012.
As indicated in these figures, the magnitude of the apparent
impedance is located around 20.2 with a fluctuation of 1.0 ,
and the phase of the apparent impedance fluctuates around 84
Fig. 12. Variation of the apparent impedance in the R-X phase plane between
the pickup and the tripping of the protection.
with a scope of 3 . In fact, at the rated power frequency, the measured impedance from the fault point to the relay accounts for
. This
20% of the total impedance of the line, that is,
is because no frequency tracking is adopted in the simulation,
and the sampling rate is at a fixed 0.5 ms. Under the condition of
frequency deviation, the one-cycle power-frequency component
cannot be included in the data window of 20 ms, which results
in the fluctuation of a measured value. Actually, the frequency
tracking and the fixed cycle sampling have been successfully
applied in protection devices. It is not difficult to overcome the
aforementioned shortcomings in the real applications. For the
magnitude of the impedance tending to be higher than the actual value, it can also be explained in terms of frequency. After a
three-phase short circuit occurs, the system is separated into two
irrelevant parts by the fault point. The angular frequency of
where the protection equipped is no
the apparent reactance
. It is determined by the current frequency
longer equal to
of the source on side . Since the frequency of the source on
is increasing, the frequency of the system on this side is
side
more than 50 Hz, and the corresponding calculated value of the
reactance also tends to be higher. It indicates the importance of
frequency measuring. If the present exact frequency is known,
the calculated results can be converted to the value under the
rated power frequency condition. When compared with the settings, the scenarios of fail-to-trip or overreach can be avoided.
Since the fault point is far from the operation boundary, by virtue
of the self-adaptive criterion, the apparent impedance will enter
the internal circle immediately. After the time delay of 9.5 ms
(without including the data in a cycle required by the one-cycle
Fourier algorithm), the protection operates correctly.
The asymmetric fault conditions are further investigated. By
changing the three-phase fault to a single-phase grounded one,
other conditions are kept. The moving locus of the apparent
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Fig. 13. Variation of the apparent impedance in the R-X phase plane after a
three-phase fault occurring at the 70% line length near side .
impedance after the fault starts can also be obtained. According to the measuring results, the magnitude of the apparent
impedance fluctuates around 20.8 with a scope of 2.8 , and
the phase of the apparent impedance fluctuates around 82 with
a scope of 7 Compared with the three-phase fault, the error of
the apparent impedance in the direction of R axis increases, and
the measuring of phase also has an error of 3 . The stability of
the measuring result becomes worse. Obviously, in the scenario
of asymmetric faults, the polarized current of the single-phase
relay includes zero-sequence components, and the frequency of
the swing currents of sound phases is different from the faulty
phasethe cause leading to the error is more complicated
and more difficult to analyze. However, when the impedance
of the faulty circuit is located far away from the operation
boundary, the small magnitude fluctuation will not affect the
correct operation of the protection. The protection still operates
correctly with an additional time delay of 9.5 ms at this time.
Ulteriorly, we investigate the operation behavior of the criterion
when the fault point is near the operation boundary. Assume a
three-phase short circuit occurs at 70% of the line. The moving
locus of the apparent impedance after the fault starts is shown
in Fig. 13.
The operation boundary circle is actually set according to the
impedance in the condition of rated power frequency. Therefore, during the transient stage, as the technique of frequency
tracking is not utilized, several points of the apparent impedance
have fallen within the boundary circle, leading to wobble. The
additional time delay is just 10.5 ms although the time delay is
inevitable in this condition. If the operation boundary circle can
be adjusted dynamically according to the frequency on this side,
this wobble phenomenon can be completely avoided.
Furthermore, the case of the fault occurring at 90% of the
line length to the relay is studied. The locus of the apparent
impedance is shown in Fig. 14. Obviously, as the frequency of
this side tends to be higher and the operation boundary circle is
not enlarged correspondingly, the protection will not be prone to
maloperate due to external faults. However, when the frequency
decreases, the operating security problem of the distance protection on this side should be taken into account. Therefore, it
is necessary to measure the frequency correctly and adjust the
operation boundary circle correspondingly.
By virtue of changing the parameters of the system and the
power swing, the selectivity and sensitivity of this criterion for
Fig. 14. Variation of the apparent impedance in the R-X phase plane after a
three-phase fault occurring at 90% of the line length near side .
the faults during power swings have been validated. Part of the
results are presented in Table I. Except for a few high resistance
grounded faults making the criterion fail to trip because of their
apparent impedances falling out of the operation circle, the identification results of majority of the results are satisfying. Among
them, the operating times of the scenarios in which the protection can trip are all less than 30 ms.
VI. CONCLUSION
Different from the conventional criterion of concentric-circle, which is designed to measure the time interval
when the swing locus passes across the gap between two circles
to block the distance protection, this time interval is utilized to
design distance protection which can keep high security during
power swings and trip relatively fast for a variety of internal
faults during power swings. In this paper, a phenomenon is first
discovered where the ratio of the time of the swing locus staying
in the internal circle and the time of it passing through the concentric circles is a limited number and a maximum always
exists when it passes across concentric circles. According to the
time of it passing across the gap between two circles multiplied
by this maximum, the additional time delay can be accordingly
set to ensure the security of the protection. Comparatively, for
the scenario of internal faults occurring during power swings,
the time of the impedance locus passing through the gap between two circles is zero in theory, which makes the additional
time delay zero and allows the protection to trip rapidly. The
main contribution of this paper rests with the demonstration
and quantification of the aforementioned maximum ratio. The
conditions of the existence of the aforementioned maximum
are clarified and proven in this paper, which provides the mathematical fundamentals for the implementation of the criterion.
Discussions are made under every possible system operating
state and power swing mode to determine the appropriate
maximum. Based on the aforementioned discovery, a novel fast
self-adaptive distance protection is proposed. EMTDC-based
simulation tests demonstrate: This criterion has sufficient
security under any system swing conditions. When an internal
fault occurs during swings, as long as the fault resistance is not
very large, allowing the apparent impedance to fall inside the
operation circle, it has the highest sensitivity among all of the
existing criteria. In addition, the shortcoming of this criterion
can be remedied with coordination of other criteria.
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TABLE I
OPERATION BEHAVIOR OF THE PROPOSED CRITERION IN THE CASE OF A VARIETY OF FAULT SCENARIOS
APPENDIX
In the following, we will verify such a proposition as follows:
(29)
where , , , and are defined in Sections II and III.
The verification is classified into two parts.
The first scenario: the swing locus is a beeline.
of
In Fig. 1, the beeline ABCD passes through the center
the concentric circles, and
also passes through the
concentric circles but without passing the center. We need to
.
prove
is the diameter of the internal circle, and
is the
string of the internal circle, we have
(30)
For the triangle
,
, therefore
and
(31)
Combined with (30), the verification is finished.
The second scenario: the swing locus is a circle. In this case,
the verification can be carried out in terms of three aspects.
Case 1) The locus of the circle passes the center of the concentric circles, as shown in the upward part of Fig. 15.
, the radius is ,
As seen, the center of the locus circle is
and it passes the center of the concentric circles . Since every
direction of a circle is of the same nature, whether the concentric
circles have an excursion angle or not, and regardless of the direction the locus circle intersects with the concentric circles, the
will
connecting line between the two centers of the circles
halves the three circles in two parts symmetrically. By virtue of
Fig. 15. Equivalent transform of the apparent impedance locus in the condition
of line impedance angle unequal to 90 .
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.
is
.
for
(39)
Fig. 16. Apparent impedance locus not passing through the center of the concentric circle.
For
and
, we have
As
and
,
The proposition can be transformed to
(40)
(32)
Combining (39) with (40), we have
,
Due to
(41)
We have
(33)
In order to allow
following equation should be satisfied:
to be validated, the
, then
(38)
Therefore,
increases monotonously. The validation is finished.
From the aforementioned validation, the following deduction
can be made
(43)
As
and
are the radiuses of the external circle and the
internal circle, respectively, (43) is naturally satisfied and the
verification is completed.
is located below
Case 3) the peak point of locus circle
the center of the concentric circles . The center of this circle
, and the radius is still . It intersects with the concenis
tric circles at , , respectively, as the dashed line in Fig. 16.
needs to be validated as follows.
According to the aforementioned deduction
comes into existence, and only
needs to be validated.
Let the length of
be , then the length of
. Let
,
,
, for
and
, we have
is
,
(44)
For
and
, we have
(45)
(46)
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REFERENCES
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Zhengtian Li received the B.Sc. degree from Wuhan University, Wuhan, China.
in 2002, where he is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical power
engineering.
His research interests include digital protection relaying, power system
control.
Yan Gao received the B.Sc. degree from Huazhong University of Science and
Technology (HUST), Wuhan, China, in 2004, where she is currently pursuing
the Ph.D. degree in electrical power engineering.
Her research interests include digital protection relaying, control, and numerical methods in fields.