1. An office building experienced tripping of its main circuit breaker when transformers were re-energized after maintenance, causing power interruptions.
2. The tripping was caused by high magnetizing inrush currents of up to 5 times the transformer rating saturating the current transformers and triggering incorrect operation of the earth fault protection system.
3. Increasing the delay time of the earth fault protection system to avoid interference from transformer inrush currents resolved the issue without expenditures.
1. An office building experienced tripping of its main circuit breaker when transformers were re-energized after maintenance, causing power interruptions.
2. The tripping was caused by high magnetizing inrush currents of up to 5 times the transformer rating saturating the current transformers and triggering incorrect operation of the earth fault protection system.
3. Increasing the delay time of the earth fault protection system to avoid interference from transformer inrush currents resolved the issue without expenditures.
1. An office building experienced tripping of its main circuit breaker when transformers were re-energized after maintenance, causing power interruptions.
2. The tripping was caused by high magnetizing inrush currents of up to 5 times the transformer rating saturating the current transformers and triggering incorrect operation of the earth fault protection system.
3. Increasing the delay time of the earth fault protection system to avoid interference from transformer inrush currents resolved the issue without expenditures.
1. An office building experienced tripping of its main circuit breaker when transformers were re-energized after maintenance, causing power interruptions.
2. The tripping was caused by high magnetizing inrush currents of up to 5 times the transformer rating saturating the current transformers and triggering incorrect operation of the earth fault protection system.
3. Increasing the delay time of the earth fault protection system to avoid interference from transformer inrush currents resolved the issue without expenditures.
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CASE STUDY
TRIPPED MAIN CIRCUIT BREAKER CAUSED BY
ENERGIZING TRANSFORMER
ABSTRACT AN OFFICE BUILDING WHICH RECEIVED POWER FROM 24KV UNDERGROUND CABLE HAD PROBLEMS WITH MAIN CIRCUIT BREAKER ON A HIGH VOLTAGE SIDE WHICH TRIPPED WHEN TRANSFORMER WAS RE- ENERGIZED AFTER MAINTENANCES. THIS SITUATION EFFECTED MOMENTARY INTERRUPTION IN THE BUILDING LEADING TO LOSSES OF IMPORTANT DATA STORED IN COMPUTERS. THE MAIN CIRCUIT BREAKER ON HIGH VOLTAGE SIDE WAS UNDESIRABLY TRIPPED BECAUSE AFTER RE- ENERGIZING THE TRANSFORMER, THERE WAS HIGH MAGNETIZING INRUSH CURRENT (5 TIMES OF THE TRANSFORMER’ RATED CURRENT) FLOWING THROUGH THE CIRCUIT FOR A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME. WITH THE SATURATION OF CURRENT TRANSFORMER IN THE PROTECTION SYSTEM, MAGNETIZING INRUSH CURRENT WOULD CAUSE INCORRECTLY OPERATION OF EARTH FAULT PROTECTION SYSTEM. CONSEQUENTLY, THE MAIN CIRCUIT BREAKER WAS TRIPPED. THE MITIGATION METHOD WAS TO PROLONG THE DELAY TIME OF THE EARTH FAULT PROTECTION SYSTEM TO AVOID THE INTERFERENCE OF MAGNETIZING INRUSH CURRENT FROM TRANSFORMERS.
1. Introduction An office building connected to the Metropolitan Electricity Authority of Thailand (MEA) underground feeders. Each feeders supply 24 kV to four 2,000 kVA transformers. See Figure 1 for more details. A high voltage circuit breaker trips immediately when the system is turned back on (energizing transformer) after shutdown for maintenance. Consequently, the whole building looses power. Figure 1: A single line diagram of the building
2. Problem statement and consequences
From Figure 1, when the high voltage circuit breaker trips, another transformer on the same feeder will see an effect and make lighting, air-conditioning, and computer systems in the building stop working. Moreover, important financial information of a bank located in the building is damaged. This high voltage circuit breaker is installed in a controlled area of the building requiring MEA staff to turn it back on. Consequently thirty to forty minutes no power is unavoidable. 3. Monetary loss An estimated monetary loss is difficult to calculate. However, reputation of the building is jeopardized. Moreover, important financial information of a bank located in the building is loss. This is a direct impact to the bank reputation.
4. Root cause of the problem
The MEA has installed a power quality meter at each watt-hour meter (see Figure 1) to record current waveform during the transformer energizing period (no load condition). The waveforms recorded from the transformer 1S and 1F are shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3, respectively.
Figure 2: Current waveform during the transformer
energizing period to transformer 1S Figure 3: Current waveform during the transformer energizing period to transformer 1F From Figures 2 and 3, it can be seen that during the energizing period at no load condition, an inrush current is high (400 – 800 A peak) for several cycles before it dies down to normal situation. Theoretically, this inrush current is normal circumstance and depends on several factors as follows: 1. Transformer capacity (kVA). 2. Transformer coil resistance and loss. 3. Transformer saturation curve. 4. Residual flux. 5. Phase angle when the transformer is energized. On the high voltage side of transformer, a current transformer (CT) is used for checking current through the transformer and is connected to earth fault relay. Due to a high inrush current saturates the CT, the earth fault relay misinterpret the situation and send a trip signal to trip the high voltage circuit breaker.
5. Problem analysis The earth fault relay is set at 62 A with 100 millisecond time delay. An over-current relay is set at 200 A with its tripping curve as shown in Figure 4. All transformers in this building use Delta-Yye Ground configuration. At no load, if there is no shortage to ground, all three phase current will cancel each other to get the net current equals to zero, although the magnetic inrush currents are high for all phases. After checking for the short to ground scenario, there is no lead to the problem. However, the CT, which supplies signal to the earth fault relay, has only 200 A primary-coil rated current. This CT when it sees high inrush current (see Figure 2 and 3) of 400 – 800 A peak, will be saturated and sends a wrong signal out to the earth fault relay. The earth fault relay may see different output signals from each CT installed in each phase (see Figure 5). If these CT combined output signals is greater than 62 A (earth fault relay setting) and sustain for more than 100 millisecond (time delay setting), the earth fault relay will trip the high voltage breaker.
Figure 4: Tripping Curve of Overcurrent Relay.
Sensor check total current of Earth Fault
Output from primary coil Input signal of current of Earth
Figure 5: Earth Fault Relay sensor to check total current.
6. Solution The earth fault relay time delay is changed from 100 milliseconds to 500 milliseconds to cover the inrush current period and the problem is solved.
7. Expenditure No expenditure.
8. Conclusion The high voltage circuit breaker trips at no load when the transformer is energized because the magnetic inrush current in the transformer primary coil is as high as 400 – 800 A peak and sustains for more than 200 milliseconds. This high inrush current saturates the CT (200 A primary rated current) that uses with an earth fault relay. Consequently, a combined current, which the earth fault relay sees, is higher than its setting. Then the earth fault relay misinterprets the situation. New time delay setting to cover the period of the inrush current is used to solve the problem.
