Essential Qualities of Protection

• Essential Qualities of protection or
Requirement of Protective System

The basic requirements of a protective
system are as follows:
1.Selectivity (or) Descrimination
2.Reliability
3.Sensitivity
4.Stability
5.Speed and Time
6. Adequateness
7. Simplicity and economy
1.Selectivity (or) Descrimination
Selectivity, is the quality of protective relay by
which it is able to discriminate between a fault
in the protected section and the normal
condition. Also, it should be able to distinguish
whether a fault lies within its zone of
protection or outside the zone. Sometimes,
this quality of the relay is also called
discrimination. When afault occurs on a power
system, only the faulty part of the system
should be isolated.
No healthy part of the system should be deprived of
electric supply and hence should be left intact.Therelay
should also be able to discriminate between a fault and
transient conditions like power surges or inrush of a
transformer‘s magnetising current. The magnetising
current of a large transformer is comparable to a fault
current, which may be 5 to 7 times the full load current.
When generators of two interconnected power plants
lose synchronism because of
disturbances,heavycurrents flow through the
equipment and lines.This condition is
like a shortcircuit.The flow of heavy currents is known
as a power surge.
The protective relay should be able to
distinguish between a fault or power surge
either by its inherentcharacteristic or with
the help of an auxiliary relay. Thus, we see
that a protective relay must be able to
discriminate between those conditions for
which instantaneous tripping is required
and those for which no operation or a
time-delay operation is required.
2.Reliability
Aprotective system must operatere liably
when a fault occurs in its zone of protection.
The failure of a protective system may be due
to the failure of any one or more elements of
the protective system.Its important elements
are the protective relay,circuit breaker, VT, CT,
wiring, battery, etc. To achieve a high degree of
reliability, greater attention should be given to
the design, installation, maintenance and
testing of the various elements of the
protective system.
Robustness and simplicity of the relaying
equipment also contribute to reliability.The
contact pressure,thecontact materialof the
relay, and the prevention of contact
contamination are also very important
from the reliability point of view. A typical
value of reliability of a protective scheme is
95%.
3.Sensitivity
A protective relay should operate when the
magnitude of the current exceeds the
preset value. This value is called the pick-
up current. The relay should not operate
when the current is below its pick-up
value. A relay should be sufficiently
sensitive to operate when the operating
current just exceeds its pick-up value.
4.Stability
A protective system should remain stable
even when a large current is flowing through
its protective zone due to an external fault,
which does not lie in its zone. The
concerned circuit breaker is supposed to
clear the fault. But the protective system will
notwaitindefinitelyiftheprotectiveschemeoft
hezoneinwhichfaulthasoccurred fails 11 to
operate. After a preset delay the relay will
operate to trip the circuitbreaker.
5.Speed and Time
A protective system should be fast enough to
isolate the faulty element of the system as quickly
as possible to minimise damage to the equipment
and to maintain the system stability.For a modern
powersystem,the stability criterion is very
important and hence, the operating time of the
protective system should not exceed the critical
clearing time to avoid the loss of synchronism.
Other points under consideration for quick
operation are protection of the equipment from
burning due to heavy fault currents.
interruption of supply to
consumers and the fall in system
voltage which may result in the
loss of industrial loads. The
operating time of a protective relay
is usually one cycle. Half-cycle
relays are also available. For
distribution systems the operating
time may be more than onecycle.
6.Adequateness
It is impossible to provide protection
against each and every fault and in each
equipment. But the protective system
should provide adequate (sufficient)
protection for all the elements in the
system. The adequateness is assessed by
Ratings, cost, Location of the equipments,
probability of abnormal condition due to
internal and external faults, Discontinuity of
the supply due to failure of the equipment
7.Simplicity and Economy
In addition to all important qualities, it is
necessary that the cost of the system should
be well within the limits. As a rule, the
protection cost should not be more than 5%
of the total cost. If the equipment to be
protected is more important, then Economic
considerations are relaxed. The protective
system should be as simple as possible so
that it can be easily maintained. The simpler
systems are always more reliable

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• Essential Qualities of protection or

Requirement of Protective System

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